Monday, March 19, 2012

Batismo! (letter from March 12, 2012

Hey, so this week was very interesting.  I had a division with my zone leader Elder V. Martins, who trained my trainer.  He was also trained by an elder who was trained by Elder Farnsworth (Ellis´ friend from BYU).  I think it's kind of funny how these sorts of things happen.  Apparently I have a pretty amazing heritage here on the mish  (when you train an elder they become your "son," so Elder Farnsworth was my "great great grandfather" here on the mission).  

I hope you all understood that.

So, I worked really hard and prayed and walked and taught all week.  Friday night we didn't have a baptism that was firm, but we ended up with a miracle for Saturday.  I baptized Thiago, he is nine years old, super smart but has a hard time paying attention.  His mom (Nete) is in active but coming back (almost completely active now)  and we are teaching his step dad Pedro.  Hopefully, Pedro and Nete will get married before I get transferred.  They are tough to teach, but that just means I need to use the Spirit more. 

Earlier in the week, I thought a lesson to get permission to baptize a 17 year old girl who has been coming to church for over 5 months.  Her name is Ataizi.  She read the Book of Mormon in 2 weeks the first time and then a second time just to pass off a Personal Progress requirement.  She hasn't been baptized yet because we haven't been able to talk with her father, and her father is super-Catholic and drinks a lot, and work/ fishes all the time.  He is also a bit  rough and every one is a bit scared of him.  Yeah, so I talked to him one day when we walked in front of their house and he was super drunk, but I scheduled an appointment with him.  I ended up teaching with Elder V. Martins and we watched the restoration video with them then talked while eating cookies and soda that we bought to help make a good impression.  And it turned out well.  He was really open and we helped answer his questions and make him feel more secure.  He said they would talk and then Ataizi would talk to us again at a church activity.  So, I hope things will work out : ).

Oh, and we met an amazing investigator the other day. Perfect.  She has a date marked for baptism (24th) and we walked with her to church (more than 2 miles).  There was a stray dog that followed us all the way, but we didn't want it to come to church with us too, so we walked in street with other dogs that are mean.  Unfortunately, the other dogs didn't chase the stray away (afterwards I felt kind of bad for trying to incite a dogfight to get rid of the stray).  In the end, I ended up throwing rocks at the dog and chasing it a few blocks to get rid of it.  It was pretty funny.

So that's all I have time for.  Love you all!

And, thanks for all the letters and e-mails!!!

Love,
Ben

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