1 January 2018 Boas Entradas

Dear family and friends,

Let´s start off with a happy new year! You´re probably wondering what I did... well, I slept. We didn´t have permission to stay up, but I hoped that the fireworks would wake me, but for some reason I slept like a rock, my companion too, and he´s a really light sleeper... so we missed the show, bummer.

But it was annoying, weekdays I always wake up super tired, but for some reason on pdays I don´t wake up tired... What luck.

Well, what did I do this week... I started to feel a bit better tuesday afternoon, We headed out to get working and we taught a few new people.

One night Elder Hawkins and I were out of ideas, we looked around us and saw a building a little ways off that had a lot of lights lit inside... so we thought "hey, why not". We headed there and we started to ring the apartments from below. Lots of people hung up rather quickly, but one lady, with a brazilian accent, said that we could pass by another day. I jotted down her door and I said to Elder Hawkins "well, we found the person here, let´s move on".

We passed by a week or two later. Her name is Samira, about 30, a nice lady. She received the Elders once before, but was open enough to let us come over again. We had a small conversation with her about the BoM and she said that we could stop by just after Christmas. So, Elder Baird and I called her and we passed by Tuesday night with a member.

She answered the door and said "oh, come in. I have a visitor" oh how good! We ended up teaching her and her friend Sandra, another brazilian woman. The lesson went... okay. Samira is actually really unflexible in what she believes, she wasn´t willing to read the BoM in the end, nor did she pay much attention. But Sandra payed a bit more attention. We have plans to visit Sandra this week and teach more. We hope to see some progress. It was pretty interesting how we were guided to Samira and through her to Sandra.

But because of my sickness I ran out of gas really fast on Tuesday, I was super tired when we got home... it was rough haha. On wednesday we had a district meeting, we used a bunch of time to practice teaching.

In this area, we have a guy named Lourenço, I think I´ve never talked about him... He´s a nice catholic man of about 50 years. He lives alone, and he loves the missionaries, but wants nothing to do with the church. So, he has us over about once every two weeks to eat with him. He´s a great guy, awfully funny too. He feeds us a lot and asks nothing our friendship in return. He had us over on wednesday. I was still recuperating a little from my weekend sickness, so it was the first time I truly ate in a few days and he didn´t cut me any slack, I left painfully full haha.

A week or so ago we stopped this lady in the street to do a normal contact, Zoraida, from Angola. She said she was in a rush, so in about 90 seconds we simply conversed a bit and we ended up with her address and a return appointment. I was in a division with one of our zone leaders, Elder Heiner, when we came back to teach. We had a really good lesson, we taught the Restoration. She found it very intriguing, and she accepted to be baptized when she discovers the truth of the BoM. She said she´d come to church and and all that, it ran very well. However, the holiday season took over and we lost contact with her. However, we´ll hunt her down this week. She showed a lot of potential.

We were trying to visit an old investigator, Carlos, on Thursday. I heard some noise above us and I saw a woman hanging her clothes two floors up. I called for her and we had a really simple conversation. "We´re missionaries, we have a message that will help you follow christ. Can we come up for a second?"

Well, she didn´t have time then, but she said that we could come back the next day. So we did, and we taught her about the BoM. Her name is Jéssica, from São Tomé. She was really nice and as we got more into the conversation she got really interested in the BoM. She accepted to read saying "well, if it´s about Christ, I gotta read it". We talked about Christ´s gospel, it´s steps, and baptism. She was baptized as a small child, but we explained a bit more about christ´s example and she accepted to be baptized.

Unfortunately we discovered shortly afterwards that she works every sunday... we analyzed the situation a bit, things like hour switches with coworkers, etc, but no loopholes... So, we talked about sacrifice for a bit, and we´ll be following up with her efforts for a new job tomorrow.

We had a small visit with Darlan and Alynne, you probably dont remember them very well... basically a really good brazilian family that should have been baptized a long time ago but now hasn´t progressed much lately. We had a good chat with them, we learned that Darlan´s parents (who are visiting) arent supporting him whatsoever in his endeavors to investigate the church. Darlan and Alynne both expressed their desires to continue, just after the grandparents leave. It should be in about a month.

Remember Rodrigo and Kely from last week? Well, we taught some more in the beginning of this week. They enjoyed their visit to church and even read a bit of the BoM. They agreed that they felt something special there.We had a good conversation about the Holy Ghost, and they understood well... they just are having trouble accepting that the true church is a bit different in practice and organization than their own... they´ll get used to it haha.

Unfortunately, Kely´s mom, Raquele got sick and stayed in the hospital for a few days... such stress and complications made it hard for us to talk to them, and they didn´t make it to church on sunday... but we´ll get behind them again this week.

Fernando... well, we´ve been working with Fernando for a little while, and he always came to church and talked about baptism and everything, he just would get flakey and such... So, in the district meeting on wednesday, we talked about him for a bit. The sisters from the other area said "just give him to us" in a joking manner, really. I thought about it, and after trying that day to call fernando once more, I decided to send his number to the sisters. After all, Fernando was from their area, but we were teaching because we found him in area, he went to church in our area, etc.

Well, that night, Sister Foster (the sister from that area) sent me a message saying that Fernando would be baptized that weekend. I called to hear what happened. They had a good lesson with him, they discovered that Fernando wanted to be baptized but was hesitant because he didn´t understand really well what would happen after baptism, he was understanding that it was important, but took it as a finish line, not a starting line. The sisters did a really good job.

You know how many times there´s a guy all strong and stuff who cant manage to open jar? He´s going at it in a corner, putting his back into it, turning red, grunting, but he can´t get it open. Finally, this guy complies, reluctantly, to give it to a woman. Clunk the woman opens it with ease in an instant. The classic situation.

That was me. Elder Hawkins and I were working hard with Fernando. We put a lot of effort into the lessons that we did with him, it was an investment. I finally thought... ugh, I´ll give him to the Sisters... clunk!

I had mixed feelings afterwards haha. I was kinda ticked at myself for being so stubborn and also unproductive, for not having done it myself. I dont know how to describe it, but just imagine how that sweaty guy feels after working with that jar...

a bit frustrated.

But I learned a lot! It was a good lesson, sometimes I think that I can and ought to do everything alone... but on the contrary. And don´t get me wrong, I was still super happy to hear the good news, just mad at myself haha. Fernando and I had grown a friendship in the process.

So, in that lesson with the Sisters, he asked that I baptized him. With pleasure.

I got there saturday night to hear bad news... Fernando hadn´t shown up! He didn+t answer the phone. So, everyone went out looking for him! Well, I found him just outside the chapel sat on a wall, thinking, obviously. He said "I´m not sure if I´m going to be baptized now". I knew that Fernando had already received his own testimony, he was just nervous. I chatted with him about courage and how God tests our faith. He went into the chapel but was still nervous. Finally, Fernando´s friend, Fábio (member) showed up. Fábio noticed the situation and took Fernando into a room to chat with him. 20 anxious minutes later they came out, a bit teary-eyed and Fábio said "where are the white clothes, Elder?"

Fábio asked to baptize Fernando, and Fernando was baptized Saturday night, it was a great experience. He bore his testimony after, and asked Fábio and I to do the same. It was great.

That´s the news. It was a month of hard work, and the Mission reached 76 baptisms in December, the toughest month of the year, passing our goal of 75. The mission has been fighting for this goal for more than 2 years. It was a great acheivement.

so that´s a wrap. I gotta go! I´m doing well! It´s great serving here!

Feliz ano novo,

Elder Ward