work

    This week we worked. I decided to talk to as many people as a could on the street. We managed to do 39 lessons in total this week. As we talk with people on the street it´s very easy to start talking about religion with them. We then ask if we can do a prayer to share a message with them. We share message of the restoration and then ask them to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. Almost every single person accepts to be baptized. I asked one lady if she felt she was ready to be baptized immediately and she said yes. I told her she wasn´t ready yet because we had some things to teach her yet. We found one person on the road who said he´s been looking for a church to join for a long time and he wants to be baptized in the church of jesus christ of latter day saints. Great! We asked him when we could visit him again and he said to come by his house the same day at 4:00pm. We ended up being late because of some othe appointments and ran into him on the road again on our to his house. He talked a lot about how he had a lot of questions concerning religion and loved the message that we had shared with him. I´m excited to visit him again. There´s a couple we´ve been teaching for a while now and they´re doing really well. We visit them every sunday night with another couple who are members. Both of the couples have a sons about 5 years old so they play in another room while we teach the lesson. For our last lesson with this couple we got them signed up on familysearch.org. It was awesome! This couple is really excited to get going on family history. Right now we are waiting for their marriage papers to come through. In brazil the marriage process is complicated. You have to pay money to get the license and you also have to post the marriage in the newspaper for about 25 days before they can be legally married. They´re super excited to get their marriage papers so they can be baptized. I´m really excited too. I just hope I don´t get transfered to another area. As of right now we have to wait about another 20 days for them to be legally married. 

       The members here in Erechim are awesome! We´re having ward council every sunday morning. All of the members are super exicted about missionary work. We´ve been getting tons of refferrals. It´s almost more referalls than we can handle. They also give us lots of food! I love food. and I love anyone who gives me food. The best people to find are members, and the best people to teach are missionaries. If you ever want a missionary to teach someone you know about the gospel it´s very simple. Invite your friend to your house and tell him you have have 2 friends in the church called missionaries who teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and that you would like for him to hear a message they have for him. This message explains how the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored once more in our days. Then you call up the missionaries and ask them what hour works for them to come to your house and teach your friend. Then confirm this hour with your friend. When you talk to the missionaries schedule for them to come to your house a little early so you can talk about quickly how you want to teach the lesson. Then the friend will arrive. Then you guys teach the gospel. And then this friend will have the opportunity to follow the example of Jesus christ and be baptized if they have that desire. it´s a process that works well. If you just hand an address or telephone number of someone you know to the missionaries, nothing will probably happen. The member needs to be the one who invites the friend to meet with the missionaries. Please help the missionaries. They need it. There is no greater work than missionary work. I´m so happy to be apart of it.

      Share the gospel in all times and in all places. Every week at district meetings we recite the scripture Doctrine and Covenants 24:12 which says:" Em todos os tempos e em todos os lugares abrirá a boca e anunciará meu evangelho como com a voz de uma trombeta tanto de dia como a noite, e dar-lhe-é uma força que não é conhecida entre os homens." I feel a great power behind me when I start talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ with people. I know that this is god´s work. God will provide wonderful opportunities for those who are willing to work for him. As you work for him you will see miracles and your testimony will increase. As your testimony increases your desire to share your testimony with others increases. We have to tell people about the book of mormon. We need to let people know there´s a living prophet of god named thomas s. monson.

People need to know that they can receive personal revelation for any righteous question that they may have. Don´t worry if others don´t believe what you´re saying. What´s important is what you know to be true.

Famílias Eternas

On the mission we have the opportunity to completely change peoples´ lives. A little time before I wrote about a family that Elder Niver and I had found through doing a street contact with a lady on the road. Street contact means that we walked up to her and started talking about the gospel even though we didn´t know her. There was no physical contact. Well actually we shook hands, but that was it. Since we found this family they´ve been doing really well. There´s a mother, father, a son 4 years old and a 19 year old son. Yesterday we taught them about the Family:A Proclomation To the World. They loved it. They said they´ve been searching for a church that focuses on the family. Later we talked about baptism with them. The father shared his testimony with us about the church. He said that he´d been praying for a while to receive a material answer that this church is true and that he should be baptized. He said that he really likes the bird "pombo" I´m not really sure what kind of bird that is but I know it´s a bird. They´re not very common here in Rio Grande do Sol. One Sunday during the morning they were getting ready to go to church. The father went into his 4 year old son´s room to wake him up and there on the windowsill he saw a pombo. It was a bird sitting peacefully on the windowsill and didn´t move. At this moment the father knew that God had answered his prayers. They have continued coming to church, are reading the Book of Mormon every day, and are filled with the Holy Ghost. Great joy comes in seeing others have joy in receiving the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. The most important thing in the lives of this family is getting more involved in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints so that they can experience the blessings of truly living the gospel of Jesus Christ. Everytime we visit this family they are beaming with joy and anxiously waiting to learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Even the 4 year old son jumps up and down getting excited whenever he sees us coming to their house. 2 sundays ago we had a confirmation so I was in the bishop's office getting his signature. While I was in there the 4 old son ran in asking to shake my before his family would leave. I said "Com certeza, obrigado por vindo" (Of course, thank you for coming.) Families need to here the message we have, that Christ lives and wants everyone to hear and live his teachings.

Crazy Weekend

This was a crazy weekend. This week we had transfers and I received a new companion. His name is Elder Lima. He is my first companion that does not speak English. At first I was a little nervous about this but I´ve actually been really comftorable just talking in Portuguese all the time. We worked like crazy this week running around to all of our different appointments. We didn´t knock any doors this week because I already had enough commitments planned to visit this week. Saturday we did a baptismal interview for one of our investigators. He is from Nigeria so his native language is English! Our district leader made the trip of an 1 hour and a half from Passo Fundo to Erechim Saturday morning to do the interview. He passed the interview and then we went to some appointments. at the end of the day we grapped our investigator to be baptized and walked with him to the chapel to be baptized. When we got to the church the only person there was the missionary leader. No problem. We got ready to the baptism and found out that the water in the baptismal font was cold as ice. No problem. I put on my baptismal clothes and went in the water. I walked into the font trying to keep a calm expression as to not show my investigator how cold the water was. Then my investigator entered the water and stared panicking a little bit and using words we don´t call friendly. I´m glad I´ve already baptized a few times before because I was able to get that baptism done really fast, and then we ran out of the baptismal font to get dried. Sometimes salvation is painful, but I´m glad my investgator was willing show a lot of faith. Sunday we went to church, had a delicous lunch, taught people on the road, and then went to visit the best investigators in the world. We have two investigators who are a couple about 40 years old each, and they have 2 sons, 19 and 4 years old. We have been teaching them for almost 2 months now and they´ve been to church two times already. They love the church and are really excited to be baptized. Right now they´re getting their marriage papers in order so they can be legally married. Sunday we taught them about temples and family history. We set a goal with them that they will be sealed one year from now in the temple. If they do I will be able to go and watch them be sealed one year from now! Woohoo! Thank goodness today is P-day. Doing the lord´s work drains every drop of energy you have in your body. Tchau.