Hello
everyone.
This
week we had a zone conference and a Branch Conference. In our zone conference we learned about how to
do better invites. We learned that lots of times investigators don’t progress
because of our bad invites. Inviting someone to act is so key and crucial in
every part of the gospel. President Bigelow explained that many times we have a
huge spiritual experience (during a talk, or general conference, or devotional,
etc.) and afterwards nothing changes or happens in our life because we weren´t
invited to change.
The
temple was awesome! I always learn so much in the temple and feel so good. It
is the closest place to Heaven on earth and I am grateful to have a temple
recommend. This week was also São João, which is one of the bigger holidays here
in the nordeste. We ate tons of corn! I mean tons. And we inhaled so much smoke
from all the bon fires, I think I am getting lung cancer. But nonetheless it
was fun, even if we didn’t get to go to the ward party.
Yesterday
we had branch conference at church. Most importantly the branch became a ward!
So we have a new bishop now! The branch was organized about 21 years ago and
has finally become a ward. So many less actives came, and lots of members
invited non-member friends. So we were filled with people to talk to. Our
branch presidente was crying the whole time because he was so happy.
Some
highlights this week about our investigators are first that Cleberson and Rute
have finally entered into the process of getting married! So they will get
married on 16 of July and baptized on the 17th. On the way to the cartório, a
police pulled over Cleberson because his motorcycle’s headlight was out. The
police officer explained that he would have to give him a huge ticket and could
take his motorcycle. Cleberson then said "Please man, I am going to the
cartório right now." and the cop jokingly says "what, are you gonna
get yourself married?" and Cleberson was like "yeah actually I
am" and then the cop let him go. haha bençãos.
Another
progressing investigator we have is Rosângela. She has searched her whole life
for the true church and hasn't found it anywhere. She has visited all the
churches except the Church of Jesus Christ. When we showed her the Book of
Mormon, she immediately loved it. It has been about three weeks since we
started teaching her, and she is already in Jacob! She already knows that the
church is true and is only lacking a few things to be baptized.
This
past week I have been starting to study the doctrine of the lessons in PME
(chap 3). This last week I studied about how God is our Loving Heavenly Father.
I was blown away about the scriptures I encountered that I have never seen or paid
much attention to before. I have felt God's love even stronger this week. One
scripture that touched me a bunch was 2 Nephi 1:15. Also, something funny is
that Elder Villamar told me that one night he woke up in the middle of the
night and heard that I was laughing in my sleep. He said that he started to
laugh too because of me. He said "I don't understand how you could be so
happy that you even laugh while you are sleeping."
Love
you all!
Elder
Waters
