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| Cachoeira Zone |
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| Another crowded bus, but we got seats |
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| A bench full of Marina branch members waiting for a bus after church |
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| Cute sisters in our zone |
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| Elder Campbell made a cake for his last zone meeting |
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| Elders in our zone |
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| Hymn practice with Claudia and family |
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| Luciano practicing "Spirit of God" on his guitar |
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| Luciano's parents enjoying a chimarrao |
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| Missionaries love mail! |
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| Singing hymns with Luciano and family |
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| Sunset from our veranda |
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| Thais, Gabriele and family: good singers! |
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| Trail to the bus stop in Quinta |
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| Visiting in Vila Verde |
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| Waiting at a bus stop on Sunday beside a churrascaria. Wow that smells good! |
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We work with these two in the Marina branch: Elders Costa (Brazil) and Gorham (California)
March 9, 2015
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The week flew by
again. Our time is getting short. (We have about 6 weeks left.) This week, we decided that we had better make
a list of things that we want to accomplish and people whom we feel we need to
visit in the time remaining. It was a
long list. We started working on that list this week. There are so many things we would like to see
happen in the lives of people we have met before we go. We are worried that some of these things may
not happen. That makes us sad. Here are a few highlights of our week.
When we visited Artur
this week, we decided to pressure him a little more to make a decision about
baptism. He has been attending church
regularly, prays beautifully, is reading his scriptures a little, etc. Elder Shirley has done a little theater with
him in the past to get his point across.
This week, Sister Shirley told a story, a kind of “imagine with me”
story. It was a story like Artur’s own,
except told as if it had happened to us. (Artur’s wife died 30 years ago and he
raised 3 kids alone). Sister Shirley told the story as if she was
deceased and looking down from heaven. She
told of some of her sorrows, her hopes for her family and for her beloved
husband and her wishes to be reunited as a family someday. We each tried to bear strong testimonies to
Artur. We tried to give it our all this
week. We are anxious for Artur to make
that “leap of faith”. We invited him to
be baptized this month on the day that Thais is being baptized. Unfortunately, Artur told us that he just
doesn’t feel ready yet. He went back to
old excuses like teeth needing fixed, etc.
We tried to remind him of what is most important. He also still hopes for a vision. He has become our friend, someone we really
care about. We felt the urgency to be
bold with him this week. Hopefully, we
didn’t push too hard. We will continue
to visit. But we left his place feeling
a little sad this week.
We sought out
Cristina, Tarso, and Isabela. Cristina
is an active member of the União branch.
Her husband is a non-member and a really nice guy. She had requested a blessing after church
last Sunday because of a bad headache.
They live in a bairro called Vila Verde.
We have wanted to visit them for some time. And we felt like we should check up on her
after the blessing. It was a good visit.
They have a really cute home. But
she still had a headache and was going to the doctor in the afternoon. We had the opportunity to check back again
later in the week. She improved during
the week and was at church on Sunday.
In Tischler’s, the
supermarket across the street from us, we were waiting in line, when a son of a
member came up to greet us. When we were
busy greeting him, someone kept tugging on Sister Shirley’s arm. We looked and it was Melissa Reinbrecht, the
daughter of Roberto and Marcia. This was
the nice, non-member family we visited so much a year ago. We haven’t seen anything of them for a long
time (except for a phone call from them at Christmas). He has been out of town a lot for school and
Marcia has been in nursing school. They
have been super busy. But the whole
family was in the store. We had a nice
visit. The kids have grown a lot. Marcia
is out of nursing school now, working at the hospital and trying to learn
English. She needs to learn that in
order to immigrate to Canada, which they plan to do in a year. It was a good visit. They want us to come for a last visit
sometime soon.
If there was a theme
to our week this week, it would probably be from D & C 25:12: “For my soul
delighteth in the song of the heart. Yea
the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me.”
Some of our favorite and most spiritual times this week were spent in
the singing of hymns in the homes of members and investigators. It wasn’t planned to be that way. But it worked out that way.
