Dear
family and friends,
I´ll start off with our last Pday. After writing emails, we
invited the other Elders from the neighboring area to our house. We already had
some burgers and buns onhand, so we just grabbed some charcoal and we started
up a grill. (We already have a little grill on our balcony). It ran well, the
burgers actually turned out really good, it was relaxing. (See photo!)
We have been visiting Welton frequently. Often, we stop by just to
say hey or try to help him out at home. However, in all these visits, in all
our time here, we only managed to teach him twice! So, this week his youngest
started pre-school so now he´s got a bunch of time open during the day. We
visited him on Wednesday and we taught him. We shared 1 Coninthians 6:19-20,
that explains how his body is a temple. We talked about baptism, his desires
and goals, and what he would like to eliminate from his life to have a cleaner
temple. He talked to us about his smoking habit, and we now are helping him to
stop. We explained the power of the Book of Mormon, and the assistance that it
can give him, the replacement that it can be for him. He´s a trooper, he´s got
a lot of desire to quit.
He lost his cellphone this week so we couldn´t call him. We tried
to visit him this week, but a few times he wasn´t home. Finally, we found him
one night in the street with his two sons, Adriano in the stroller. Welton had
a horrible worry written across his face. We followed him home, and he didn´t
say a word, but gestured us to follow him. His son, 8yo, Lucas, said "dad,
tell the Elders what´s wrong, you know things aren´t right, just let them help
you.."
We got to his place, and he explained to us a really complicated
situation. His ex-wife is basically making a lot of problems in his life,
ruining his friendships and just lot´s of bad stuff that I shouldn´t even dwell
on. It was really sad, and we spent some time there helping him out. He seems
to be a bit better now. We were hoping to see him at church, and he wanted to
go again, but he ended up getting a call from a friend to do a simple cooking
job during the weekend, so ended up missing church.
He´s got a lot of potential and a lot of desire, so we´ll be
working closely with him.
Darlan, you may remember him from a few weeks back, has been really
"busy". His parents are visiting him from Brasil and are staying here
until the new year... This visit has become a big and constant excuse to not to
come to church and stuff "no time, no time"... so, we went there and
tried to teach his parents. We taught his mother, Noélia. She had all the
perfect questions "Which is the true church?" "What happened
with Christ´s original church?" etc. We had a good lesson with her, she
asked a lot of good questions and was awfully curious. However, we got the the
end, and invited her to read and pray. She accepted. We invited her to come to
church and be baptized when she knows that the gospel was restored, and she
basically responded, summing it up, "I dont know if Im ready to change my
life, but I´ll read and pray". We explained real intent. We hope she´ll
grow a true desire as she searches.
About two weeks ago, 9pm, Elder Hawkins and I had finished with
our plans, we were out of ideas, and we had a half-hour walk to get home. We
decided to start walking home.
Only after starting for about 30 seconds, I heard this baby behind
us giggling and stuff. A thought came to mind "talk to the person with
that baby".
I continued walking about 10 steps, stopped, looked at Elder
Hawkins, and he at me, and I asked him "Do we need to talk to that person
with that baby?"
Elder Hawkins immediately responded, "yeah, I had the same
thought."
We turned around, and approached a window of a ground-floor
apartment. In the window, was a young brazilian father, about 25-30yo, with his
young baby daughter who was playing on his lap. We talked to the man and got to
know him. We talked about his family, his home, and his endeavors here in
Portugal. HIs name is Zé, he´s a soccer coach.
We guided the converstation into a conversation about God and
such. We discovered that Zé is a good christian man, but doesn´t affiliate with
any particular religion, although he already visited many. We invited him to
here our message about the restoration. He accepted to have us over another
day.
After a few failed attempts, we finally marked a day to talk with
him. He was at home alone, and he gladly received us. We taught the Restoration
and it was a powerful lesson. He said he had already heard, only a little,
about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon in a religious convention that he
visited a long time ago, he remembered nearly nothing. He was super curious and
anxious to have the Book of Mormon in the end. He said he will read and pray,
and will come to church with us next Sunday.
During the lesson, he said "after you guys talked with me, what you
guys told me stuck in my head, I kept thinking ´why did they talk with
me´?" I interupted him and told him about how we had been prompted to talk
to him in a moment that we would not have normally done so. It was a powerful
lesson. He accepted to be baptized as soon as he feels the truth of the Book of
Mormon.
You think that´s cool? That´s not all! Once again, Fernando
avoided our calls and messages this week, but without invite, showed up to
church!! He walked in the door, gave me a big hug, put his hand on my shoulder
and said "So when is the baptism thing?"
"Huh?" I responded.
"The baptism thing here. I will be baptized in this church."
"You want to be baptized?" I don´t know how to explain the
expression that I had on my face.
"yeah"
"how about his saturday?"
"That´s a bit early maybe. Let´s meet up this week and plan
everything, you guys can teach me more."
So yeah, I was floored. After sacrament meeting, I brought
Fernando to Fábio and said "Fernando, tell Fábio what you told me when you
got here"
"yeah, I Wanna do the baptism thing here."
Fábio´s face was also pretty funny. He said "I have no
words... that´s great!"
On tuesday we´ll meet up with Fernando. Hopefully he doesn´t go
awol again! He´s a bit slippery, but each time we get a better grip on him
haha.
So
yeah, if you guys want to pray for people, pray for Fernando and for Welton,
they need help!
Thanks
for everything, fiquem bem!
Elder
Ward
hey
a pday a couple weeks back
our grill sesh
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