Tag: Book of Mormon

Prayer and the Book of Mormon

Sister FaulconerLeave a comment

This week was interrupted a lot because of our zone conference and the travel for our division with the sister training leaders in Guaranhuns [a city several hours away by bus], but it was good. 

Zone conference for elders and sister missionaries in the Brazil Recife mission under President and Sister Houseman--January 2019.
January 2019 Zone Conference

A group of sister missionaries eating together at zone conference.
Eating together at zone conference

Miracle from this week: A little less than a year ago, our current sister training leader, Sister C. Alves was serving in Palmares.  Unbeknownst to me, she and her companion gave a Book of Mormon to the owner of a mercadinho (Mercado — market; mercadinho — tiny market, usually in the middle of houses that sells a few basics) but never managed to teach her the lessons because she wasn’t interested.  Sister C. Alves asked me about her during our division together last transfer, but I had never met her.  That changed when Sister Arce got here because, due to her love for Cremosinho, we stopped at the mercadinho to buy Cremosinho a few times and met the owner. 

Apparently, Cremosinho is a type of creamy yogurt ice cream that comes in many flavors popular in the Brazilian state of Pernambuco.
Cremosinho–a
creamsicle sort of yogurt frozen thing that comes in plastic bags.  You bite off the corner and eat it.  It’s very good.

I didn’t think she seemed very interested in being taught, but she told us how much she loved the other sisters and we decided to try teaching her a lesson.
The other day we had a little time left at the end of the day and a lot of possible pesquisadores (investigators) to visit.  We were passing the mercadinho and I said “Now is the time to say something if you are having a spiritual impression that we should visit our neighbor!” sort of joking, and Sister Arce just walked over to her and we started making conversation. 

Sister Arece standing outside near the street in front of lush tropical foliage and flowers.
Sister Arce

The owner told us that her church is the richest church in the world and we should visit, etc., etc., which wasn’t a great sign.  Then we taught her a lesson and she accepted our invitation to pray and ask God if Joseph Smith was a prophet and if the Book of Mormon is the word of God.  I was feeling like I did a pretty bad job of teaching the lesson and wishing I could express myself better when out of the blue she said “Oh, I’m reading that book the other sisters gave me every day and I’m on page 606!”  I thought she was talking about a scripture verse the sisters had left with her, because the Book of Mormon only has 529ish pages in English and what were the chances she had read the whole Book of Mormon?  You guys, she had read almost the whole Book of Mormon, day by day since she had gotten it.  
We went back the next day and she was glowing — she prayed and received a powerful witness from God!  She had to travel and of course we will teach her other lessons first, but she is already married (rare) and I think there is good reason to hope she will be baptized!

Finally, the adventures in Brazilian cooking continue:

Cuscuz e Cuscuzeira (pan for cooking couscous)! [Here is a Youtube video demonstration.]

Prepared by God

Sister Faulconer1 Comment

This week I have been thinking a lot about how God prepares people for the gospel.  It is really amazing!  This week we decided to follow up on some references–addresses of people in our area that ask for a Book of Mormon, or that meet missionaries in another city.  We got everything ready and went to the bus station, only to discover that no buses were leaving for Ribeirão for several hours.  So we went to a different city, and returned to the bus station another day to go to Ribeirão. We had two references there, so we walked around asking people if they knew either address.  Everyone said, “You have a reference point?  I don’t recognize these street names!” But finally we found some people who pointed us in the right direction for one of the references.

Zone Conference 2018-10-30 Turka Feira Sisters Faulconer and Porcote improvedWe clapped at the door [similar to ringing the doorbell in the U.S.] and then we waited, and waited, and called again, and waited, and finally someone opened the door (We’ll call him José, pronounced Jo-zay).  José is a history professor who is super interested in American history and loves to read.  He read about “Mormons” (nickname for members of our church) and was intrigued by our emphasis on education, families, dressing respectably, etc.   A couple years ago he found a moth-eaten Book of Mormon on a friend’s book shelf, but couldn’t read much because of the damage. Then he ran into missionaries once or twice, but could only speak to them for about two minutes.  Finally, he found a little more info online, and asked for someone to send him a Book of Mormon.

And then he waited for months (Someone did not contact their references quickly.  Bad missionaries!).  Finally we showed up on Wednesday afternoon, the only time he’s free the entire week.  The rest of the week he’s either working or studying for his doctorate, so he is literally never home except for Wednesday afternoons.  Usually he doesn’t answer the door, but this time he decided to see who it was.  It was amazing — he is super knowledgeable about religion, but that does not get in the way of his spiritual abilities.  We gave him a picture of Joseph Smith’s first vision, and while we were explaining it he turned it over and started to read the text.  Then he said, “Wow, this scripture really touches me.” It was Moroni 10:4, a scripture we often share with investigators.  But he beat us to it!  I invited him to follow Christ’s example and be baptized once he had received confirmation by the spirit that our message was true, and he agreed immediately — just completely nonchalantly as if it was the obvious next step.   It was a miracle!

Love you guys!  Hope you all have an awesome week!