We met with Gabriele
and Thais for the last pre-baptism lesson for Thais. We talked about the Word of Wisdom, chastity,
tithing, etc. We had a fun activity for
the tithing discussion. It was a good
lesson. Thais seems excited and ready to
be baptized. And Gabriele seems anxious
for that to happen too. After the
lesson, most of the family came over to sing some hymns. There were Thais, her
mom, her grandma, her great grandma, and three of her aunts. They asked Elder Shirley to play the guitar
for accompaniment. (President Castro
gave permission.) They are good singers
(as we have probably already told you).
They know a lot of the hymns too.
They wanted to do the musical number for Thais’ baptism. They chose “Secret Prayer”. It was beautiful. They are going to try to
get yet one more of Thais’ aunts (Debra) to join them. Claudia is still having trouble smoking. She may go to the doctor for help. She also got some lectures from her
daughters. It looks like she has a lot
of family support. They all said they
would come to church on Sunday. Thais
needed to be there one more time before baptism and also for her interview and
to fill out some paperwork. But we
couldn’t believe it, on Sunday, Claudia, great grandma and a couple of other
family members came. But not Thais or
Gabriele!!!! We couldn’t believe it! They had seemed so enthused! We tried to reach them by phone, but
couldn’t. That meant Thais can’t be
baptized on the 14th! Family
said they thought that Gabriele and Thais were still sleeping! We were so upset! Immediately after meetings, we rode the bus
with family out to Promorar to visit Gabriele and Thais and to find out what
happened. We think Claudia texted
another daughter, Natalia, to go over and wake up Gabriele. When we arrived, Gabriele told us that
Natalia had just been there and they just woke up. She said that she hadn’t slept well during
the night. It was hard not to show our
disappointment though. So the baptism has been postponed one week. It will now, hopefully, take place on March
21 (if Thais comes next week). We
encouraged Gabriele to come too to help fill out the paperwork. We have offered to come out early on the bus
to accompany them. It looks like she
will take us up on our offer. We have
another little lesson scheduled with them this week.
We had the last Zone
meeting with the missionaries before transfers.
Elder Campbell will be going home.
We are afraid we may lose a few missionaries this time. This will also be the last transfer we will
witness in our mission.
We almost forgot our
appointment this week with José. We
remembered late and hurriedly grabbed a bus.
When we arrived, we could see him through the open door, sitting on his
sofa, studying the Book of Mormon. Good
thing we remembered!
It was a nice visit
with Rosangela and the kids. Julio was
gone. But Rosangela tells us that they
are trying to get everything in order to get married before we go home. (We will be surprised if they get paperwork
done that soon!) Although she has heard
all of the lessons for baptism, she would like to hear them again. We have offered to do that for her and Julian
and Emanuele. (They call her “Manu"), but
the Elders will probably do it.
Branch council for
Marina has been moved to Sunday mornings at 7:30 am. In the past they have met on Thursday
evenings. This is kind of a new idea.
They are trying this new time out to see if more people can attend. It seems to be too early for some
though. There have been a few
complaints. Last week not many were
there, but this week they had a few more.
It may work out after all! Also, Elder had to speak in Sacrament meeting
in the Uniaõ branch. His topic “Be
Testimonies of God” based on the article by Dallin H. Oaks in the March
Liahona. He added a lot of interesting,
personal stories and got lots of compliments.
It was another session
of hymn singing on Sunday. We visited
with Luciano and his family at their home in Noemia. Luciano is the nice young man with the cool,
curly hair that gives Elder such a firm handshake that it nearly breaks his
hand. Luciano had some good news today that he will be receiving the
Melchizedek priesthood soon. Luciano’s
mom also needed a blessing. Elder was
able to help with that. It wasn’t planned, but after we gave a short
message, Luciano pulled out his guitar and wanted Elder to play something. Once again, we had fun singing some favorite
hymns with a good family. Luciano gave
us a ride home afterwards. Hymns teach a
wonderful message. Everyone loves
them! We
think “Secret Prayer” has been the favorite of the week too. They also all like “I Stand All Amazed” and,
of course, “I am a Child of God”.
Luciano is learning “The Spirit of God” on his guitar. Beautiful music!
Anyway, we are trying
to make the last weeks of our mission the best weeks! We miss all of you at home! We pray for you! We love you!
Eu te amo!
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