Thanks for all the emails! And i want to give a special thanks to Jenny for the photos. They were great! And as always, thanks for all the prayers!
This week was one more week in Paradise, but it turned out to be even better than last week! This is about how it went...
We started the week focusing on our marked investigator, Luis, because his baptism will be this Sunday, in between sessions of conference. I was a bit worried about how things would go but he turned out to be the most golden, prepared, and focused investigator in the history of Portugal! He told us, "my main focus right now is baptism". This coming form a man who doesn´t have a job and lives with another family here in Portugal while his wife and kids live in Brazil. We´ve taught him just about everything and he´s loved it all so we´re not so worried about him anymore. But on Thursday, things got more exciting...
We had planned on talking with Silvia, one of the brazilians that we´ve been trying to baptize for 5 months, about conference and we felt that she could be baptized the same day as Luis. We thought that because the only doubt that she has about the church is that we have a prophet in our day. We figured she could watch conference, gain a testimony that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet, be interviewed, then be baptized all on that day. With that in mind, i prepared a special lesson for her and me and Elder Thomas went and talked with her with our Ward mission leader, with the intention of marking her for baptism. Unfortunately, the lesson didn´t start as planned. While making small talk before the lesson we found out she had to work all day on both days of conference. Then, when the lesson started, she talked about how she thought Jesus Christ and Jehovah are different people(she studied with JWs for a while). The spirit wasn´t real strong in the beginning but when our ward mission leader took over it got alot better. Then Elder Thomas started to share the lesson i prepared, which included a story from the Liahona that talked about how someone overcame the same doubt she had about baptism. Then, he showed her the calender that i made of the things she would do everyday to prepare for baptism. Then it was my turn to bare testimony. Yet again, things didn´t go as planned. I started crying like a girl and didn´t make any sense so Elder Thomas had to take over again. I felt dumb and left for a second to dry my face and came back a little later. We talked to her a little more and finally got her to accept to be baptized on the 4th of April, during conference! She said that she had never received an answer about baptism so we invited her to "take the first step" and promised her that the Lord would bless her with and answer after she accepted the invite to be baptized. That's exactly what the article in the Liahona said. All in all, i didn´t do much in the lesson but she´s marked for baptism...FINALLY!!!!!!
The fun didn´t end there though. Yesterday we also talked to her husband and we made a "goal" with him about HIS baptism. We told him he would receive an answer to his doubt about Joseph Smith during conference and his wife´s baptism. Then we invited him to be baptized the next weekend afterward if he receives and answer. He accepted but only because we said we were making "a goal". We taught this lesson with a member who is close friends with the husband, Marcio, and who was our ward mission leader before the change in the branch presidency. He assured him he would receive an answer and be baptized so really, its more than a goal. I didn´t really do much in the lesson, accept keep the members little boy busy and quiet so Elder Thomas and the member could teach the lesson. But I still feel like i helped a little.
Then, that night we went to teach the husband of the lady me and Elder Jones baptized on the 31st of December last year. The missionaries had never taught him because he would always leave the house or go to sleep in his room when we would show up. But this week, we went with our branch president, who´s good friends with the husband, Fernando. Because the branch president went with us, we were able to teach the Fernando and it was great. That was on Wednesday. Last night however, we taught the entire family the Plan of Salvation and Elder Thomas invited him to make "a goal" for his baptism too and he accepted. He will be baptized the same day as Marcio, on the 11th of April. I didn't really help much in the lesson this time either, but it turned out well. We talked about the possibility of marking him before and i was more than a bit skeptical, so now i feel pretty dumb. But i´m happy in the fact that we marked him for baptism.
So, all i all, thats 4 people marked for baptism! Luis and Silvia will be baptized on the 4th, and Fernando and Marcio will be baptized on the 11th. And to make it even better, they will probably all be baptized before i leave this area. The Zone Leaders have pretty much told me i´m leaving next transfer, and if i do, i will leave right after the last two are baptized! But the only one who will be baptized for certain(99.99%) is Luis. The others are still kind of "Ify" so we´ll see what happens. It all depends on if Silvia can get work off to see conference and if they all recieve answers to their prayers and doubts. So please keep praying for them, and for us! Thanks!
Phew! That was a mouth full! Now on to the rest...
To answer Mom´s questions...
We have one Zone Conference and one meeting for Interviews(mini zone conference) every transfer where we get mail and here trainings from President Torgan the other leaders in the mission. We get our mail and packages when we go to these meetings and also anything else we need from the mission office. We´ll be having Interviews on the 10th, which is right before transfers...again. So i will know where my next area before i email on that Monday. I did get the News letter and it was great! And dont worry about mother´s day. I dont think President Torgan would keep us from calling home. Irmã Torgan definitly wouldn´t let us go without calling home either.
As for Mindy´s blog...
First of all, let it be known that i do know how to say more words than "Holy Cow!" and "Oh my Gosh!".
The entire time i was reading the post i kept laughing. and actually got to the point to where i had to show Elder Thomas what i was reading because i was laughing so hard. And just so Mindy knows, he enjoyed it too. And its good to know that Kiley isn´t starving and that Kenna is being taught all about rascism. Thats all good stuff. And of course, I loved the Gibb smack references.
Well, i´m out of time so i guess i better go. I´ll let you know how the baptisms go next week. I´m praying for one more week here in Paradise! Dont forget to pray for us. Obrigado por tudo! Eu amo vocês!
Até o proximo
Élder Haws
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