Semana 17
Olá família!!
So looks like you
got the pictures I sent last night.. This week was one of the best weeks of my
mission! Unfortunately I have hardly any time today to write about it, but I
will do my best.
This week I finally
felt like a successful missionary. I want to tell you about the progress of the
young man we baptized yesterday, Guilherme. I wrote last week about how
he had asked us what he needed to do to be baptized. This week, we saw his
progression increase exponentially - he has read the Book of Mormon every day,
asking us to mark a new chapter every time we visit, he MARKS his scriptures
(WHAT? First time I´ve ever seen an investigator do that), goes to institute, and
is so involved with our lessons. We asked him this week if he prayed about the
Book of Mormon. He said to us, "I prayed, and I got an answer. I am going
to be baptized." YES!!!! About cried when he said that.
After we taught him
the Restoration, we asked him how he felt about prophets and the Book of Mormon
and Joseph Smith and the First Vision. He said to us, "It makes me feel
complete knowing all this. It´s comforting." I about cried (again, it´s
been an emotional week) when I heard him say that. My heart was so full with
the spirit and happiness for him! He was SO ready for baptism but hadn´t
been able to go to church, and would need to wait another two weeks to be
baptized, which is AFTER the transfer and Sister Carvalho and I will definitely
have a transfer so we were so sad to hear that! He has made so much progress -
he completely stopped smoking and drinking (both coffee and alcohol). So we
told the Elders, and President said that since he was progressing so well,
going to institute and reading and had a response that he could be baptized
that sunday! So Guilherme did all that he could to prepare himself, and he met
with the bishop of our ward, who said that he will be a future missionary. I
believe it with all my heart, too. I have been so emotional the past week or so
because I have been so proud of Guilherme and his progress. He is an
outstanding young man, and will change the lives of many as a missionary. His
baptism yesterday was absolutely beautiful. Afterwards we asked him how he felt
and he said, "words cannot describe how I felt coming out of the
water." He then proceeded to tell us that he had a desire to SERVE A
MISSION. He hasn´t even been confirmed a member yet! I AM SO PROUD OF THAT KID!
Sunday night we had
a serão (I don´t remember the english word for this? When you have a guest
speaker for a large group of people) with Elder Leal (Area 70) and President
Soares speaking, and brought Guilherme and Weorrana (the little girl we
baptized yesterday too, the neighbor of Guilherme and sister to less actives).
The whole meeting talked about missionary work. After the meeting was over,
Guilherme went up to the front to talk to Elder Leal and President and shook
their hands as he introduced himself as a future missionary.
This, is true conversion.
For the first time on my mission, I feel like I have really done my job. I had
the opportunity to bring a soul to the fold of God, who experienced a change of
heart, and now has desires to serve others and bring the same light and truth
to them. My heart is so full.
Other blessings for
this week - We´ve been teaching Weorrana´s brother Hugo, but he had been
digressing the past few weeks as he lost interest and we focused more on
preparing the other two for baptism (we teach Hugo, Weorrana, and Guilherme
together). But us missionaries decided to start having integration activities
at the church thursday nights, and this thursday we brought all of them and
Hugo started to have interest again. This weekend when we visited them, we
asked Hugo if he read the Book of Mormon. To our surprise, he said yes! As we
asked him how it went, he looked at the ground all embarrassed and said,
"I prayed, too." We asked him if he got a response from Heavenly
Father. He nodded, smiling. We said, "will you prepare to be baptized?"
He nodded again. "Are you excited?" He vigorously nodded and was so
happy! It was such an amazing week of progress and blessings.
In other news, I
gave a talk yesterday. My second in the same ward haha. I spoke on diligence -
I prepared it that morning. Never in my life would I have thought I would
become that kind of person to prepare the morning of but you just don´t have
time on the mission haha.
Also, we´ve
continued to pick lice out of each other´s hair this entire week since last
sunday´s horrific discovery.... man. Brazil really gets to ya. I´m over it
though.
I love you all, I´m
happy and healthy and SO nervous for transfers this week because I´m thinking
I´ll be transferred or I know at least I´ll be getting a new companion. Crazy
that my training is over this week and I´m officially in the "pool of
candidates" to be a trainer/senior.... yikes.
Com tanto amor para
todos,
Sister Brown
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