Óla!!!!
Wow, I feel like I typed my last email just yesterday! I blinked and the week was over. And it was quite the spectacular week!!
Our friend Savia progressed like crazy this week!! She went to church last week and loved it. We had taught her the Restoration twice that week. One of the recent converts (Luiza) bore her testimony on her conversion story during sacrament meeting, and it really helped Savia. We planned on just reading 3 Nephi 11 during our next appointment, but when we started, the Spirit indicated that we needed to change plans. We read the last paragraph to the Book of Mormon intro and asked her if she believed in the Book of Mormon and the three things that the Book of Mormon proves. She said yes. We asked her if she believes that Joseph Smith was called as a prophet of God. She said yes. We asked her if she believes that this is the one true church of Christ restored to the earth. She said yes. We then asked her what difference that makes in her life. We talked about how if the gospel was truly restored, it is important to follow that gospel. We then read 2 Nephi 31 and asked her to be baptized. She said yes!! We tried to put her on date for baptism on June 27th in each of our three appointments with her this week. She still isn’t sure about june 27th, but she promised to pray about it. She had an awesome time at church this last week and made some awesome friendships with some of the members. One of the members, Elisangela, picked her up for church. They had a really cool experience together. On the way down to church, Elisangela mentioned that one of the other members needs someone to help her at work doing house-cleaning. savia told Elisangela that she doesn’t work, but has been looking for something to do and that sounded perfect to her. They decided that they would call this member after church. At church, one of the members that spoke gave an awesome talk about Elder Rasband’s conference talk from April, “God is a God of Miracles.” This member talked a ton about answers to prayers. After church, Savia and Elisangela talked for like 2 hours about everything. They created a super close friendship and talked about all the things that we are teaching her. Then, they called this other member, Cristina. The first thing that Cristina says when she gets on the phone is that she had been praying all morning for God to make a miracle happen and send someone to help her at work. It was really cool for all of them when they told her that Savia wanted to work with her. It was a big evidence to Savia that God really does answer prayers and is a God of miracles. She has now been to church twice. I believe that she will be baptized before the end of this month.
Noemia
Another of our friends, Noemia, came to church as well. I think I talked about her last week. We had a bomb lesson with her last week on the Restoration and she loved how we believe in personal revelation and prayer and not just blind faith. Well, we weren’t able to get any lessons with her this last week, but we stayed in close contact with her over text. She ended up coming to church, and she loved it!! Everyone talked with her afterwards, especially Rita, Liv, Luiza, and Elisangela. They all exchanged phone numbers, and it was super awesome!
We are back to doing overnight exchanges!! We did one with the APs this last week. Elder Almeida and I stayed with Elder Dymock in our area. It was a blast. He is a super good Elder, so we had a ton of fun. I haven’t done an overnight exchange since I was in Brazil. We are also allowed to ditch the masks at district councils and when we are with other missionaries, which is amazing!!
One of the funny happenings of the week happened on Sunday night. We somehow let our car get down to empty on Saturday without refilling. On Sunday, the car was already below the point where it tells you how many more miles you can drive. We prayed really hard, and we made it all the way down to church and back, a trip of like 20 miles. We went about the rest of our day like normal. On the way from one appointment to another at 8:00 PM, the car ran out of gas on a very busy road. The Lord blessed us with a tender mercy, as the car ran out of gas going downhill right before we got to the other Elders’ apartment complex. We coasted in and pushed the car into visitor parking. We left the car there over night and walked home for like 45 minutes because we didn’t want to buy gas on Sunday. This morning we went with the other elders to get some gas.
So for the past 10+ months, the Portuguese Group has had plenty of people coming to sacrament meeting each week to have an official group, and maybe even a branch. However, due to some weird boundary things, they have not been able to call a group leader yet. So, for the last 10 months, we have assigned the talks and topics of talks each week and basically run everything. I was starting to get stressed that they wouldn’t be able to call someone before we all left. When our mission expanded to Bothell two months ago, that fixed some of the problems. This week, the stake presidencies started working with one of the members, who they are going to call as group leader, to organize everything officially. It is going to be so awesome. We went over to those members' houses a couple times to talk about everything and give them some information. It is really starting to take off, and this member is the perfect one for the job. He is really going to fight to get this to a branch. There are plenty of Brazilian members in the area to have a branch, it is just getting everyone to commit. It is all going to work out though! Talk about perfect timing!! It took a year and is ending up being resolved a month before we all go home. A ton of stress just vanished this week thanks to that!!
