we had 4 baptisms yesterday. 3 young men and one man thats 21 years old. the 3 young men are yuri, felipe, and luan, theyre all way firm and way excited.
Latest Adventure:
So here i am chillin in Mossoro. my area is Belo Horizante, which is a neighborhood. we live in a house which is pretty big and we live with two other missionaries.
Weirdest Food Eaten:
Chicken Hearts
Most Missed Food:
Candy from the states
P-day activities:
i got the package from valentines day. those pics were sweet, i love the pic of my baptism...its insane. i love getting those cards, those are always excellent.
Favorite Scripture:
i got to talk in sacrament meeting. bishop gave us the notice tuesday which was nice. i ended up using a talk by pres Dieter F Ucktdorf, "dont we have reason to rejoice?" he talks about three things: what is the gospel of Jesus Christ, what does it mean to endure to the end, and Jesus Christ wants us to succeed. he talks about how we need to strive to choose the right every minute of our lives, not just on sunday. its an excellent talk and it was actually fun to talk with everyone. i still catch myself in awe that i am here in brasil speaking portuguese. i love it.
Neat Story:
The picture above shows building plans approved by Salt Lake for a new church building in Sousa, Brazil, "the members have worked so hard for this."
2.18.08 .... you asked about the testimony meetings here. theyre interesting at times but way good. there are some older members in the branch that think they are better than everyone else and try to teach everyone from their experiences, but most of the members here have around 1-3 years of membership or less, so their testimonies are very simple and basic but they are powerful and full of energy. we can learn a lot from new members. at times we try to make this gospel too complicated. we need to do the basic things in life that we learned in primary: read the scripts, pray, go to church, and keep the commandments. 3.03.08 ... on the mish ive learned so much. if we do our part, our best, the Lord will do the rest...every time.
i have been reading a lot of conference talks lately and i read a talk by Pres. Monson today that had a sweet quote by James Barrie, "God gave us memories that we might have June roses in the December of our lives." its so true. thanks for all of the memories. 3.10.08 ...this week seemed like a really spiritual one. it was sweet. we taught this lady, maria do ceu, the first lesson. i got to teach her the Joseph Smith story and when i was reciting the first vision, i could see tears building up in her eyes. i invited her to read the book of mormon and to pray about it and she accepted the invite. i then asked her how/what she was feeling during our message. she said peace which was perfect. i opened up to galations 5:22 which talks about the fruits of the spirit and one them is peace. i told her that through the spirit God was telling her that these things are true. i then asked her if she would prepare herself to be baptized and she was really flakey. we alway invite people to be baptized in the first lesson. i knew that she already knew that we had the truth but it seems like everyone here is so comfortable with where they are. they have no idea how better their lives can be through the true gospel of Jesus Christ. we finished our message and she said the last prayer for us. the spirit was so strong during our message and i know that she was feeling it too. maybe right now isnt her time but for sure she will be baptized in the future. Last week, Concebida came to church with us. shes already been to church 3 or 4 times. she is that lady that is preparing to be baptized but she is still having trouble with smoking. she used to smoke around 20 a day and now she is down to 1-4 every day.
