Week of March 14-20th,
2016
(14) SEGUNDA
(Monday): Today we had some great lessons.
The church released a new video for Easter, and so we are passing out
little cards with the site for the video, and sharing a message of the
resurrection with people. I also studied
some of the talks I got today, which is also good. I now have a good collection of conference
talks.
This
Thursday we’ll leave for Alegrete for the zone conference and we’ll spend some
the whole day there.
I read
today in Mormon about that final big battle between the Lamanites and the
Nephites. I counted what he recorded had
been killed. There were 220,000 Nephites
killed, and 24 survived. Of those 24, 2
were he and Mormoni. This stood out to
me a lot, because it really shows that the Lord protects his followers, where
as Satan finds joy in watching his followers fall. I remembered Alma 30:60. It makes me very happy to know I’m on the
right side. After, all the Nephites
gone, the Lamanites started warring amongst themselves! Satan cannot bring us real happiness; it’s
against his nature. (2 Nephi 2:27). But
he is the master of the illusion of happiness.
I read a Liahona talk the other day about an ant venom that to them
appears good, so they excitedly bring it to their queen who eats it and dies
and the whole colony dies. How often can
watching TV appear more attractive then the scriptures, or sleep more
attractive then mission prep (That one’s from personal experience). Satan has a lot of practice in making good
things appear bad and bad things appear good.
Moroni 7:5-15 (16-19 are good, too).
We need to learn to distinguish what is really worth our precious time
here on earth and then cling to it. A
talk from President Eyering came to mind where he said that everyone has something
in his or her life that upsets the spirit.
(I think it was Eyering), My personal goal is to always identify what
that point is, change it, and then find the next one. Through this I know the Lord will protect me
when the other 220,000 are falling.
Through this I know I will find true happiness, and I won’t be chasing
Satan’s illusion. I’ll become the man
the Lord sees me as, and hopefully be a tool in His hand.
Today was
day 251 of my mission. (Also, I slept
talked in Portuguese last night. Sleep
talked, slept talk, slept talked?)
(15) TERCA (Tuesday): Today before lunch we went to Fabiane, who is
a recent convert who went less active because of her work, but now she stopped
working at the pharmacy so it’s all good.
She’s super cool, and today talked about how she wants to serve a
mission. She’s 25 and with 7 months as a
member. We’re working with her now to go
to the temple to do baptisms.
Then we had
a GREAT lesson with Vinicius. First off,
today was his birthday, so I took some skittles to share with him. Then, his brother Wilker, who is a member,
came with his wife. We had cake, and
then a very spiritual lesson about baptism and confirmation. Wilker and Rosangello, his wife, bore
testimony and shared experiences. It was
a great lesson.
Haha, then
Wilker shared an experience from the temple, how the only time he’s ever
fainted in his life was in the middle of a sealing. He fell backwards in the middle and they had
to do it all over again. He said he
thinks it was the spirit of the man he was proxying, trying to stop the
ordinance because he didn’t want to be sealed to the woman.
One thing
that I don’t understand is the people who agree with everything we say, teach,
and explain with the bible, and then say, “no, even if I get an answer from
God, I’ll stick with my religion.”
What!?! I said, “But Irma, this
is God telling you that this is His true church. Even if He gave you an answer, you won’t
follow it?” “No, my parents were
Catholic, I was born Catholic. I’ll
stick with it.” The types of people who
want to follow God with out commitment, I’ll never understand!
But we
found a woman with a lot of Potential named Debra. She really liked the message. I’m excited about her. Today was day 252 of my mission. Also, I’m on my 12th pen.
(16) QUARTA
(Wednesday): Today we started off
the day with Juliano and Stefani. They
are INCREDIBLE! It’s insane how much the
Lord prepared them, waited until the right moment, and then used the members to
bring them to us. Here’s my favorite
quote from today.
“Elder, I
want to be baptized in the church of
Jesus Christ. What’s the first step I
need to do?” Juliano
They need
to be married, but they are working on that.
At one point he asked if there was some sort of a problem where he is
already baptized in another church. We
asked him if he believed that in order to baptize the baptizer he’s to have the
authority of God. He said of course. Then we said, “Do you believe that the man
who baptized you had this same authority that Jesus gave to his apostles, which
was then restored to Joseph Smith?” He
thought for a moment, smiled really big, and said, “No.” We paused a moment and said, “your first
baptism was a great experience for you.
