A simple invitation

This week has been excellent. I have learned a lot. We had our Mission Leadership Council meeting this week and afterwards we gave the zone training. I learned so much at the council and at the zone training too. Im grateful it all went super well. Everyone is super pumped to work! We had 3 baptisms already this week and we have more for every week for the rest of the month! Im super happy because we have been working and following up nonstop. We have had some struggles in our own area with getting our investigators to church recently but the Lord hasnt let our hard work and sweat go to nothing. Something cool happened this week that surprised me. Last monday night I was on a division with another elder in our zone and we were with some members on the road on our way to visit a family. As we were stopped at the crosswalk, I noticed an old man who was stuck outside his apartment complex because the gate was closed and the gatekeeper wasnt there. I noticed the old man hitting the gate with his cane to try and get their attention. So I went over to the gate and asked the man if I could help him call the gatekeepers. The member who was with us called the gatekeepers while I talked to the old man. After quickly helping him out, the gatekeepers arrived and let him in. He kindly thanked us. Without hesitation I invited him to go to church on Sunday. Since it was monday I doubted he would remember on Sunday. To my surpise, Sunday arrived and he was there 10 minutes early sitting down with the elders in a suit and tie!!! We anxiously sat and talked to him throughout the meetings. He loved it. He was actively participating in every meeting. He is super intellegent and super humble...thats a hard combination to find. We will start giving him discussions tomorrow, and we already have members who will do a FHE with him on Thursday. His name is Luis! 

I want to tell you guys that I am so happy to be here in Rio serving the Lord. I love these people here and I love this work. I am going to dearly miss it when I come back home. I appreciate your prayers. They make a difference. I know this work is true and that the Lord will continue blessing us in every aspect of our lives as we continue to embrace this great cause.

20 Investigators

The work keeps moving along in Brazil. Just had this experience I want to share. The other day we went to visit one of our contacts and it turns out that this guy lives with 20 other guys that all work for the same company. They live in a huge apartment. Well we got to know every one of them and then rounded everyone up in a huge circle and we started teaching them, all 20. It was cool because all of them had different religions. We taught them the restoration in about 20 minutes got them all anxious to read the book of mormon, pray, and to go to church. All 20 said they would go next week! They felt the spirit in that short lesson and even accepted the invite to be baptized! We are going to follow up with all of them next week. We are going to try to commit and baptize all of them by the end of this month. Can you imagine 20 guys around 19-24 years old all being baptized on the same day?! How awesome would that be?! Take care and the Lord is truly hastening his work!
Love you all!

Filling up the Font

I have never gone through such a struggle to baptize somebody. About 2 hours before the baptism was scheduled we discovered that the water in the chapel ran out and the baptismal font wasnt even halfway full. It was not high enough to completely submerge a person. Bishop wanted to reschedule the baptism, but I was concerned about doing that. I said a prayer in the bathroom and asked what we should do. I felt like we needed to have the baptism that day.  I knew everything was in the Lords hands and that he would help us resolve the problem. For me, it was a great lesson on faith, works and prayer. The Lord didn't immediately show us what to do after I had prayed. I had tried my hardest to resolve the problem before I prayed, and then after I had prayed and asked for guidance I continued to try my hardest - asking everyone in the ward for any other possible way. Finally, out of the blue, someone told us about an underground water storage unit behind the church. We quickly went to the storage unit and opened it up. To our astonishment, we could see plenty of fresh, clean water, but with one problem, it was too deep to reach. So I decided to tie a thin rope to a bucket to pull the water out. With the help of the other missionaries, extra buckets that happened to be at the church, and a few members we were able to take out the water, one bucket at a time, and carry them one by one to the font. After about an hour and a half of manually pulling water out of the tanks, we managed to fill up the baptismal font enough to proceed with the baptism. We finished before the meetings were over and the baptism miraculously started on time. 

Elder Nascimento

This week was awesome. We baptized a man that was married to a member. We call this in the mission ''completing a family.'' The spirit was very strong when Ronaldo (the dad) was baptized. He for sure will lead his family to the temple. We visited them last night after the baptism and talked about the ordinances in the temples. There is nothing better than seeing the Lords hand work miracles with the families we teach. No greater joy comes from helping a family eternally progress.

