It was so great to do a video chat with my parents today! I think the sisters and I might have found the only two don’t-need-to-be-installed-webcams in the city of Gravatá. There are three of us, so we will have to see if we can find another.
Our investigator “Danilson” went to Recife for several days, so we couldn’t see him. But then one day we were teaching one of our other investigators next to a small outdoor bar and Sister Centeio said “Sister, I think we’ve talked to that man before!” We went over and it turned out to be Danilson! So we taught him and a couple of other people the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the middle of the bar. He was slightly drunk but pretty lucid, so he understood what was going on. Later in the week one of the other men from the bar, Luis, stopped us in the street and said he wanted to hear more!
We have a couple of people that are close to baptism, so we are pretty excited about that. One of our investigators, Mirelle, is the grandmother of some recent converts that joined the church in a different city. She attended the church there and really wants to get baptized! There are a couple of things she has to resolve first, including a serious addiction to tobacco. She was using chewing tobacco so much that she couldn’t tell us exactly how many times a day she uses it. But she said she knows it is bad for her and wants to stop.
One thing I’ve been working on is saying little prayers during the day about things I’m thankful about and the needs of our investigators (and my family). Praying throughout the day helps me be empathetic, keep other people and their needs in mind, forget myself, and have more inspiration about how to help others. So I have been praying a lot that she can be free from this addiction.
The miracle of the week is that on Saturday she smoked once or twice and on Sunday she didn’t smoke at all! I hope she can stay strong during the rest of the week! She learns very slowly, but I can tell she loves God and wants to follow Christ and be baptized.
Some great scriptures about prayer are in Mosiah 26:39: (About what Alma and his fellow laborers taught): “And they did admonish their brethren; and they were also admonished, every one by the word of God, according to his sins, or to the sins which he had committed, being commanded of God to pray without ceasing, and to give thanks in all things.”
And 2 Nephi 32:9: “But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul.
There is also a super great article by Elder Juan Uceda about how to pray better in the February 2019 issue of the Liahona.
We are excited to have a conference with Elder Adukaitis this week in Recife. Next week will be Carnaval! Carnaval isn’t crazy here in Gravatá. so we will be working normal hours, but people are putting up little decorations — lots of masks, colored umbrellas (the kind you use for Frevo), and colored streamers.
I can’t believe it: I will celebrate my six-months-from-the-day-I-got-to-the-CTM anniversary on Friday!
Love you all so much!
Headed to Recife 