Barata - March 7, 2011

Week 16 of 78


E ai, Family,

Thanks for all of your emails and letters and stuff. Rest assured, I get them all. Sorry if it takes me a while to respond to them, but I get them all. This week's been very very good. When we focus on helping our investigators to feel the Spirit of the Lord, miracles happen. When we fast with purpose, miracles happen. When we move forward, truly in faith, miracles happen. I love my life.

On Monday night, we had Family Home Evening with a member family (the Joneses), in which we taught them about Mormon.org, and they made a video to put on YouTube. This was cool because at the end, we invited the parents and the older children to give a pass-a-long card to a friend that week. They gave us this yummy dinner and dessert to go, which was awesome. Sis. Jones made a cookie pie, which was aaaaabsolutely great. You should look up a recipe for it and try it. I'm sure you would like it, too.

On Tuesday night, we ran out of records to update and people to call, so we decided to spend the evening writing pass-a-long cards and watching Preach My Gospel DVDs. They're inspirational clips from recent missionaries in a district about real teaching situations. Gosh, we were so rejuvenated after that. We hope we can do it again this week, if we can't schedule enough evening appointments due to weather or something else.

Tracting has been an adventure, as usual. We've found ourselves in some sketchy places, but we've been careful about who we talk to, for how long, and knowing when and when not to schedule a return appointment. There's one complex we tracted with some CRAZY people in it. A couple of men answered the door in their boxers, and we were like, "..." Another man kept asking us, "You think it's the police? You think we're gonna get kicked out?" Yet another man told us about some sort of doctrine where there are "200 for the whites, and 200 for the blacks." It was insane. We've been thinking about moving more towards neighborhoods where members live and started yesterday. It's definitely harder to find people who will make return appointments or keep commitments, but I know if we keep working and following the Spirit, we'll find those people the Lord has graciously been preparing to receive the message. No one's been rude to us so far, so that's always a blessing :)

We have another baptism on Saturday! This man was a referral from los elderes, and we've been teaching him for about a month now. We committed him to baptism a few weeks ago, and it's been a ride. Finally, last Thursday, he still had committed for baptism but wasn't sure if he was ready to be tied down to one church. I felt prompted to ask him some of the baptismal interview questions: Do you believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet? Do you believe the Book of Mormon is true? Do you believe the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord's restored gospel on the earth? He answered in the affirmative for everything, and we just smiled and said that he knew the basics. He started to tear up, even. The Spirit was so, so, so strong. I got the goofy grin on my face again. That was the best lesson ever so far. He agreed to be baptized a week earlier than planned, too! We just have to wait for our mission president to interview him this week, so we can get the definite go-ahead to have the service on Saturday. Wahoo! Here's to coming closer to Christ! He even had his son over to introduce him to us. Isn't that awesome?!

So, biking. Surprisingly, it's become much more enjoyable to use the bikes. I'm still rather sore every time I get on that thing, but that goes away in about 5 minutes or so. We bike about 2 hours a day. Going downhill by the University of Alabama-Huntsville is my favorite part of the whole trip home. On Saturday, however, we had a huuuuge downpouring of rain. This combined with the recent development of glasses on my face was not very good. I was biking, and, after a while, I could barely see in front of me because of all of the rain and fog in my glasses. Also, I was soaking wet. Around noon, Sis. Bruno and I threw in the towel and stopped by a member family's house (these members let us keep our bikes in their backyard for safety). They dried our clothes and fet us hot chocolate and cake! How nice! Then the daughter drove us to our next appointment and stayed with us. Then they drove us home in their truck with the bikes in the back. Isn't that so nice?! Gosh, I was so happy and thankful. Apparently, it's monsoon season. Who knew? I'm going to buy a raincoat/poncho and some rain boots today, hopefully. We'll see what happens.

Sis. Bruno and I are still teaching English classes, and those are going well. I basically rely on the Holy Spirit every day to tell me what to teach because understanding their needs is hard sometimes. We've been focusing more on reading things out loud...that's definitely a need. I'll say a word, and they sometimes add a few extra syllables. For example, "accomplish" is "accomplishen" and "comprehend" is "comprehendenden." We're getting there. Los elderes gave us some more materials to work with, so now we feel better about things we could teach them. Oh, and these nice Indian people give us free Subway every time we go there! We never expect it, but since it keeps happening, we're not going to go eat there as often because we're really just trying to do service for them with these classes.

Funny thing about Sis. Bruno: she does her little Coke dance every time we have a lot of progressing investigators. Last night was particularly hilarious. "Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, and I'm doing the Coke dance!" Love that crazy girl. Oh, and on the bike, she calls me "Little Turtle" (because, duh, I'm slow) and says "Que bundonha!" whenever guys look at my rear end while we're biking.

The mission has ups and downs. Some days are hard for me, but Heavenly Father always provides a way for me to find the joy in the work as long as I keep the faith. Focused scripture study and dedicated prayer definitely help! Y'all, life is good. So good, so good :)

Check out this scripture in D&C 45:28: "And when the times of the Gentiles shall come in, a light shall break forth among them that sit in darkness, and it shall be the fulness of my gospel;"

Isn't that an awesome visual?!?!?!

Until next week,
Sister Jones