Conference Weekend!

The Notorious Lava Lava!

What an awesome testimony growing week!! To start out, last P-day we played volleyball with a bunch of elders and sisters! It was awesome and I am trying my best to start a new trend here in Brazil...wearing LAVA LAVA’s!!!! Haha yep I played volleyball in my lava lava last week and it was awesome! I had the thought before we started playing to throw some shorts on underneath, JUST IN CASE. Well I didn’t! What could possibly go wrong?! Well NOTE TO SELF when you are playing volleyball in a lava lava make sure you wear shorts and Don’t try to kick the ball!!!

Elder Bybee: "OPA"!!!

Sister Santos:"OPA!!!"

Sister ARAÚJO (Our Mission president’s wife):"OPA!!!!!!!!!!!"

Yep DONT KICK!! Haha 

Tuesday was the first day since I have been in Brazil that I woke and actually thought "We can do this". We tried to get into 3 people’s homes on the main island of Vitória but none of them were home. I was getting a little frustrated but I decided I needed to change my attitude! We started talking to a bunch of people on the street and Elder Torres asked if I wanted to play a game that should help with your Portuguese?  The game was to take turns coming up with one random word in Portuguese that we had to use while we were talking to people that we had just met on the street. I came up with a really good word for Elder Torres, it was Sorveite which means Ice Cream!:) Haha that wasn’t nice but he did an awesome job with it! It was a lot of fun meeting and talking to new people and trying to learn new ways to use the Portuguese language. That day flew by!

So grateful for New Glasses!

Wednesday we knocked on doors. Now this is not something that we usually do here in Brazil and get success from but it turned out it was actually pretty good and we have three new potential investigators. We are excited to see what happens!

Thursday was a very strange day! We were talking to people on the street again but we as we walked by this one guy we decided to continue on because he just seemed a little creepy. Now USUALLY we don’t do that but it was definitely weird. As we passed he started yelling and stopped us.  He wanted to talk to us about the Book of Mormon and some things that other missionaries had taught him. He started telling us about some things that he had done in the past. NOW IT GETS WEIRD! Here in Brazil a lot of people believe in voodoo. He then tells us that he can never be loved by Christ again because of his past. I took the restoration pamphlet that we had given him and told him to look at the Lamb that Christ is holding and HE COULDN’T. He then took us over to the spot where he was sitting and showed us all of his Voodoo stuff! I HAVE NEVER FELT SO WEIRD OR LOST; ESPECIALLY FROM THE SPIRIT IN MY LIFE!!! I grabbed his shoulder and told him that anything that he had done in his past could be forgiven! When I touched his shoulder I had a very sharp pain on my wrist... I didn’t think anything of it at the time. We decided to pray for this man so we started praying and just as Elder Torres said "Please bless this man." SOMETHING pushed us both back. Elder Torres finished the prayer and just as he said amen and the man almost fell over. My companion grabbed me by the arm and we took off! We tried to talk to each other both in English and Portuguese but we could not understand each other. We had to stop and kneel on the corner of the street and pray. I started my prayer in English but somewhere in the middle changed to Portuguese. It was the biggest relief that I have EVER gotten in my life. I want all of you to know that Satan is VERY REAL and VERY POWERFUL! But through the power of the Holy Ghost and Jesus Christ we have to power to ALWAYS over come him!!! Even though this was a very scary ordeal, it taught me a very valuable lesson!

Is anything better...Guava & General Conference?

I was able to listen and watch General Conference in English this week and was so grateful for that!! I loved all of the talks that were given but there was one that really stood out to me. I can’t remember who gave the talk but he started out by talking about the Jaredites coming across to the Promise Land. In my personal study I studied this and it is true. Why didn’t God just take away their hardships and give them a nice smooth sailing to the Promise Land? By this talk we learn that is was for the best of the Jaridites! When they were in need of something like air they HAD to pray. This was the ONLY way that God was able to keep fear in their hearts so that they would always remember Him. Now this morning I was reading on in Ether 6 after the Lord has touched the stones. In verse 3 is says “And thus the Lord caused stones to shine in darkness, to give light unto men, women, and children, that they might not cross the great waters in darkness". To me I think of this as the Holy Ghost or in everyone’s case the Light of Christ. The chapter continues as the Lord explains that He WILL send forth hard winds. I always thought that it was so they could get there and it is but it was to keep them strong in their faith as well! I was reading in 1 Peter the other day as well and I love chapter 1 vs 7 where he talks about the trial of our faith. These winds WILL come, these hard times are here and we don’t want them BUT the lord has given us a way that we can see the light always! The brother of Jared thought he was tempting God by bringing the stones to him to touch and maybe he was. But the Lord gave them so that we would have a way to continue on. Sometimes we are scared to pray for things because we don’t know if they are going to come true or we are scared that they will come true. Through our faith however all things are possible!

I love you all and hope that everyone is doing good! With what I have been given today I honestly hope that I can go through this probationary life together with you all and with Christ! I love you all and miss you but just as Russell M. Nelson said "We need to love our Heavenly Father more than we love our mortal parents." I am here because I love Him and I want others to find that love! A mission is hard but I know that I can make it through. God had given me you all as MY Light!

EU AMO VOCÊS!!!

Amor,

Elder Stilson