Well, this transfer has been the absolute best! I have learned so much. Elder Pereira and I have been able to do a lot of work. We have worked so hard to find new people to teach every day. I kept track of how many New Investigators we found and how many Books of Mormon we gave out. We found 83 New Investigators to teach and we gave out 113 Books of Mormon. I have been able to have such a great friendship with my comp. I have loved every moment of this transfer. Suzano is such a cool city.
I found out yesterday that I was transferred for the fourth time in five transfers. I will be training and opening an area in Caiuby, Itaqua! I´m super excited. I´ll go to the mission office tomorrow to pick up my new comp.
Here is what happened this last week:
Carnaval started this week. So far the craziest thing I have seen is a parade of little kids. Most of the really crazy stuff is in the center of São Paulo. I have to go to the Mission Office in the center of São Paulo tomorrow, the last and biggest day of Carnaval. It might be pretty crazy.
We changed the tire of a lady on the road. She didn´t know how to, so we helped her. Elder Pereira didn´t know how, and I had only tried one time before, but I was able to successfully change the tire. It was awesome. She said she had been praying for God to send someone to help her, and that we were the answer to her prayers.
Adriana went to church again. We taught her a couple times, and she keeps on progressing. She is reading the Book of Mormon every day, and is ready to be baptized. I think she will be baptized this next transfer.
Last week, we found Antonio. On Sunday, we went back to teach him. We started teaching him the Restoration. He asked us in the first couple of minutes how he could receive an answer from God. He said that he has been searching for the true church his entire life, and has switched religions a ton. We were able to focus a ton on personal revelation and prayer the entire lesson. He thought that the First Vision was really cool, and that the Book of Mormon makes a lot of sense. He understands what he needs to do to receive an answer.
We found some cool less active members of the church this week that we started working with. Jefferson lives in a super rich neighborhood. His house is the nicest I have been to in Brasil. It is a mansion. He has a huge wall around his house, and the walls of his house are pretty much all glass. He is super rich, and also the highest level of Mason you can be. He´s pretty cool, but he hasn´t been to church in a while, and has a lot of doubts. He really loves the missionaries, so it was super cool to be there.
We also found a guy named Rafael another night this week. He is 21, and has an absolutely crazy life. He was baptized when he was 8, but shortly after, his dad abandoned him. His brother and he lived alone growing up. When he was 15, he started to sell things on the road. When he was 17, he started selling cars. Now, he works in a huge shopping mall. He was super happy to see us because he forgot all about the church. We taught him the Restoration of the Gospel, and he went to church on Sunday.
We had a couple of really cool contacts this week. The coolest was when we rang the doorbell of a house. A lady came to the door a minute later. We taught her the Restoration on her doorstep, and gave her a Book of Mormon. She had some great questions. At the end of the contact, we asked her which doorbell was hers. There were two doorbells, and we rang them both. She told us that neither work, nor that she just had a feeling that she should go to the door. She says that she thought it was God that gave her that feeling. It was super cool!
I gave a talk in church a week ago. I spoke on why I believe in Christ. It’s pretty crazy that I can talk for 15 minutes in church IN PORTUGUES!
Scripture of the Week: Alma 26
I love teaching the Plan of Salvation. There are so many differences between the Restored Gospel of Christ and other religions, and one of my favorite differences is this. Because we have a living prophet that receives revelation from Heavenly Father, we know where we lived before we were born, why we are here on earth, and where we are going after we die. We are literally children of a loving Heavenly Father, and we are here on earth to learn to walk by faith and learn for ourselves how to choose good instead of bad. Because of the Atonement of our Savior, we will all be resurrected one day, and return to our Heavenly Father. We will inherit a degree of glory fit for us. I love that the Plan of Salvation explains why Christ is important. Every one knows he is important, but it is only when you realize his role in the Plan of Happiness that we recognize that without him, we could not progress and that there is nothing else for us.
