Bringing the Gospel to Brazil: Week of loucura

E ai tche!!! This week was crazy. I have never run around a city more than this week. This week, I was able to participate in 5 divisions or splits, travel to 3 different cities, all while my comp got super sick. This week we were able to have an awesome zone conference with Pres. Campos. We talked about how to help our investigators enter in the baptismal waters. The meeting was super spiritual. Pres. Campos made a remark that really stood out to me. He said that in his hotel was a huge conference of the TV Globo (the biggest television channel in Brazil). He told us that this conference wasn’t the most important meeting being held that day in Caxias, but that our conference was far more important. Although the conference had 100s of famous journalists and actors, our conference had 20 journalists, communicators, and representatives of the true and eternal gospel. Man, when President made that bold statement, I felt honored to be a missionary of Jesus Christ and felt the importance of my daily labors.

Like I said, the conference was on helping our investigators be baptized. It was awesome because we could immediately apply with Juan. Juan is a teenager, 14 years old, who was invited to church last Sunday by his good friend Alex. He loved church. We marked a visit with him on Monday. After taking a 40 minute bus to the outskirts of Caxias, we found his humble house. We learned that his brother is member and that his family supports the church 100%. We left a message and at the end, we didn’t even have to invite him to be baptized. He told us that he was wanting to be baptized on Saturday. The next 5 days, we visited him and his family. It was awesome seeing him get more excited for his baptism. On Saturday, his great friend, Alex, was able to baptize him. It was an awesome process and an amazingly spiritual baptism meeting. Yesterday, he received the gift of the Holy Ghost, and next week he will get the priesthood. Overall, it was awesome to see such a change in Juan.

The end of the week got even better when Bira, Helena, and Bruno from Santa Cruz made a 3 hour trip to Caxias just to give me a visit. They are awesome Bira is a 1^st counselor in the YM and prepping to receive the Melchizedek priesthood. Helena is first counselor in the YW, and Bruno leaves in 2 weeks for his mission in Brasilia. They are loving the church and serving to the max. Bira/Helena were excited to tell me that they had recently gotten their patriarchal blessings. Overall, I was thrilled.

“Não pregues coisa alguma a esta geração, a não ser arrependimento; guarda meus mandamentos e ajuda a trazer à luz minha obra, de acordo com meus mandamentos; e serás abençoado.” Doctrine & Covenants 6:9 ("Say nothing but repentance unto this generation; keep my commandments, and assist to bring forth my work, according to my commandments, and you shall be blessed.")

Love, Dave