Agua Verde Semana 14

Temple. Baptism. #goodweek

Happy to report that the baptism of Josenildo last saturday went all well. We were praying to know which member would be right to share their testimony to help Terezinha, (the wife of Josenildo)... and *ding* Sister Edna Mourão popped into mind. So we called her up and she accepted. Terezinha was glued to every word that Irmã Edna was saying. That´s when you know that you aligned your plan to the Lord´s. So we´ll see how she´s doing this week and help her to make her decision as well.

As I write, the font is filling up again for Elizabeth, the 8 year old daughter of our "recem-ativo"... (less-active, turned recently-active). She is super excited for the baptism. Her uncle was going to perform the baptism, until she got scared that he´d drop her like he did with their neighbor last year :) But I think all will go well.

Our teaching pool got a little stagnant with all of our focus on the people closest to baptism (and we lost a bit of time organizing the visit with the Federal Police that will happen on Friday... and it´ll be the first time that we don´t have a Police agent who is a member to help us out on the inside [insert://pleaforextraprayers] so we´re sweating a little even though we´ve got A/C in the office). This coming week = study and application of chapter 9! We´re going for at least 15 lessons with members and as many GOOD referrals as possible.

This morning we went to the temple. What a blessing to have a temple in Curitiba. It is so wonderful to go in and have the temple President say, "well, I dunno if there´s gonna be space for you, cause 2 stakes from Santa Caterina rented charter buses to take all of their recent converts and youth to the temple."  That´s when you know that the church is really growing!

I made chocolate chip cookies for the baptism last week and that was like opening "uma lata de minhoca..." Now the whole Relief Society is asking for the recipe (and for mom to send more chocolate chips)!

That´s all we´ve got for this week. Next week, Elder House vs. Federal Police and photos of Elizebeth in white :)

Love,

Elder House

Agua Verede Semana 13

I think it´s the 13th week here... I lost count :)

Today we will have the baptism of Josenildo de Souza Sr... who will be baptized by Josenildo de Souza Jr! One of the members in our ward is the CES director for Curitiba and for 30 some odd number of years has been waiting for this day to come. His parents are from Pernambuco and they came down to visit for a few months. That was all that Josenildo and the missionaries needed to finish the work that the Lord has been doing on the hearts of his parents. Vai ser bem legal!

It has been raining like crazy!! The favela turned into a swamp. Thank goodness for those timberland boots. When they die, I dunno what I´m gonna do.

This week was wonderful to have a zone conference all about chapter 8. I´ve been on my little soap box about planning sessions and key-indicators since my first area and everyone just rolled their eyes... until President and the Assistants gave an amazing training about the importance of following Preach My Gospel in every way possible. I learned so much and am way happy that my companions are catching the spirit of PMG!

I think I´m gonna move to Brazil to open a little cookie shop... cause when you make chocolate chip cookies (thanks Mom for sending the stuff!) todo mundo fica loco! My companion from Goias wanted to try making cookies without any help, so I let him try. They turned out pretty good but when he took them out of the oven the pan slipped out of his hand #cookiepancakes.

Love,

Semana Crazy

So there´ve been some pretty awesome thunderstorms here that knocked out the internet on our Preparation day... so President let us have a couple minutes today to send a quick email to let y´all know we´re still alive... you wouldn´t belive how many times I´ve had to answer the phone "oh is my missionary alright?! he/she didn´t send an email and I didn´t know if something had happened or etc..." That´s probably why the 1st presidency put a rule that you have to write an email to your family every week :)

Alive. Happy. Baptismal photos to come!

-Elder House

Christmas Conference Pictures

Agua Verde Semana 11ish

And a happy new year!

Preparation day is new year´s because there´s nobody in the city... Brasileiro só quer saber de praia!

We were very happy with the baptism and confirmation of Celeste. And everyone has already made all of the "you know what kingdom he´s going to!" jokes...

Christmas was great. We had our little christmas miracle.

     So Brother Bernardo invited us to have a christmas supper at his house. Cool. "Can we bring someone who we´re teaching?" "Of course!" So we started thinking about who to invite. Angelina... at the beach. José... visiting family in another state. Luciano... has relatives visiting. So we started going through the telefone looking at the names of our investigators and ex-investigators when we saw the name Noemi (no-em-EE). She had been avoiding us and we had dropped her from our teaching pool, but we felt that we needed to invite her. "Merry Christmas Noemi! How is your week going?" "I don´t think this Christmas is going to be very merry..." She then began to tell about how the month was going. Son has cancer, daughter needs kidney transplant, husband left her to live with another woman... and stole everything from their apartment, lost her job, oldest son ran away to join the army... So when we called her up to invite to a Christmas dinner she couldn´t refuse such an obvious answer to her prayers. There she was received with open arms and got all the hugs and kisses that she needed that we as missionaries couldn´t give. That´s how work with the members needs to be. I can teach. I can testify. I can give blessings and promise that more will follow obedience. But I can´t invite someone to my home to have dinner and feel the spirit with my family and feel the love of the Savior in a Christ centered home.

We are gearing up for another mission transfer and things in the mission office are crazy (as usual). We´ll be receiving 21 new missionaries! More than double the number that any other Brazilian mission will receive this coming week. So everyone will train...

New Year´s eve was crazy with tons of fireworks. We didn´t even enter our area yesterday because of potential danger. Every new year´s eve, the gangs go crazy in the favela try to kill as many of their rivals as possible in the three hour span where the thousands of fireworks overwhelm any sounds of gunshot... I don´t know if the nametag is bulletproof but I didn´t want to try my luck.

I know that the Lord lives. I know that this is His work. I know that He does His own work in His own time... and the that when we align our will to His things go better. Because He knows the path much better that I do.

Love,

Elder House