It showed your willingness to follow Christ. But now the Lord has His
gospel in your life, along with the correct baptism.” Oh man, that made him happy. Then we explained how all the little
‘coincidences’ that happen to led him to the church was the Lord slightly,
patiently leading him to the truth. He started in one church, rushed to be
baptized. After a little, noticed a lot of things out of line from the
Bible. Switched churches again, a lot of
stuff he didn’t think should be in Christ’s church, Etc., etc. Finally he said he prayed and told God, “I’m
trying to find your church, God. All
these churches seem wrong, and if they’re right then I don’t want them. Show me what I need to do.” The next day, his shift at work over lapped
with that of Fabio, 2nd counselor in the ward and ward missionary.
Juliano mentioned a few of his religious doubts. Fabio said, “so, you’re looking for Christ’s
true church?” “Yes” “Have you found it? What do you think it would have?” Juliano expressed a few of his thoughts. Fabio said, “Juliano, Christ’s true church
exists. It’s the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints. I have the keys,
I’ll show you the building tonight if you want.” So that night, he took Juliano and some other
people from work, and gave them a tour of the church. Juliano said that the moment he entered it
felt different. The next day Juliano and
Stefani went to church for the first time, and Fabio presented them to us
missionaries. It wasn’t until a while
after, the 11th of this month that we managed to get them both for a
lesson. Now they’ve both prayed, both
received an answer, both want to be baptized. They already follow the Word of
Wisdom, they don’t like parties with beer and stuff like that. Juliano said he much rather stay home and
read the scriptures. He’s read 14 chapters
of the Book of Mormon, all the pamphlets, the Family Proclamation to the World,
and is studying the Gospel Principles book all in the last week.
It’s incredible
to see the power a true witness fro the Holy Ghost brings. He believes it all, and all he already feels
is right or wrong he finds confirmed by our doctrine. There’s a fire in his eyes and he absorbs
every word we say or reading we have.
When I told him Fabio knows how to cut the price of the marriage in half
by using bishop as a judge, I told him, “So, you could talk to him Sunday at
church and get the marriage faster.”
Without hesitation he said, “No, I’ll call him today.”
I have no
doubt this church is true, and that this is the only true church. Everything about it makes sense and is so
simple. That fact, along with the
confirmation the spirit brings, there’s no way to deny it’s true. That’s when you get people like Juliano,
doing all he can to follow his Savior.
We had other good lessons today, too.
Today was day 253 of my mission.
(17) QUINTA
(Thursday): Today we had a
conference 4 hours away. We had some
awesome training, and I finally really got to meet Sister Cornick, the sister
who said, “Holy Crap!”. Also my son met
his grandpa, and we took a picture.
Sister, Sister Cornick, and Jake
Family Tree: Elder Martins, Jake, Elder Santos Melo
Elder Martins Jake's son, Jake is Elder Santos Melo's son.
Jake and Elder Martins
Sister and President Parrela
Studying
today, I read a lot in the book of Ether.
Abinadi is my favorite man from the Book of Mormon, but the story of the
Brother of Jared is my favorite part.
The whole book of Ether. Every
little part has a new lesson for me. I
LOVE reading it. I think when I finish it;
I’ll read it again before going on to Moroni.
Today was
day 254 of my mission. Quote of the
day: “Life is hard for those that are
soft.” President Parrela
(18) SEXTA (Friday): Well today was another good day. My favorite lesson of the day was when we
passed by Welerson’s house. He wasn’t
home, but his mom and cousin were, who we’ve already given Book of Mormons
to. We sat and talked with them for a
few minutes, then came a woman named Camilia, whom I’ve never met. We started talking with her and she talked
about how she doesn’t have a church because all the churches that she visits
don’t feel right and just ask for tithing.
We taught the restoration to her and the mom of Welerson, and I have
never seen someone understand the message so good. We taught about prophets and their importance
and she said, “Of course, we need a prophet in these times. Where is he?”
Then we explained Jesus and his apostles with the priesthood and she
understood perfectly how the church that Christ established had a prophet, 12
apostles, with this priesthood. Then she asked, “But where is this authority to
baptize today?” We explained the apostasy,
and Joseph Smith. She loved it. We explained how the authority, which was
lost, was restored through Joseph Smith along with the church of Jesus
Christ. She said, “I was baptized by the
priest/father in the Catholic church.
