A really good week. Lots of jazz happened.
Starting with monday, we had an average pday, nothing special. That night we went to a member´s home to hold a family home evening. The member is Mamá, an elderly african member who is a strong member of the church. She was baptized way back when in Africa and is in portugal for quite a while now. She is very caring and has inherited the name "Mamá" because she is basically a big mom to everyone in the branch. She always brings basically cauldrons of food to activities. She is really great, the funny thing is, she can´t even read! She has many of the hymns memorized and has her grandchildren read her the BoM.
We taught a short lesson to her daughter and son-in-law. It ran pretty well. Theyre good folks, we hope to see more progress in the future.
You´ll remember Ivansilson. He´s actually progressing really well, and he doesn´t really know it haha. He´s a humble man, and a man who is really trying to discover the truth. To sum it up, he has accepted everything, we just need to teach him now that he has already received his confirmation of the truth through a million little things that have already happened. He´s great, very intelligent, and has been a great pleasure to teach. We still need to plan it with him, but if all goes well, he will be baptized this saturday. He came to church yesterday and got to know a lot of members, he liked it a lot. We´ll be teaching him tonight.
Maybe you guys remember Carina too. She disappeared for a week, but we got back in contact with her. We are seeing the changes that the gospel is making in her life. She has a desire to follow the Savior´s example. She is pregnant with her second child now, and lives a couple km outside the city, so she cant get to church alone anymore. We are trying to get her parents to give her ride, but they are being a bit stubborn saying stuff like "she´s not ready yet, give her time to think about these decisions" — meanwhile she reads the BoM everyday and has already committed to live the commandments.
We´re working with the process. If her parents wont give her a ride, we´ll get someone else to do it haha.
A while back I mentioned Denis. He got super busy and kinda escaped from us. I think he got a bit scared off to be honest. However, we saw him in his car, and he actually stopped and said hey. We got to talk with him on wednesday in the chapel. He´s going through some tough times but he has an honest desire to see what it is that we represent. He´s a lonely fella, so the support we offer has lightened up his life a bit. We´re gonna take it slow with him.
Recently, our mission president made an announcement. He wanted all of us missionaries to look through our reference manager (an online reference thingy to visit people who were referred through the internet, relatives, etc). There, Elder Welch and I found a handful of people who were referred years ago, but never contacted. We tried one, Basílio, and actually went there a few times, but never found him at home. Later in the week, in a division, the thought of him popped into my mind again, so I went strait there. We found him at home, and taught him right away.
Basílio is a man in his seventies. He lives in a little home a little stroll outside the city. It is evident that he has had a hard life in his past. He lives a very humble life, few possesions. He is portuguese, and born a catholic. We talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ and how it can help Basílio feel closer to God and to prepare to meet him again someday. Basílio is a man obviously prepared for us. I thought for sure that he would have problems with the word of wisdom, but as we covered it with him, he agreed to live it, and doesn´t have trouble with it at all. We invited him to be baptized, and he accepted.
We invited him to come to church. He said he would come. However, just to play it safe, Sunday morning we walked to his house to get him (because he doesnt have a telephone) and we found him there, already combing his hair.
He enjoyed church. He has bad vision, so just passed his time listening and looking at the photos in the books that we had. After the meetings he said to me that he liked it a lot, but wanted to know why there are so many churches, why there isnt just one church for everyone. We returned that night and taught him the restoration. He liked it, agreed, and accepted to be baptized this sunday. We´re gonna get him a
Funny enough, we showed up on his street, and he was standing on his neighbors´ porch conversing with a few neighbors. He was talking about us! His neighbors were saying stuff like "eh let it be, youre already catholic!" but he just said "nah, you dont get it, they are good folks," he then turned to us and said "hey what´d you guys say about the baptism? When is it?" We replied "no worries! we came today to work that out!" It was really cool, Basílio is just an elderly fella that warms your heart, and does so even more when he embraces the gospel.
It all happened because we took a hint from our mission president!
Another day, we were walking down the street, contacting people, the usual. I then saw a fella in his twenties, a student obviously, walking in our direction. I saw that he had a tattoo on his arm, a tattoo that I actually recognize. You may remember that I like that band, Twenty One Pilots a lot. The singer has a tattoo that is basically 3 rings around the elbow. This guy in the street had the same thing.
So I walked up to him and said "hey, how you doin? I like your tattoo! I recognize it" "Aw really?" "Yeah, are we thinking about he same person?"
From there we started a really relaxed and smooth conversation. His name is Kaíque (Kah-EE-kee), a brazilian student here. We made a time to meet up with him in the chapel.
That day, we had a really good lesson with him and his girlfriend. We taught the Restoration, and we talked about the process of receiving personal revalation. Kaíque mentioned how "coincidental" it was that on that day that we met, he was walking to work, which he rarely does, and how he also was using a path he rarely uses, and how we "happened" to cross paths with him and how I "happened" to recognize his tattoo and have a lot in common with him.
He and his girlfriend Claudiane (brazilian pronunciation- clow-jee-AH-nee) both came to church. It turns out that they are neighbors to Milena and Sirlei (the members you guys met in skype) so they already have friends there and they enjoyed it. I hope to teach them more and see progress.
I share this story to show that my taste in music was clearly inspired by God.
We taught another Brazilian fella this week, Kelvin. It all ran well, he accepted to read the BoM and pray and even be baptized if he really discovers the truth, but he didn´t come to church for some reason.... So we´ll get back to him soon.
And of course, on Saturday, Nina, a lovely lady that Elder Jan and I tuaght for a few months was finally baptized! It wasn´t for any specific reason, she just finally decided, and she invited a ton a people. It was a great experience to see her there.
Anyways, I think that that´s an update. It was really cool chatting with family on skype, thanks guys!
Tchauzinho,
Elder Ward
Here we are getting our hair cut with Nina
And here´s Nina just after her baptism. Elder Jan got to come and visit too.
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