This week we had an awesome activity that my companion and i organized with the stake. We got everyone together on Saturday morning (mostly young men and women) and we went to a park and did contacts using the Book of Mormon. We had over 26 participants and we made over 400 contacts, got 115 adresses, and marked 13 baptisms! It was such a cool experience. I was taking a bunch of pictures of all the youth and the stake president making contacts with everyone. It was so cool to help the youth open their mouths and share the restored gospel using the Book of Mormon. The youth really gained greater confidence sharing their testimonies with others. Was great training for them too, being future misisonaries. They were able to feel the joy of sharing the gospel with others.

Love you guys tons! Have a good week up there!

I am still in Jacarepaguá and my companion is still Elder Amorim. I am on my second transfer with him. We are finishing up 3 months together. I am training him and the training is a period of 12 weeks. He is 25 years old and he is from Brazilia (North of São Paulo). He has a great attitude about the work, and to me attitude is everything.  I have had more success with him than I have had with any other companion (he is my 4th companion in the field). I have had 3 brazilian companions and 1 american.

This is my second area so far. Its called Jacarepaguá which is the name of the city means alligator. So yeah if you translate it to english im living in Alligator, River of January. Its awesome. Its definitely upperclass here. There still are a ton of slums but theres tons of nice apartment buildings too. Its more like the city life. Our apartment is right next to the church on one of the main roads called Geramârio Dantis.

I sent a pic of me and my companion from a lookout point from one of the members house. That is a shot of the other side of town that is 100% slums. One the other side of that hill is where the city is, as well as our house and the church.

So the day to day work has been really good. We are teaching a ton. We study until 12 (1 more hour for training for my companion and 1 hour for language study). Then we walk to lunch which is usually about a 30min-1hr walk. Then we go out and teach! We have been teaching a couple families that have finally went to church. They were lined up to be baptized this week but it fell through. Its really a bummer but were getting back on our feet and we are gonna keep going 100%

Thanks also for your prayers. I really feel divine help and i know its because you guys are praying for me and my companion. So Elder Amorim - my child (thats what we call the missionaries we train. They call their trainers their dads lol) and i have been blessed with a lot of success this month. We baptized 7 people this month including a family. Our zone had 23 total baptisms this month, which was the most it has ever had. To give you guys an idea for how often baptism happen here, in a zone its average to baptize 8-12 people a month.  I am so happy and grateful for this.

I feel so grateful for the opportunity to serve here. My companion and i have felt a HUGE difference in the ward. The members are working with us so much more now, the ward attendance has grown significantly since i have been here in the past 3 months. The recent converts are even working with us. This has been such an amazing experience. I have learned that this work is not possible without the help of the members. My companion and i have worked so hard these past few months to get the confidence of the members and to get this ward fired up to serve with us. It has made all the difference. We worked side by side with our WML, bishop and the Elders quorum president to have this success. Miracles have happened and its not because of us, its because of the members. I hope you guys find time to help the missionaries and ask for specific people or families that you can visit with them. If the missionaries in your ward are serious about the work, they will do anything to visit people with you guys. Members make the difference.

Things have changed a lot here. I got a new companion this week. His name is Elder Sutto. He is a brazilian from São Paulo. He has about a year and a half in the field so he is my senior companion. Its kind of crazy though because my last companion, Elder Andrade is still living in the same house as me. He is training a new American in the same area - Duque de Caxias. So that means we have 4 missionaries for one ward. Also we are the only ward in Rio de Janeiro that has more than 2 missionaries now. Strange right? Last week Elder Andrade and I had a lot of success with the open house of the church. We had over 200 people leave there addresses and we taught people inside the church after a tour. It was really a miracle because every single person we taught inside the church accepted our invite to be baptized. We marked 25 baptismal dates last week alone. So as you can imagine its impossible for just the two of us to visit all these people that have baptismal dates and really prepare them to be baptized. So our mission president gave us 2 more missionaries to serve with us. Its definitely different because we havent divided the area yet. Also having 4 missionaries under one roof is quite different. We had a baptism this past Sunday too. I am hoping that we can continue the success that we are having for the next couple weeks at least. Every week so far this month we have had a baptism! I have learned a lot and have really been spiritually strengthened.

 A couple of random things to share. I havent played sports a single day yet here in Rio, not even on p days. We have a rule where you cant play soccer in our mission, and nobody likes to play any other sport than soccer so yeah. Also its a lot different because we only have 1 meal a day - lunch, and its always rice and beans. We also walk everywhere we go whereas in the US you drive or ride a bike.

