MAN!
Oh man this week was nuts!!! Lots of ups and downs... but lots of miracles. Sounds like summer is going good for you. If you guys need more heat you can take some from Praia, no shortage of it here. That seems like quite the summer camp, sounds like fun though. So this week was just a roller coaster ride right until the end.
Well we started out the week with Zone Leaders Council, with Elder Wright and Area Seventy. It is always amazing to hear from the General Authorities and this time was no disappointment. He talked about a lot of things but the biggest thing I got out of it was about covenants. When we make a covenant with the Lord, He is going to keep his promise (D&C 98:1-3). All we have to do is have faith, and do everything we possibly can to make it happen. It was pretty aweome.
So we were supposed to have three baptisms, but two of them didn´t come to church. Classic... so we just had one, and she didn´t feel like she had a strong enough testimony to be baptized. But, after what I had learned in Zone Leader´s Council, I knew that she was going to be baptized on July 7 because we had made a covenant with the Lord. So we did not give up. We passed by every single day. We prayed and studied and did everything we possibly could to help her gain that testimony that she needed to be baptized. Finally, Friday night, we were on divisions with the district leaders in Achada Grande. Brodie was here in our area and they went to pass N, our baptism. Up until that point she still hadn´t received the answer that she was looking for but after talking for a bit, Elder P (one of the district leaders) asked her to pray one more time to know the will of the Lord. So they all kneeled down and prayed. I wish I was there!!! So after she prayed, they stayed kneeling. All of a sudden, she jumped up and said that she needed to be baptized. The only problem was she hadn´t told her mom. So Saturday, after asking nearly every member in Achadinha to pray, we went and talked to her mom. And she was totally cool about it!!! No big deal! BUT, N had decided she still wanted to wait another week. To this moment I still don´t understand why but there was nothing else we could do. She is going to be baptized this week but it was still a little disappointing. We did everything we could and that was it.
Well, we also found this sweet awesome family who has been prepared to accept the gospel. We had an amazing lesson with them last night and I have never seen a more united, loving family, here on my mission. All they could talk about was how blessed they are for the family they have been given. They aren´t married yet but I know that as soon as we teach the Proclamation, they are going to start preparing to be married. They have already accepted a baptismal date and are super excited to learn and change their family. We also found another family that we have yet to teach a whole lot but we have talked to them twice. After the first visit, as we were leaving, the father told us- "If it is possible, we could be married in your church." How sweet is that!?! We have been extremely blessed and are really starting to get things organized. It took us a little longer than we would have liked but things are going good.
Anyways, enjoy your summer! Love you all!
Elder Dola
