Heya family! Yep, the weeks are really flying by. This week was great: we went to the temple last P-day, which was awesome as usual.
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| "Lovin It" |
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| At the Porto Alegre Temple |
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| "Tootin my horn" |
We had two baptisms last Friday! Dylan and Roberto are now walking around with the Gift of the Holy Ghost and are well on their way to being valiant young men of the church.
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| Dylan's Baptism |
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| The baptism was great, because we had time to organize it and some of the sisters made hot dogs and brought a million liters of soda and everybody came. It was a great party. I'm so glad that the moms of Roberto and Dylan came and participated in the experience. |
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| Roberto's Baptism |
Unfortunately we had marked Nathan to come and be baptized, but two days before the baptism, he completely vanished and despite us waiting in front of his house for hours and calling him, no one knew where he was. It makes me sad because Nathan was who I thought was our strongest investigator, always showing up in a suit and tie at church (he even sat through every session of General Conference!) and despite his busy schedule was reading and praying and progressing. But suddenly, nothing.
We heard from Nathan's girlfriend (she is a member, which is how he got introduced to the church) that he had an argument with her dad, and left a bit angrily, and that he had called to say that he was traveling. No!
How sad. Maybe we won't be able to baptized him this transfer but I'm sure he'll remember the things he read, learned, and felt, and come around to accept a visit with us and we can help him feel the spirit again and help him to be baptized. But, it's really awesome the Dylan and Roberto were baptized and all went well!
Cristielle and Tainara are doing AWESOME! Man, I am so happy for them. So great. Cristielle has completely stopped smoking and is so excited that she's stopped and believes that a miracle happened with her. They are going to church and reading the scripture and staying excited to be baptized. All this and Cristielle is out of work, but she's keeping her hopes up and hitting the streets knowing that something will work out. Man, I love them. Their baptism will be so great!
Last Wednesday we were feeling pretty low after seeing Andreia and Aneici give up on their baptismal dates, and Nathan having dissapeared, and we stopped by Eloi and Jussara's house to ask for a reference. Their son-in-law was there, and had served in Brasilia (capital of Brasil). We expressed some of our frustrations with him and asked him what he did in times like these. He kind of just told us to suck it up and said that in his mission, he could go out on the street for an hour and get 10 new people to be baptized every day. We were kind of laughing at this idea, but he just told us we had to have faith. Then a cousin showed up and we asked for a reference and he told us his girlfriend wasn't a member and was at home, and so then this son-in-law, Rafael, challenges us to go there and invite her to be baptized in two weeks, on the first visit. He said that if we managed to mark the date he would go tracting with us and mark 10 baptisms for us. We accepted, and went off to this house, and we pretty much went into the house, and instead of trying to be friendly and joke around and try to show the people that we were normal and gain confidence like that, we just went in just with the confidence in the Spirit and man... it was a cool visit. I wanted to describe it but it's hard to. Anyway, we marked the baptism with the girlfriend, Bruna, and taught this family of 7 and everybody was paying attention and interested. Bruna went to church and we've been visiting her and she still wants to be baptized! Cool! The results really are just based on faith.
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| "Where did it'all go?" |
Anyway, that's this week. I love that we're working hard here! It's great because I'm seeing things get done and the time is flying, so I get happy with the work and happy that I'm getting closer and closer to being with my fam! Awesome. I hope you guys can stay busy and be focused on getting results also.
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| Elder Ribeiro |
I love you guys lots! Have a good week! Thank you so much for the prayers!
Love love love,
Elder Con
p.s. Man, these dinner photos are weird. It was a long week guys... I like Elder Ribeiro's attempt to make a super-cup using two cups combined together for extra drinking elevation. Yeah, we really needed this P-day to relax. Life on the mission!
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