December 23, 2013
This week went by super fast, don't really know what happened.
Pday (Preparation Day) was normal. We went to the center of the city as usual and did the usual dinking around. We got home and relaxed for a few hours, much needed. When we went out to work we were going to visit this eternal investigator(someone who will take forever to baptize) Josenildo. On the way there we were stopped by this lady. "You're the Elders from the Mormon church right??" Uhhh yeah! ... "I've always wanted to visit that church but I was always too embarrassed to enter." This woman was super excited to see us. She said she had stayed in this Bishop's house in Recife and Pereira just happened to serve in that ward. It was a "coincidence". So we talked and she wanted us to visit her at her house and meet her "husband"...they're not legally married but they were super cool. When we met the dude he was more shy and reserved but we got to talking and he opened up. They began to tell us about their lives. The husband(Eziquiel) built their house all by himself. He even made the bricks. He went and got the clay from some place close to his house, from the ground not from a store. The dude is a machine. They have a little girl who is one, and they are super humble, nice people. The first visit was really fast because we had an appointment, but later in the week we explained thoroughly about the restoration. It was great. They understood everything and were ready to accept it. They went to church and loved it. Ezquiel said it was like nothing had ever experienced before, and Cátia(wife) said she liked it a lot. They plan on going to church from now on. And get this... they actually want to get married. Imagine that! A couple who lives together who wants to get married. She said she wants to get married in the church. She even asked us how she could do a family night because she had participated in a few in Recife with the Bishop. These people will be baptized. We just have to get them married! Woo!
This week has been great for referrals. Remember how I said we got 40 from the members? That's all we've been doing, contacting referrals. We don't even knock doors! It's amazing! It takes a while to find some of the houses because the addresses in Brasil are cookoo, but when we find them it's usually well worth it. This area went from being a tracting area to an actual teaching area. We're finding a lot of great people. Of course there are those people who don't accept anything outside of their comfort zone, but about half of them thanked us for coming and said they would go to church. It's great because they already know their friends from church. We had some people cry when we sang to them the Christmas hymn, and we now have some people in our teaching group who have some actual potential.
This week we also did an exchange with Caruarú. Elder Bochi came to my area and we set out on an adventure of contacting referrals. We got lost and walked a ton but we ended up contacting two. Bochi was mainly there to talk to Cilene, Brainer's mom who is taking forever to baptized. She's so dang close it's not even funny. Right when we got there she began to talk about how something supernatural came over her when she was praying about the church and where she should go with her life. She said the feeling was just good. We got really excited but when she was talking she was talking as if she was scared of the feelings she felt. We told her that was her response. she said no it wasn't and she's trying to wait for something else. Brainer whipped a scripture out of nowhere in Doctrine and Covenants that was perfect. D&C 6:22 or something like that. It talks about how Oliver Cowdery was trying to get more responses from God than he already had, and God said that if he wants more answers/proofs, go back in your mind to that prayer you said and the feelings you felt when you asked for the truth. She got really quiet and we asked her what she was going to do from there. She said she would decide later. OFIGUVNRUWI. What more does she want?! There was a Christmas activity in the ward last night and Marcione(LMA) was joking around with her saying she was super close to being baptized. She said "Yeah, I was this close, but now I'm this close." (shrinking the space between her fingers). We'll get her.
Right now we're in Recife to get Christmas boxes/packages from the mission office for our zone. Our zone doesn't know we're here so were going show up with their presents at district meeting as a surprise. They weren't supposed to get them until the transfer but President let us come to Recife to do this surprise. It'll be great.
Elder Dallin Stephen Carroll
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