Are you saying I wasn’t really baptized?” We asked, “do you believe that to baptize
someone, you need to have the authority?”
“Yes” “Do you believe Jesus
Christ had this authority and the man who baptized you had this same
authority?” “But I don’t know, I never
even met him!” We explained the purpose
of baptism is for a remission of sins.
She said, “But I had 5 days of age!
I didn’t have any sin!” We just
sat there for a second and let her think, and then she said, “now I'm sad! I wasn’t baptized! Is there someone today that has the authority
to baptize?” Ha-ha, as we explained, she
got more and more sad! THEN SHE GOT UP
AND LEFT! She was so upset she just
left! Ha-ha. So we knocked on her door and gave her the
Book of Mormon. She loved it and said
she would read the part we marked, pray, read other parts, read some more, then
pray about hem, too. THEN LEFT
AGAIN! But, it’s all-good.
We also
learned that the cousin of Welerson had been reading the Book of Mormon. She started from the beginning and is on
chapter 13 of 1 Nephi! Woot Woot!
We had
another lesson with a crazy. When we
asked her to pray about our message, she got mad at us, “Are you accusing me of
having doubts of God? I don’t need to
pray if what you’ve said is true, God will show me you both in a vision, and
when you guys pass by my house I’ll be about to tell you what clothes you are
using.” I resisted the urge to say
anyone can look at us and list our clothing, and probably even without looking
at us. We use the same clothes every
day. Ha-ha. But today was great. Today was day 255 of my mission.
(19) SABADO (Saturday): Today was a very good day. We finally managed a lesson with
Welerson. Then he went to the talent
show of the ward with us.
THE TALENT
SHOW! Our other investigator Daley also
went and played music on his accordion.
HOLY COW! It was so awesome! He loved it!
The ward was cheering for more music.
He plays very, very well. Now he
will go to church tomorrow also. Another
person, who has 18 years, showed his talent of solving a rubix cube in 18
seconds. It was insane. Others sang, danced, and played the
harmonica. It was very cool.
We also met
an inactive today who hasn’t gone to church in 20 years. He said he was active for a year, then when
he wanted to go to the temple, the Elder told him the bus was full. After, he learned that there were 3 benches
empty. He got mad at the Elder, and
never went again. Some people seem to
expect that in the true church everyone should be perfect. Well, they’re not! They will mess up, people will unintentially
offend others. But to go inactive for 20
years about it is ridiculous. Our
baptism conversion is with God, not with the missionaries. I’m sure there’s more to the story, so I
won’t judge. We’re going to try to help
this man to gain a real testimony this time.
D&C says how great will be your joy with that soul that you brought
unto Christ. I believe this includes the
souls we bring to salvation through baptism, but also the lost souls we bring
back to the church. It’s a soul brought
unto Christ, and I believe the joy to be the same. Today was day 256 of my mission.
(20) DOMINGO
(Sunday): HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH!! Daley, the guy who plays the accordion, went
to church! He really liked it! But Juliano and Stefani didn’t go, they went to
travel somewhere, but they asked for us to pass Wednesday. Church was very good
today.
During
church, Elder Martins got real sick. He
threw up like 4-5 times today. So, we
called Sister Parrela. She gave some instructions
to him and told him to rest. So, I got
some good study while he was sleeping.
Then a meeting at 5, then after we tried a few houses, but nobody was
home, or they couldn’t today, then it started to rain, and as much as it killed
me to let today pass without a single lesson, we went back to the house and
studied a little more from 8:20-9. He
was still feeling sick, and we didn’t think that knocking doors in the rain
would help him. Today was the first day
of my mission with out a lesson. Elder Martins’ all good now. Ha-ha I
made him some juice with lime, with is the cure all that Sister Parrela always
has us drink, and he didn’t like it because I just threw the whole lime in with
all the peel.
Elder Martins not happy with his juice.
Then I made some really good
rice. But this week all in all went
good. It was a little slower because of
the conference and today, but we had some very good lessons. I’m learning a lot, and helping others,
too. So, all is well. Today was day 257 of my mission.
Until next week. Love you all, Elder Mckee
Elder Martins, Elder Passao De Silva, Elder Alvaranga, Jake
Pizza for dinner, and a cream on Elder Martins face that they all tease him about.
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