Well this week has been a very busy week and we
had a lot of lessons. No baptisms because of conference but that’s ok. We have
three baptisms lined up for this week already so it’s gonna be awesome!! Other
than conference, not very much happened this past week. Just a lot of teaching
and finding new people. That is our biggest focus right now, finding new
people. We’re still working with the people we have right now and almost all of
them have a baptism date for sometime this month but we still need more people.
They just divided the branch so we need to get the branch in Assomada growing
again! It’s kind of weird being a zone leader but it’s really good
and I’m learning a lot. I’ve also got the chance to serve the zone more and
Elder Fonseca has taught me a lot. I think Assomada is starting to catch fire
and really grow. What we really want to do right now is find some families. Our
branch has maybe three married couples and the rest are single adults and
single parents. The first stake is going to be formed at the end of April and
Assomada will become a ward. But we don’t really don’t know who is going to be
the bishop because they have to be married!! So that is our goal this transfer,
find some families. It’s gonna be sweet!
We did have some really good things happen this
week though. A is doing really good and came to conference Sunday night. She’ll
be baptized for sure next week, which is good. We also have an investigator
named O. We’ve been teaching him for almost two months and he has had a
testimony since probably week 2. He knows everything is true, comes to church
and activities, reads the Book of Mormon, and says he has had two dreams
confirming everything we teach. He should have been baptized a long time ago
but something was holding him back. We tried to mark dates with him forever and
he never would commit. He wanted to read the entire Book of Mormon first, or he
wanted to be baptized in May because that’s when Joseph Smith was baptized. We
worked really hard to try to find out how to help him overcome whatever doubts
he had but nothing seemed to be working. So we prayed and studied and talked to
him every week until Saturday night, he showed up at conference and
before saying anything else, he told me "I’m going to be baptized on
April 7." So to this day I still have no idea what
was holding him back but Heavenly Father was obviously
working with him and helped him overcome his doubts. The other good news
we received is that one of our investigators is going to get
married!!! Her future husband is a less-active member who we stared
working with a couple months ago. We started passing him and something sparked
in him and all of a sudden he wanted to do
everything possible to come back. So we started teaching the woman he
is living with and talking about marriage. They never really wanted to
commit to marriage until one day last week we read and explained the
Proclamation to the Family with them. The next visit, they told us
that they already went to wherever you have to go to apply for the
marriage papers and they will be married this month!!! That means
that his future wife will be baptized at the end of the month as
well!! We’re really excited and they have such a sweet family. It’s going
to be good.
Conference was awesome!! Except,
I missed half of it. We watched all the sessions live through the Internet
except for the priesthood session, which we watched Sunday morning. They had
a TV hooked up to a computer downstairs in the chapel to watch it in
Portuguese and then the missionaries and our English
speaking investigators watched it upstairs in the secretary’s office on
the computer. We missed the entire first session because we were trying to
help them set up the TV. We got to watch the second session Saturday night,
which was good. Then Sunday morning, the LDS.org site was down so we were late
watching the priesthood session. The power went out half way through that one
so I missed President Eyring and President Monson. Then we watched the Sunday
morning without any problems and Sunday night the power went out half way
through. Assomada has so many electrical problems it is ridiculous. But what I
watched was really good and I’m going to download the sessions onto my iPod and
listen to what I missed. I really liked Elder Scott’s talk Saturday Afternoon.
He talked a lot about personal revelation and listening to the spirit. Pretty
much everything he talked about is exactly what we have been focusing on here
in the Mission. I’d have to say that was my favorite out of the ones I saw but I’m
really looking forward to listening to the rest.
Other than that, not much is new. We have a full
week ahead of us with lots of lessons, special training and interviews with
President Oliveira, and three baptisms!! We are also going to Praia to watch
one of Elder Fonseca´s old investigators get married. It’s going to be a busy
week but I’m excited!! The busier the better! I hope everything is going well
and I love you all!!
