Time Flies

The best day this week was Sunday. After having an excellent family home evening with a couple we´re teaching. They came to church with their 1 year old kid and they loved it. We walked really far in the morning to a little village on the outside of the city Rio Pardo and were able to get one of investigators to go to church. He even gave us a ride to the church. For the sacrament meetings I´ve been playing piano and I´m getting a lot more acostumed to playing now. It´s actually pretty fun. After lunch we were able to go teach people with a member who served a mission 10 years ago in São Paulo.                                                    The first people we visited were the family of the lady we had encountered 2 weeks ago who accepted a baptismal date on our first visit.  This time she had her husband and 12 year old daughter with her to hear our message. The lady told her husband that we converted her to the mormon church and that this church is better than any other church. She said that she was a lost sheep and has been saved and she wants for her husband and daughter also to be saved. She began telling her husband all the reasons why he needs to be baptized in our church. She then ordered my companion and I to explain the message to her husband and have a serious conversation with him. Perfect! I can do that. So we shared a (chique) Plan of Salvation lesson and they all accepted to be baptized and go to church with us Sunday.                                                                                           The 2nd visit was with a mother and her 2 daughters. One of her daughters is about 20 years old and has a 6 year old child. Her other daughter has a boyfriend. The mother is divorced. They told us that they´ve tried so many different religions and feel completely lost because nothing seems to work. When we visited them for the first time a week ago they said that they didn´t have enough faith to prepare to be baptized. I explained to them that God only expects us to a have a little faith. We just a little faith we can make miracles happen. They were conforted to hear this. They then accepted to pray and ask god if they should be baptized in our church. We visited them yesterday and they told us that they prayed and knew that they should be baptized in our church. They felt a great peace. We explained the message of the restoration and the book of mormon with them. They accepted to read the book of mormon and be baptized!                          Then we went to our 3rd visit. We visited a on old couple of about 50 years old. The husband had stopped us on the road 2 weeks ago. He´s a gardener so he was riding on his bike with all his gardening supplies. He told us that 4 years ago sisters from our church visited him and his wife but after they left no one visited them. He asked for us to visit them because they needed it. Yesterday was the first visit we were able to have with the husband and wife. The man told us that they were taught for a long time by the sisters and want to be baptized. They just didn´t know for sure if they were ready. We explained the importance of faith and repentance in their preparation. I promised them blessings and challenged them to be baptized march 26th. They accepted!                                        The mission is great and has been going by fast. I know that God has people prepared for me to teach the need the help the gospels offers.

Carnival and Miracles

Sorry that I wasn´t able to write last week. For 4 days here in Brazil there was the holiday carnival. It´s horrible. It lasted Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. Every night starting at 9:00 tons of people gathered together in the middle of the city Rio Pardo to party. They play loud music and party until the sun rises the next day. During the day most of the stores were closed because everyone was sleeping. We live in an apartment in the center of Rio Pardo so many times it was hard to sleep because of the loud music playing outiside. I´m glad it´s over. This week me and my companion worked like crazy to reach the standard of excellence. We have to do 45 lessons to meet the goal, 5 being with less actives or recent converts. We were able to teach 38 lessons with investigators, and 7 lessons with less actives. It sure felt good to get home tired at the end of the week. Yesterday I prayed that we might have the opportunities to teach and reach our goal. As we were in a poor neighborhood called Pinheiros I decided to clap hands at a house I felt good about. No one was home so I went to the other side of the road where a family was sitting down in chairs outside their house.(I don´t know English anymore). So I asked them if their could here our message, No. But then a lady came out of the area of the house onto the street and I talked to her. My companion then asked her if we could share a message with her. She said, "Yes! I love the mormon church." She led us to her house on the other side of the street. It was the same house I knocked before that had no one home. We sat outside and talked with her. Let me add a note here about Brazil: Brazil is awesome! I get to walk around in favelas, poor neighborhoods with dirt roads and tons of fields and forests. It´s beautiful. I can talk with anyone I want because the people here are so open. Everyone is friends. Everything is calm and without problems. The people here love to sit down outside their houses and talk. So we sat down with this lady and talked to her. She told a little of her story. I think she has about 60 years of age. She was married to a man who she helped raise when he was a boy. He asked her to marry him even though she was 10 years older than him. She accepted. They were married for 26 years. She raised 21 kids.(Yeah that´s not a typo. She raised 21 kids. Crazy) 2 years ago her husband cheated on her and left to another city and stayed with another lady. It was a sad story to here. She´s been praying to God that she could know how to follow Christ more in her life. She has a huge passion for the things of God but didn´t know how she could follow. She had already went to many different churches but nothing ever worked. She told us that she wants a restoration in her life. She wants an opportunity to leave the past behind and have a new start. Perfect! I got so excited. I gave the message of the restoration the best way I knew how. My companion and I divided the parts perfectly and I used scriptures I had memorized from the Bible. During the lesson this lady began to cry. She said she was so happy to see us young men teaching her. She felt that we were part of her family. She told us that she will go to church with us Sunday and that she wants to be baptized. I then asked if she would prepare to be baptized on March 12th. Without delay she accepted. I extended my hand to congratulate her. With a firm grip she grabbed my hand. At this point her eyes were feeled with tears. She looked me directly in the eyes and said, " You came from so long! You came all the way here to rescue me! Thank you!" I said yes. I felt the spirit strong. I felt so happy to be able to help a daughter of God to come back to Him. I´m so excited to help this lady get ready to be baptized. She will add a great to this branch in Rio Pardo where I´m serving. I love the mission. I love the gospel. Do what´s right, and never give up. You have people waiting who need your help.