We had some really cool experiences following the Spirit this week. We were tracting that morning, and we were kind of feeling frustrated because it is so hard to find Brazilians. They all work until almost 9 o’clock at night, and we have multiple cities that we have to go through to find such a small population. We spent all morning thinking about how we could be more effective and praying about what to do. Later that day, we had a prompting to go up to a neighborhood by some of the members. We went up there and started knocking on doors. We knocked on a particular door in the middle of this neighborhood, or actually, we rang the ring door bell. It was connected to Alexa, and started malfunctioning, just repeating the same phrase over and over again. We tried to ring it a couple more times, and it didn’t work. We were about to go to the next one when Elder Ward had a prompting to go back and knock the door. We did, and met a Brazilian family. It was awesome!!
Another one happened when we went up to get in contact with one of the families that we are teaching. We went up to their complex, which is right on the border of the mission. They weren’t home. We were about to leave because we had other appointments, but then we felt like we should knock a couple doors. We did, and no one answered. Just as we were leaving, someone walked out of one of the doors we had just knocked. We stopped him and talked to him. His name was Ruyan. I thought for sure he was going to be Russian by the way he looked and talked. It turns out that he is Brzilian, and super cool!! He has a young family. We gave him a Book of Mormon, and we are going to go back to teach him this week.
Another day this week, we were planning the places that we should go finding that day. We felt really good about a neighborhood of townhomes (or so we thought) down close to Kirkland. That day, we ended up getting behind schedule because of interviews with President. We had to take one of the other Elder companionships home. By the time it was time to go to that neighborhood that we had felt inspired to go to, it didn’t make a ton of sense because it was far away and we didn’t have a lot of time. We had also never found any Brazilians int he southern part of our area. Well, we decided to give it a shot. We got there, and the supposed town homes turned out to be massive, super nice 3 or 4 story modern houses that were well upwards of a million dollars. We did not have any luck whatsoever in finding any Brazilians for the first 45 minutes. We started to wonder if we should leave. We said a prayer on the side walk, and then we walked a good bit farther down the street. When we started knocking again, the first door to open up was a member family in one of the english wards. We explained that we were the portuguese elders and had just tracted into them by accident. When we said that we were the portuguese elders, Sister Christensen’s eyes totally teared up. She explained that they had just sold their house to a Brazilian family. She said that they had many offers, some of them better, but that they had felt very strongly that this family needed the house. She believes that this was why. We gave her a Book of Mormon in Portuguese and she wrote her testimony in it to leave for them. We are going to stop by this week or next week once they are all moved in!!
The Spirit is truly one of the most essential elements in missionary work. That is why the scripture on the front of Preach My Gospel is Doctrine and Covenants 50:13-14. “Wherefore, I the Lord ask you this question - unto what were ye ordained? To preach my gospel by the Spirit, even the Comforter which was sent forth to teach the truth.” One thing that has become evident to me on my mission is how argely the Spirit influences everything we do. We have the promise of the constant companionship of the Spirit when we are baptized if we will do our part to live worthily and to actively receive Him. If we are doing what we need to do, we will have His presence. Elder Bednar has talked about after the fact revelation, times where we don’t recognize the Spirit guiding us until afterwards.
In my mission, I have tried to do everything possible to have the Spirit with me. The recipe is pretty much prayer+faith+obedience+diligence=the companionship of the Spirit. Miracles like these have happened constantly as I have followed these steps. I can testify that this work is impossible alone. A big proof of that is the number of Brazilians that we have met in the last 2 months compared to the other companionships in our zone that are working in the same geographic areas. We have met 50 plus just from street contacting and tracting as compared to a grand total of 4 from the other companionships in our zone. To think that out of multiple cities of I don’t even know how many people, the Lord has led us to those Brazilians is remarkable. Beyond that, out of such a small sample size, He has prepared people for us to help enter into the covenant path. The Spirit is definitely guiding us. After the fact revelation is something that I completely believe in. Very rarely do we have powerful, recognizable promptings. Usually, we just have feelings, thoughts, and ideas that gently guide our footsteps to where we need to go. It just requires a step of faith first. Elder Klebingat came to our mission last year. He made the remark that “the Lord cannot steer a parked car. Revelation comes to those on the move.” I truly believe in this because I have seen and lived this. As Nephi said, “I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.” (1 Nephi 4:6).
Scripture of the week: Alma 26:22, DC 31:11
22 Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren to repentance.
11 Go your way whithersoever I will, and it shall be given you by the Comforter what you shall do and whither you shall go.
I love representing the Savior in Brasil and Washington, I love the Gospel and Atonement of Christ, I love my family, and I love my Redeemer. I am ready and excited to work harder, learn more, and love better this week!
Love,
Elder Warren Matthew Dudley
Photo 1-2 - Elder Dymock, Elder Almeida, and I
Photo 3 - King of Pride Rock: Elder Almeida’s Lion King moment
Photo 4 - Out of gas
Photo 5- 8 views from the long walk back after the car ran out of gas
