Brazil Week #22

btw the picture with all 6 missionaries is all of us at the lunch the day of the baptism. On Mon, May 20, 2013 at 1:48 PM, Richard Kennington wrote: Família!!! Como vocês estão!?!?!?! So this week went by so quick, I blinked and it was gone. It was indeed a good week, but at the same time I know that Satan was working hard. Because There were very few investigators to church on Sunday, even though there were many that promised they would be to church. Every time an investigator misses a week at church we have to push their baptism back another week. Because you have to go to church for at least 2 times before you are baptized and alot of our investigators still haven't made the commitment to get up in the morning to church. But we will go and rough them up in a good way this week and make sure they make it to church on Sunday. So yeah last P-day we went to a "waterfall" I wont lie it was pretty weak. Maybe like 12 feet high or something. But we got to hike around a little bit by it and see the natural beauty of Brasil. We saw a couple toucans and some beautiful views. I will include some pictures for you guys to all see. We were blessed this week to find a Lady that wants to be baptized. We were meeting with some investigators that we had found through inspired tracting. First let me explain inspired tracting. Its pretty much my favorite thing to do on the mission in order to find new people. The best way to find people to baptize is through member referrals. The chances are much more higher of people progressing when they have a member friends backing them and supporting them. But what is even better is when we receive a referral from The Lord. And this is how we do it, its a pretty long process but well worth it. So first each companion spends several minutes in their own personal prayer, asking for inspiration, help, pleading for forgiveness, and for the companionship of the Holy Ghost. Then after this we pray together as a companionship doing the same thing. Asking for forgiveness of our faults as missionaries, and pleading for the Spirit to be with us and guide us. Basically we humble ourselves before our Father in Heaven. Then we look at map of our area. We pick a general area and then each companion picks ten streets that he feels impressed to chooses Then we compare our lists of streets. And never fail there is several that are the same. So we then take these streets and pray over them, asking Heavenly Father if there is people prepared to receive the Gospel on these streets that we will be able to find them. Then we go out and do it. And guess what every time we did it we found several people who want to be baptized. All of which we are currently still working with. Unfortunately we don't do this very much and I would really like to do it more so me and Elder Reed decided we are going to start doing it again this week. But when we go through these steps and are guided by the Spirit it is the same as if the Savior himself gave us the street and said "Go forth on this street and feed my Sheep." So anyway we were meeting with a family that we met through inspired tracting that is ready to be baptized today except for the stinking fact that they aren't married! And marriages here take at least one month to make legal, I don't understand it, and the family hasn't taken the steps to get married yet. But as we were leaving their house a Lady that lives right across the street in a big house with a huge tall all around it, with no buzzer or way to seen inside she came out and asked us if we had already taken her info down. We were like what? Not yet! And we got all of her info and phone number and stuff. And We taught her on Friday the restoration and she accepted to be baptized. Her name is Carmen and she is a really timid shy lady, but she seems genuine. It appears that the Lord had more multiple people on that street that we had been directed to tract. So by the way we had my first two baptisms this week! Two little girls named Alline and Adriane. We basically had to do nothing. Their mom is a member but not active in the church and I don't know about their dad. But we were like hey how come you guys aren't baptized yet? And they didn't have an answer and so we talked to their mom and asked if we could teach them a little and baptize them, and she agreed! So we set up a date to baptize them. It was about as easy as it gets, they have already gone to churches many times but our zone leaders said that we needed to teach them a little to make sure they know why we are baptized and stuff like that. They were baptized by their Cousin Diego. Who is a returned missionary of about a year. He is a super cool dude and is actually engaged to an American named Ruth that is here in Cáceres right now. We get to talk to her fairly often she is from Washington and is going to school at BYU Idaho. But we fasted on fast Sunday that we would find people to baptize during the week and thats what happened! That Lord always blesses fasts. Wow the Saturday you guys had sounds like a pain the neck. Funny cause our Saturday was a pain in the neck too until we had the baptism that evening. We had like 4 people that we had set up to go and see and every single one of them wasn't at home. It was the pits. Nothing seemed to go right. No one wanted to hear us that day. In truth it really was a tough week. It was cloudy almost everyday like it was going to rain but it never rained. It was funny cause it got to about 70 degrees and people were dying of the cold. Everyone had the sniffles and a cold and whenever we visited people they were wrapped up in blankets and everyone had layers and layers of clothing on. It was kinda funny actually. But also its kinda hard cause it really does affect your mood when the sun isn't out. There seemed to be alot more grim faces out in the streets than usual, and I know that Elder Reed and I felt very un excited to work during the week. Most days we feel good about being out doing stuff, but this week just felt different. There really us power in light, especially the Light of Christ. Even though it seems dark and there might be no sun the Light of Christ can warm in heart and lift spirits no matter what is happening. But the baptism was a really cool experience. Its definitely different than in the states. Its just a simple opening prayer singing of hymns a spiritual thought on baptism, the baptisms and then a closing hymn. And even though it doesn't seem like much the spirit was super powerful and the feeling of peace and comfort was upon everyone in attendance. The other missionaries baptized a young woman named Laryssa. She is 13 and has been investigating the church for many many months and had finally decided to get baptized. She is in one of the pictures as well. But I'm grateful for this week and I'm really looking forward to this upcoming week. Thanks for your letters and prayers. I'm gonna spend a while trying to upload as many pictures as I can cause its still really slow here. But I love you guys all so much, and I am so blessed to have such a wonderful family! Até mais! -Elder Kennington