Seriously, it´s already been a week since last Monday?? This week went by so fast! It was awesome and we saw tons of miracles! i felt soo grateful and humbled too because it was a reminder that blessings always come when we do what the Lord wants us to! The week before was really rough and we didn´t see many results of all the work we´ve been doing, but this week we saw so much progress in the people we´re teaching and was just like Heavenly fFather was saying ´´keep going!! there´s still tons you guys can do and I promise I´ll help you out!´´
Monday night we had family home evening with neto and irmão antonio and his family. we watched the restoration and i understood almost all of it! I´m finally learning portuguese!! Afterwards we invited whoever wanted to to share their testimonies of Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel. It´s so cool because we teach the restoration more than any other lesson, but no matter what, I always feel the spirit so strongly when I tell people about Joseph Smith. Before it was like ´´okay, i´m gonna tell them about this vision and just hope that they don´t think it´s weird.´´ but now it´s like ´´did you understand what i just told you?! Joseph Smith saw GOD and JESUS CHRIST!! And it wasn´t even that long ago!!´´ After that, we went and taught Alberto! We started teaching him the plan of salvation that day and it was great!
Tuesday was awesome! One of our investigators, Florencio, called us Monday and was telling us that he was feeling discouraged. We went and taught him and figured out that the real problem is that his wife doesn´t like that we´re teaching her husband when she´s not there. we always have a member with us, but she´s still not happy with the situation. it´s hard to teach them together because they have completely different work schedules, they´re never together unless it´s 10 00 at night! He´s just now starting to realize how important everything we´ve taught him is and he wants to marry his wife in the temple and have an eternal family. Sadly we´re going to have to stop teaching him because we don´t want to offend the wife even more! Hopefully we can find some Elders to teach them. After that, we met the most AMAZING guy ever! his name is Itamar. he speaks a lot of english and is a drummer! He´s Baptist, but doesn´t go to church much. He told us he´d talked to elders in the past but they never actually taught him the lessons. He told us he´s always wanted to visit our church and learn more. sSo we set up an appt with him and went back and taught him on Thursday. We ended the night teaching Alberto. It was a really intense lesson haha. he had a ton of questions and because he´s attended so many churches, he has a lot of different ideas. It was honestly the most difficult lesson I´ve taught on my mission because his questions were so detailed. We followed Elder Holland's advice to "Be Bold" when we were teaching him! In the end he was thanking us and was like ´´oh! it all makes sense now!´´ The greatest words ever spoken!
Wednesday we didn´t have much success until the end of the night. But we kept truckin on until then! We taught Neto and had his home teacher teach with us. We talked about the sacrament and how he can bless it when he has the priesthood, and how it will bless his life! Then we went and taught Alberto. We had a man from our stake come with us (I think he´s part of the high council but I don´t know because I don´t know the names for that stuff in Portuguese..) But we taught about the atonement and it was so amazing! At the end we marked a date for baptism for him for the 12th of October!! It was so sweet, at the end of the lesson, Alberto was talking with the member, and he was like ´´I´m just so grateful for these 2 girls and for what they are sharing. Imagine if they hadn´t chosen to be missionaries, I wouldn´t be here!´´ It reminded me that it all really is worth it. Seriously, the week before was SO hard! I felt like we were working and working and no one wanted to listen to us. But I´m so grateful that I have the opportunity to share the gospel with people like Alberto because they recognize the importance of what we´re sharing and it´s the greatest feeling in the world to see someone start to love and accept the gospel! It makes every sacrifice seem so small and so worth it!
In Thursday, we went back and taught Itamar! It was the greatest first lesson H´ve ever taught. he read the entire pamphlet we left him and was asking us about the different priesthoods. He understood everything we taught and commited to come to church sunday. He is SO prepared! At the end of the night, we taught Alberto again and his older kids came and listened!! I thought it was so amazing because as soon as Alberto made the choice to move forward and be baptized, his family started to progress more and have more interest! Heavenly Father is so good!
Friday we taught this couple Dete and Fabio! We taught Dete last week, but Fabio was working so Friday was our first time teaching him. It was an awesome lesson! Fabio has visited lots of churches and is a little disillusioned by religion. but he loved what we taught and is super excited to hear the prophet speak at general conference! We´ll see what happens with them! We also taught Neto friday night and it was the sweetest lesson ever! At the end we invited him to share his testimony with us and he was thanking us for all we taught him and telling us he is so happy we found him. He also said that he´s super happy that now he knows about Joseph Smith and has new scriptures to read! He´s the best! We ended the night teaching Alberto again and his kids listened again!!! I´m so excited that his family is starting to progress along with him!
Saturday we taught Eduardo, Francisco, and Sonia. they are an awesome family we´re teaching right now. We´ve been teaching them the plan of salvation and so saturday we focused on the temple and how they can be a family forever. They have a lot of love for one another and I know the gospel will just help them have an even more amazing family! When Francisco, the dad, prayed at the end of the lesson, he was very emotional! It was an awesome lesson!
Sunday we went to pick up Itamar for church and when we got there he was waiting for us and he was wearing a suit! NOBODY here wears a suit on their first visit to church! NOBODY! Everyone in the ward thought he was already a member haha. Sonia, Eduardo, and Francisco also came to church for their first time! They all really liked it and got to know the members which was really important. afterwards we had lunch and a lesson with Darlyene. We talked about general conference and how she can prepare to watch it. The other sisters in our ward had a baptism in the afternoon so we went and helped out and got to see Josey be baptized! We found her a few months ago. But they moved to the other part of our ward, where the other sisters work so they took over, it's awesome because we get to see her progress still! So it was so cool to see her be baptized!
I can´t believe it´s General Conference time again!!! iI´m a little scared because I think I have to watch it in Portuguese. I´ve been reading the talks from the last conference in portuguese and I can understand most of it, but I have to use a dictionary a lot for the words they use in their stories because they´re usually words that aren´t very commonly used. So pray for me that I´ll be able to understand and be uplifted by conference too haha! I love you guys all so so much!!
Sister Pehrson
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