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Semana 32

By 8:22 AM

Olá família!

I don´t have a ton of time to write today, these internet houses in Mossoró are really awful and close early and so I don´t have time... but wanted to send my news from this week!

Adam can´t believe you´re really starting BYU now! Hey be sure to download the Y app - gives you a map of campus, where your classes are, where there are vending machines on campus, you know, important things.. haha

Also got letters this week! Letters from Holly, and mom all of your letters from the primary kids! That just made my day.

Other random things - Sister Alarcón my companion is from Argentina. I´ve discovered this transfer that I understand Spanish!!! Who woulda known - speaking Portuguese is more helpful than I realized haha

Last week´s P day a whole bunch of missionaries from the zone got together at our church building, and we decided to surprise them all and have a water balloon fight. It was the funnest day, and super refreshing in the blazing heat.. talk about 35 degrees Celcius in the shade, and it´s winter still...

As for the work week:
First off - we worked SUPER diligently and had 3 baptisms this week!!! I´ll explain later. As in all things, as we worked harder, so did Satan. While we had much success, lots of things fell through. We have been teaching an investigator named Augusto, a college kid who really thinks things through - teaching him has strengthened my testimony as I questioned what I really believed and how to answer his questions. However after battling for months trying to teach him, I finally asked him what his expectations for meeting with us were - he had none. I asked him if he had interest in going to church - no. So we decided to cut him from our teaching group - which is always super hard when you invest so much in an investigator. I explained to him our purpose as missionaries, that we are here to invite others to come closer to Christ, and we needed to spend our time effectively finding and helping other people if he didn´t want to progress and continue. It was really hard for us both. But as we have incredible moments on the mission, the hard times come as well.

While this week was extremely exhausting, we didn´t give up even when things got hard. One day we were walking to an appointment and a man called us from the sidewalk. "Are you the Mormons?" "Yes, we are!" "Come here!" he said. So we went over to talk to him and he went inside, and came back carrying a Book of Mormon. His story is this: 15 years ago he started meeting with the missionaries, but for one reason or another things didn´t work out and he stopped going to church. 3 years ago, missionaries found him again and he progressed until he had a baptismal date and interview completed. Something happened however and he wasn´t baptized. Soon after, he moved. He returned 3 months ago and told us, "I want to come back to church, and I want to be baptized." WHAT A MIRACLE! It was like this man fell out of the sky right into our hands. We need to help him with a few addictions first (which is basically everyone here) but he will be baptized here in a few weeks. The other miracle for this week was our investigator named Mery. We invited her to be baptized at the beginning of last week, and everything was going well and she was progressing, but she has a sister who always participates in our lessons who put a lot of doubts into her head, and afterwards she told us that she would frequent our church but wouldn´t be baptized.. then she was never at home and finally on thursday we managed to catch her at home. We talked about baptism again with her and she said she didn´t feel prepared, but that she was going to talk to her boss and quit her job that she works on sundays so that she can frequent church. So, naturally, (no, it was the Spirit) I marked her baptismal interview for the next day. When the elders came by friday, she came up to us and said that she would be baptized on sunday! Miracles do exist! She went to church all by herself, and was baptized without a problem.

Friday we had 5 baptismal interviews to do with the elders, and we spent the entire day running around our area (we ended up using a taxi because our area is so big) and 2 interviews fell through.. but we ended up baptizing Mery, Haroldo (a 12 year old boy who is super great and wants to be a missionary already awwh) and a primary girl named Fabiana who is friends with some members who have taken her to church for a few months already. I felt truly blessed from the efforts of our labors this week!

This week I learned that in order to solve a problem or make any progress, you need to have a goal or end result in mind. Without knowing your direction and target you don´t know how to work or what you need to do. Not only is this applicable in missionary work, or in the grand scheme of life, but in the little details of our lives as well. The Lord is so involved with the details, He knows us intimately and knows our capacities and our minds. He will show us the way as long as we have that destination.

I love you guys so much and will send more updates next week! Can´t believe it´s already September, where has this year gone? Before you know it we´ll be Skyping for Christmas. :)

I love you, I love you, I love you!


Sister Brown

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