Cuiaba Brazil Weather

Monday, April 22, 2013

Week #18

Ola Tudo Bom? We had a good week this week! Last P-day after emails we went to the military base they have here and checked out this little zoo thing. They had a little monkey, boas, an alligator, pumas, parrots and....thats about it. But we got some cool picture and Im glad we went. Tuesday we met with one of our investigators names Kelly, she is 17 and has been investigating the church for quite a while now. But she wasn't sure if she should be baptized or not. We went and met with her and talked for a little bit and we asked her if she was reading the Book of Mormon she said sometimes. We asked her how she felt when she had read it before and when she had prayed about it, and she said she felt light and strong at the same time. We thought that was a pretty interesting but true feeling that can come from the Spirit, she said she believes the Book of Mormon is true and that it was the word of God. We asked her about Baptism and she said that she needed an answer to her prayers to know if she should be baptized because she was hesitant. We both bore testimony that if should would pray with real intent and truly desire an answer from the Lord. We promised her that she would recieve an answer. I remember as I was bearing my testimony in Portuguese I was promising her things that I hadnt promised anyone since I was practicing teaching in the mtc. And I was even scared to promise blessings to our investigator teachers. But this time they just came out without any thought or worry. As I look back I know it was the Spirit speaking. Its true where it says in the scriptures to open your mouth and it shall be filled. It was a short but powerful lesson. My companion Elder Reed and one of our zone leaders followed up on Friday with her because we ha our zone leaders come from Cuiabá to stay with us a few days and train with us. Idk what happened but when they saw her this time on friday she had recieved an answer and was ready to be baptized! They set her with a date to be baptized this upcoming Sunday on the 28th after church. And she will be confirmed the following week. She was at church yesterday and the day before we checked on her and she had read chapter 11 in 3rd Nephi where Christ appears in the Nephites in the Americas, and she had marked almost every verse in the chapter. She marked the words of Christ in one color and things that she thought were extra important in another color. Aw it was so cool! The Book of Mormon is such a powerful tool of conversion! We will try and see her probably everyday this week. Satan is going to work hard on her. As I said the Zone Leaders came out thursday and friday and on Friday I went on Splits with one of them, Elder W. Santos from São Paulo. That was cool being with a Brazilian all day! We had an interesting day. We prayed alot over certain streets that we were going to tract and then we went out and did work! We taught 6 lessons that day and talked with dozens of other people. We met an old member lady on one of the streets that we had predetermined to go to. She was living with her great grandson who is 9 and a couple. who are non members. We taught them and they accepted to be baptized. Afterwards the Old member Lady shook my hand and then gave me a hug and cried on my tie for a few minutes. We hope to be able to help that family in many ways. Me and Elder Reed found a new neighboorhood and looked for a reference that we had recieved that lived there. We found a house on the road with the same name and number but it was the wrong house. But we met a lady who is 20 and her brother is 13 and they accepted us in and they taught them. She was very smart and answered all of our questions like she was already a member. She seems open to baptism and our Church, we hope to be able to get another appointment with her during the week. Funny how the Lord sends you to places and gives you things and people that you never expected to find. We had 8 investigators to church yesterday. The 3 nonmembers that we found on friday during splits, Kelly, A part member Bolivian family that had the Mom and 2 children that are of Baptism age, and a lady whos family we are teaching but that needs to be married first. Thats a hard thing here in Brazil is alot of people arent marries legally! And We cant baptize families until they are legally married! Its expensive too I guess for families to get married. But The Lord will help everything work out. We were blessed extremely to have so many investigators at church. We also had almost 90 members to church which is alot better than last week with only about 60. The Lord sure blessed us this week. We have an activity at the church every thursday night where members come and play volleyball, or soccer or pingy pongy. This week the missionaries we put on an activity where we showed everyone what the 3 kingdoms of heaven were like. I think we did it once back at home where we have everyone die in a plane crash and then an angel shows everyone around. I was the angel that showed everyone, I wore my baptismal clothing and brought them to the Telestial kingdom which was a small hot cramped room with Red lights and the missionary in their was Elder Paredes dressed in black street clothes. He explained it and then we went to the next room whte terrestial kingdom where my companin was. This room was bigger and had a fan going and had pleasent blue lights. He was in normal missionary clothing. Then we went to the chapel where we moved all the benches and ha the fans and a/c going and church music playing. Elder Laws was in here also wearing all white and he explained the Celestial Kingdom and then bore his testimony on how is is where our Heavenly Father wants us. I was suprised how strong the spirit was during this. After this all 6 missionaries got together cause we still had the Zone leaders with us and we all sang Mais Perto Quero estar. (Nearer my God to Thee) we sang well and it was great. What cool things we get to do sometimes! Yesterday after church we had a Churrasco!!! Which is a BBQ!!! We all payed about 15 dollars and had a big bbq at a recent converts house, we had a good 20 people there. It was really fun and the food was delicious! Steak cut into bitesize pieces! It was excellent! Right now its just me and Elder Laws at the Lan house, my companion and Elder Paredes had to go to Cuiabá to renew their visas, they left last night and should be back by this evening. We get transfer calls on Sunday and there is a good chance that I might leave cause they are thinking that President wants me with a Brazilian companion. We will see though. Personally I want to stay for at least one more transfer. Whatever happens though happens. Well that wraps things up for this week. I was proud of Jordan and their Prom date and everything, I loved hearing about that! And also tell Kaiden that he needs to Read the Book of Mormon instead of rotting his brains out with video games and his kindle. Everyone from the Family needs to read from the Book of Mormon everyday. There is power in that book. Many missionaries always carry one in their hands because their is a protections with that book against all types of things. I love being a misionary! The Church is true, God hears and answers prayers, never let a day go by without kneeling down and having a conversation with him! I love you all so much! Till next week! -Elder Kennington

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