Oi família!
We baptized Neto and Matheus!! Batizadoras! Haha just ignore
Matheus´tiny jumpsuit and my upside down nametag and it´s an okay
picture. Neto studied theology and has already been baptized in many
churches, so he was having serious doubts all week. This week was Stake
Conference, with Elder Ballard and others speaking from Brasilia (did
you know Sister Marriot of the YW Presidency speaks Portuguese??) and
Neto showed up with no intention of being baptized. He told Jaqueline
that he had prayed all week and didn´t get an answer, then she told him
to pray during the meeting and he would get an answer right there. So
he did just that, bowing his head and whispering through the whole
meeting then he got his answer! He said that conference was exactly his
answer and he was baptized literally 15 minutes after that with his
nephew. Miracle #1.
Miracle #2 was that we got a phone call from Lais
out of nowhere and she wanted to talk to us. She told us she wasn´t
sure if she could go back to church or not but she talked to some of our
youth and they told her to come back. She looked so suprised when we
came back to her house to bring her to church. Right there she told us
her birthday is Saturday and she wants to be baptized. I don´t like to
count my chickens, because her parents still have to sign the paper but
WOW. I was freaking out.
Miracle #3 is our investigator Socorro, and for some
reason I´ve just been talking about her all the time last week, saying
`I am going to baptize Socorro on day 22 of December`` I just love her
because she´s just a crazy animal lady but when she says things she
means it. She also recognizes what the spirit is. When she was
watching stake conference, she felt an electric shock out of nowhere and
she told us it meant to her that she was in the right place. She´s
getting baptized Sunday! Season of miracles!!
I have really learned so much about faith and so
much about planning. If you plan and have faith in your plans, God will
always help you. If someone isn´t home, you just keep going and expect
that God will put an elect in your path, and it ALWAYS happens. I
challenge all of you to make a plan each day to find someone who wants
to be baptized, and it will happen.
Yesterday was a really cool day. Well, every day is
a really cool day, but we went with a member to give two priesthood
blessings. One was Luzia, who accepted the blessing on her eyes
tearfully. She is the one who was shocked that we found her again who
just had eye surgury. She accepted our help to help her feel ready to
be baptized and take away her doubts. The other blessing was a woman
who isn´t even an investigator but we pass her road every day. Her son
was killed last week and I don´t think I have seen anyone wailing like that
in my life. A week later she was still standing in her doorway sobbing
uncontrolably. The blessing was very sweet and she became much calmer.
We sat and listened to her for a long time and played with her son´s
3-year-old daughter who watched him die. This was the only week where
we didn´t come home with all of our number that we can control, but it
was the week I felt I was doing was Christ would do if He were here.
The spirit of Christmas is just as alive in Brasil
and it just such a great time to renew our faith and love of the Savior.
His way is the easiest, His is the only way of happiness. He is just
waiting us to let go of any rebellion we´re holding on to so that he can
help with our weaknesses. The atonement is real. Christ lives and is
working miracles just as always, always wrought by faith. We can say
that we might have believed more firmly if we had seen Him for
ourselves, but the majority of the people then didn´t even believe.
Only through faith and living the Gospel can we know that He lives,
that He is there. One day we will meet Him face to face, and it´s up to
us how we will feel in that moment.
I got your package, I LOVE these sandals and the CD!
I am waiting anxiously to open the rest but so far so great!! I
actually wanted to get these sandals when I worked at DSW. I also
freaked out at getting the New Era and Ensign, no one has gotten it yet
here so everyone´s pretty jealous. I love Elder Uchtdorf´s talk in the
Priesthood session haha Good job :) I will probably call around 11
your time, and I think I´ll send an email before that.
Oh yeah I almost forgot about Conferencia de Natal!
It ended way too fast but was pretty fun. I didn´t get very many
pictures but I liked these ones with me and Sister Seal. I would take
more pictures of what Brasil looks like but I can´t really walk around
with my camera.
Talk you you guys in a week!! Merry Christmas!!
Com muito muito MUITO amor,
Sister Moore
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