To Love the people

 

 

Hey everyone!! So this week was another great week. This is the last week of another transfer. It is going by CRAZY FAST!!! It is nuts!!! Everything here is going great. We are serving a lot of people and the new mission President is helping us have a lot of success. Yesterday we confirmed Nair as the newest member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the True church of our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ who governs this church. It was amazing to see her change and she still hasn’t even had 1 drop of coffee since the week before her baptism. I am super happy and super excited for her.
We have also been working with a lot of less actives. We are trying to get them back to church and to help them receive the blessings of an eternal family. One member we are teaching is an 77 year old man named Amaro. He is super funny. Unfortunately he lost his wife 2 years ago. When we visited him on Saturday he told us he would go to church but asked if there was a Single adult class. Ummm… well, my comp told him yes.. Then the man asked if the church prayed for people to meet wives. Ha ha, Thank heaven my comp said no to that one but now he is coming back to church to find him a pretty little lass! Ha ha this man is super funny!!!

We have also been meeting with some younger people. One is a less active named Marcelino. He is the most amazing person. He is so Christ like. If he sees or hears of someone who doesn’t have a shirt he will take his own off of his back and give it to them right then and there. He is awesome but he has a few issues. Here in Campos Rio de Janeiro they do not enforce the law that Marijuana is illegal so he is kind of a pot head. We are teaching both he and his girlfriend Jéssica. They are awesome people but we got to try to help them get off of this crap.. Oh and Jéssica is pregnant. She said that on ONE site on the internet it said that marijuana helped with morning sickness and that it doesn’t affect the child….. I was so surprised to hear her say that. I talked with her and tried to help her understand the dangerous risks. Hopefully she will listen. But they are awesome and we are working hard to help them.

 

This week we were walking in one neighborhood and got a little lost. We couldn’t find one road we needed to take. Well at the corner of the road there was a pastor of the Assembly of God church and I had a weird impression to go and talk to him. (I HAVE NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT ASKING A PASTOR OF THE ASSEMBLY OF GOD FOR DIRECTIONS). I went and asked him for directions but he didn’t where the road was but he told us to talk to the lady in the little mini market across the street. As we turned to walk away he said

 "Yeah I was part of the church 5 years ago!" OPA, so we turned around and talked to him. He told us about his life and about what happened. He said that he was the Ward mission Leader and Elders Quorum President and 1st counselor in the Bishopric. He even went through the temple and made the covenants with God but then went inactive. While he was talking I felt so bad. We talked about the Book of Mormon with him and gave our testimonies. We tried to help him remember the things he knew. After we talked with him for a while we could see he was firm in rejecting all the doctrine I felt such a deep sorrow for him. It was the first time on the mission that I have REALLY seen how much I love the people here. It is hard to love some people you just met on the street but you learn it and the work is so much easier and much more worth it because you realize that "The worth of EVERY SOUL is GREAT in the eyes of God"  and that we are the children of the same Heavenly Father!!
 
Love you all!
Elder Stilson