Oi Familia!
Life in Conchal is going good. This week we set 2 more baptismal
dates! A guy named Junior and the other Diante. They both have been coming to
church for awhile. We gave the 1st lesson to them and they accepted baptism
pretty easily. We plan to have their baptism on March 15th along with 2 other
people.
I forgot to tell you that
I already got my package. I got it when we had our transfers. I loved everything
that you put in it! Thank you! :) I also got the letter from Dad.
Wednesday was my favorite day of
this past week! I mentioned how we were going to have our mission tour. We had 2
speakers. Claudio Costas, the area president in Brasil and Elder Evans. I can´t
remember his calling but he use to be a member of the seventy. I was expecting
this conference to be another ordinary conference where they would talk about
missionary work. They did, but it was better than I expected. Claudio Costas
talked about his conversion story. He was a teenager when he was taught by
sister missionaries. It didn´t take him too long until he was baptized. He told
us countless times how the Spirit can play a huge role while we´re teaching our
investigators. He told us, it does matter what is being taught but more
importantly that the Spirit is there testifying that truth. I thought that was a
pretty cool.
Elder Evans talked
about marriage, families, and missionary work. He told us how he met his wife.
He told us when he came home from his mission it took him 3 months to get
married. He went to a mission conference in Japan and was asked how long it took
him to get married. He stood up and said ``3 months!`` and the mission
president said ``it only took me 6 days!`` I couldn´t believe it! Only 6 days
ha-ha. Elder Evans gave us a little advice about marriage. When you know it´s
right and the other person knows it´s right, don´t delay. He quoted President
Monson, ``Never deny a prompting or you will always regret it.`` That reminded
me a lot of when I received my answer to serve a mission. That it was the right
decision for me to go when I did. He talked a lot about the importance of
families. He quoted a lot from the Proclamation to the Family and even talked
about our Heavenly Mother. I´ve never heard anyone talk about our Heavenly
Mother over the pulpit. It was pretty cool. He gave us a doctrine about how to
use the Spirit more effectively in our lessons and teach them what it really
means to be converted to the Gospel. One of the problems in Brasil is that a lot
of people live together and aren´t married. He taught us how we can teach them
to not only decide if they want to get married or separate, but to help them
realize that living together is breaking the commandments. To help them see that
what they´re doing is wrong. The way he said it was powerful. We want them to
get married but what do they need to do before they can make that commitment?
They need to have a sincere heart and a contrite spirit and repent our their
mistakes and change. Learning this changed my whole outlook on how I will teach
my investigators. To really help them understand the importance of the Atonement
and why we need the Savior in our life.
I do have some pictures to send you. One of them is a picture of a
fruit here in Brasil. It´s called caju, it looks different but it takes really
good! Btw, thank you for the picture of the Portland Temple! That´s probably the
coolest picture I´ve seen of that temple. And thank you for the scriptures that
you sent me! :)
Friday, we started an English class at the
branch. And guess who´s teaching English?! ME! :) my comp doesn´t know any
English so she made me be the teacher. To be honest, since I started learning
Portuguese i´ve forgotten a little bit of my English. I could explain everything
in Portuguese but when it came to speaking in English, it was hard. I´m teaching
the basics of English and i´m also teaching how to say a prayer in English. One
of the members gave a prayer in English. It was pretty cool!
For p-day
my comp wants to get her hair cut and i´m thinking I might get mine cut as well.
We´re going to celebrate my 10 month anniversary by getting ice cream! I can´t
believe 10 months...the more I think about it the more I don´t want to go home.
I want to stay on the mission forever. But anyways, this was my week. It went by
really fast and we worked really hard this week. I hope all is well and I love
you so much! Have an awesome week!
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