Bringing the Gospel to Brazil: Conference was fantastic!

Another week gone and out in the good ole Santa Cruz. Sorry that I didn’t send a main email last week, but this week, I’ll leave a solid message. Conference was amazing last week. Many questions and doubts were responded to. Conference had many highlights. I loved D. Todd Christofferson’s thoughts on Christ’s atoning sacrifice. I loved his commentaries on the sacrament. Every piece of bread is unique like every partaker is unique. God and Christ know all of us perfectly. I loved Elder Rasband’s thoughts on God’s perfect plan. God’s plan doesn’t contain coincidence or chance. It is perfect. Quentin L. Cook’s talk on humility showed me the importance in forgiving others, serving with only others and God in mind, and how every church calling requires humility. Neil A. Andersen’s quote on “we don’t know everything, but we know enough” was an answer to one of our investigator’s prayers. Overall, conference was fantastic, and I could talk about the talks forever. Man, I’ve really come to appreciate the words of the prophet, apostles and General Authorities. To make the conference even more sweet, we had the baptisms of Henrique and Helena. After twenty years of waiting, studying, and pondering, Helena was baptized by her son, Bruno, who has waited forever for this moment. She cried throughout the meeting. Henrique, on the other hand, was baptized after just 2 weeks of getting to know the church. Despite different backgrounds, both had huge desires to enter the waters of baptism and be cleansed of their sins. It’s funny here in Brazil, everyone thinks that you have to be nearly perfect after your baptism, but that simply is not true. We know that after we are baptized, our lives will still be hard, we will be faced with the same temptations, and none of us will be perfect. What matters are the desires of our hearts. If we desire to chose the right and learn with our inevitable mistakes, we shall fulfill God’s plan for us. This week, I did an in depth study on desires as members, missionaries and non members. I learned that many types of desires exist whether they are good or bad. I could really take a step back and look at my desires and how these desires affect my life. I know that God wants us to have excellent desires. Look at Peter and John the Beloved. Peter’s desires to return to his Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ was great, but John’s desire to remain on the earth preaching the Gospel was excellent. Excellent desires bring more responsibility, happiness, and spiritual growth (Doctrine and Covenants 7). Look at Alma who had a desire to be an angel to announce God’s word to all. I know that excellent desires allow miracles to happen, make us more loving and humble. May we all have excellent and righteous desires in all aspects of our life. The week was great and ended with the baptisms of Henrique’s brothers, Marcos and Vitor. How sweet the joy to see God’s children follow His son through baptism. I know that these things are true.

Love, Dave