Both pairs of my shoes are completely smooth on the bottom from walking so much. So when its rainy and the ground is slick, i have a good chance of falling. Last week i fell in the mud and had mud all over my clothes. Yesterday i fell once in a ditch, and once on the side walk. My companion nearly died from laughing so hard. Oh also yesterday night it was raining so hard when we were walking from one members house to another to teach their non member family members. It just so happened to rain like it has never rained before. The roads we were walking on too werent normal roads. They were just paths of dirt. There is also no draining system on any of the roads too so all the water just piles up and literally rivers form and flood the houses. So last night when it was just pouring, we were stuck in the rain for about half an hour walking through small rivers of water that were half way up our calves. Im pretty sure my shoes are completely ruined now haha. But when we finally arrived at the members house, it had looked like we had both taken baths with our clothes on! No joke!

This past week has been amazing. We found and taught an amazing family this week. Marcos, Edigane and their two kids just have a great spirit about them. After many visits this past week he decided to be baptized. The mom is deaf so teaching has been a struggle with her but both her and her husband have already noticed changes in their lives from living the gospel. He received a job this week 5 days after he started reading the Book of Mormon and sincerely praying. He and his family visited church with us this Sunday too. His testimony is growing and his desires to share the gospel with his family are increasing. It is really a beautiful thing. My companion and I have been praying for a while that we would have been able to find a family like this. Their lives are changing for the better and never will be the same again! Im so grateful to God for these opportunities. They are truly priceless.

The Lord is really moving his work forward in these last days. Our mission, Rio de Janeiro will be split into 2 missions this summer. I do not know where I will go or which mission I will be in but I know that the Lord will put me where I need to be to carry his work forward. Our mission president had a meeting with us this past week before it was announced on Saturday about the division of our mission. He testified that the Lord has and is preparing families here. He testified that he knows the Lord has a plan to build a temple here in the near future and that he needs more missionaries because there are more people ready to receive the gospel. Any ways it was a really cool experience and i am very motivated to continue working hard! 

So this week has been quite an experience. I had my first baptism with Elder Andrade. My companion let me baptize her. Her name is Maria das Neves Siqueira da Silva. It was a great opportunity. She has literally changed her life around in the matter of weeks. She has stopped smoking, and drinking coffee. She has developed a strong testimony of the restored gospel. I am blessed to have been a part of this. I give all credit to Heavenly Father for our success. We are simply instruments in his hands. He prepared her for this day and we are simply here to guide these people to the path of the Lord.

We are teaching lots of other people too. Mostly families. My companion and i have really set a goal to teach more families because the gospel really blesses them more and the home is the perfect place to learn the gospel together. The family can also go through the temple and be sealed together for all eternity. But to sum it up families just have more potential. In one of the families we taught this past week, the grandma who lives there and who we taught and visited with as well past away this past friday. It has been really rough on the family and we have been there helping them out and just having them talk to us. I can tell just listening to them alleviates a lot of their stress. They are a family of 8. I think the gospel will really help this family as we continue to visit and teach them and relate it to their lives.

Feliz ano novo! Hope everyone had a great new year! Here is what is going on right now in our area.

We have two baptismal dates but they are both going to be post-poned. One because the mom wants to know more about the church, and the other because she works on the sabbath. We have some other potential people though. Our main focus is teaching families though.

This past week we had taught a 15 year old boy the first lesson and commited him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. When we followed up we talked to him about it and he said that he said that he ''felt the pressence of God.'' We invited him to be baptized and he accepted. He was beaming with excitement. The next day when we returned to teach him, his mom was right there waiting to kick us out. She went on and on about how we were crazy, and weren't going to baptize anyone in her house, and a bunch of other things. We were pollite with her back and left. We were really saddened. We prayed that night specifically for the family of Lucas that their hearts would be softened. Literally the next day when we were proselyting in front of the church on the street, two sisters of Lucas come up to me and talked to me. They said that their mom felt really bad for what she had done and that she apologizes and that we are welcome to return! Talk about a serious change of heart! My companion and I were so happy! The next day we visited their mom and got to know her and established a foundation of trust with her. Things are better and the Lord has answered our prayers. 

Any ways, all is going great here! We have a lot of potential with the people we are teaching right now! I love and miss everyone and wish the best for you all! Feliz ano novo denovo!

Finished up at the CTM and ready to hit the streets and preach the Gospel to the people of Brazil. Elder Nascimento's first area.

Arrival at CTM!