Finding The Missionary In You!

Oi todo mundo! Todo bom?? Aqui em Conilândia todo é perfeito!;) Well, that is about the extent of my Portuguese. Haha, just kidding. This week has been really good and my Portuguese is getting a little better every day! I also have a goal to not have ANY of my American accent left by my one year mark. It’s hard but everyday that gets better too!

Well P-day we went to the Convento da Penha! This is a HUGE Catholic Church on top of one of the Morros here in Vila Velha! When you are on the top you can see the Third Bridge which is AWESOME!! It is the thing to see when you are in Espirito Santo! The HUGE Chocolate factory here in Vila Velha is another big tourist attraction and we are going to visit it on the 2nd of December.

This week was awesome though!!! We didn’t have any baptisms but we have 3 marked for the 7th of December! Their names are Lucas, Daniel, and Gabriel! These are 3 young kids that we met on the street. Daniel was the first that we contacted and we went back to his house and his mom was really interested in our message as well! We want her to be baptized but she smokes so that pushes her date back just a little bit. But while we were teaching Daniel and his mother, Gabriel shows up. Daniel and Gabriel are twins so it was kind of funny when he came in! But then he started to listen and really liked the message. Then Lucas came in. He is very timid and didn’t say anything the first visit but when we went back he came and sat down by himself and loved the message!!! We went back a third time and they had all read the Intro to the BOM but Lucas read up to 1 Nephi 2! When he got to the pictures he read all the descriptions as well as the scriptures!!!! He is VERY Bible smart and when we talked about everything in the bible he knew all the answers but accepted the "new" doctrine. He says that he LOVES the BOM! That is amazing!!! They are great kids and will be even better Missionaries!!!

We were supposed to have a baptism this week but it fell through because the Lady says she isn’t quite ready. We have done everything we can with her and the spirit is so strong when we teach her but Satan is working on her NONSTOP!!! It is really frustrating working with someone to the point of baptism and then have it fall through, especially when they have a testimony.  I guess this is just one of the frustrations of being a missionary. We are going to continue to work with her and I know that one day she will be baptized.

 

I wish we were given more time to email.  There is so much more I would like to share with you all but I am out of time. I would like to thank those of you who have written me! You really have no idea how much those letters mean to me and how some of the simple things you have said have meant the world to me. I love reading your letters and if you have time, please write a little note about how your family is doing when you send your Christmas card so I can have something to write back!!!:) AND DONT FORGET THE CHRISTMAS CARD!!!;) Haha well I love you all so much. God speed be with you!

One more quick thing, this Saturday and Sunday we had an opportunity to hear from Elder Môroni Torgan of the 70 and he talked a lot about missionary work with members! Missionary work is so hard sometimes. 90 percent of our success comes from member referrals! SOMEONE you know needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They either need a blessing or prayer or service or SOMETHING! Please share these people with the missionaries! Even if you are afraid, talk to the missionaries, they will be able to help you. We don’t want to push people away. The missionaries don’t even have to talk about the Gospel in the beginning.  Just having the opportunity to meet with them and find things that they need is the perfect way for the spirit to reach these people’s hearts. Have faith!! And if you have wavering faith as Peter did while walking on water, or the un-surety of the man who brought his son to Christ, do as they did!!! Pray to Heavenly Father and ask him for faith to be able to reach out to these friends and neighbors! I have a testimony about this! It is so hard to approach random people on the street every day.  I ask Heavenly Father to help me with my faith to be able to overcome this and talk to everyone!!! HE WILL HELP YOU just like he is helping me!!! In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

LOVE,
Elder Stilson