Curitiba has turned into a great big pressure cooker. I don´t think I´ve ever offered so many prayers of gratitude related to AC… Being in the office stinks cause we can´t teach in the afternoon, but the AC is aweseome.
On Tuesday, all of our scheduled lessons were falling through... all of them. I was on exchanges with a member who was recently called to Chile, and we were having a rough time finding our investigators at home and entering the homes of referrals/contacts. We stopped for a minute and thought. Then realized that we don´t having a "thinker" quite as good as the Lord does, so we prayed. In about 3 seconds I had a little conversation with the Holy Ghost:
HG - Go visit Wesley at his grandmother´s home.
EH - But he won´t be there... he spends the week with his dad and will only be there on Thursday for the baptismal interview.
HG - Go visit Wesley at his grandmother´s home.
EH - But we passed by there yesterday and he wasn´t there and Rosa (his grandmother) told us that we shouldn´t pass until Thursday cause he wouldn´t be there.
HG - Go visit Wesley at his grandmother´s home.
EH - Ok
So we went to their gate and clapped (cause that´s how you get someone to come to the gate) and Rosa came out. "Hey I was just talking to all of my family, who stopped by for a surprise visit here, that they should come visit our church to meet you guys." Even Wesley was there! He´d hitched a ride with his uncle to visit his grandmother.
HG - See?
EH - Thank you for being patient with me.
To make a long story short we taught the Plan of Salvation and everybody became emotional especially watching Wesley respond to every answer perfectly after attending church for only ONE year. Everybody committed to come to the baptism and a few decided they want to come to Stake Conference as well.
Speaking of Stake Conference, President Claudio Costa is outside our office door with the Stake President (who will shortly be released after 10 years of service) looking at the awful mess that is in the front room of our office… All of the furniture and nick-nacks from the house of missionaries that were kicked out of their house (and are now living in our house) are stacked against the wall… #officeproblems
Tomorrow we will have the baptism of Wesley! (Pray that his family all comes to watch).
-part 2-
Our internet went out in the middle of writing our internet hour, so I had to put a pause on the letter on Saturday. So here is part two written Monday.
Baptism of Wesley was great. He got a little nervous when about 50 people from the ward showed up and all his family… He thought it would just be his family and a few friends from the primary, so we had to help him relax and shake off the nerves, but in the end it all went well.
The stake conference was amazing. Especially the adult session! Elder Costa was talking about how to introduce your friends to the gospel and got way animated about it all. He then called the Stake President, Mission President, and two bishops to the front and the 4 closest missionaries in the building to go on exchanges with them in the neighborhood around the chapel and invite people to the Stake Conference the next day! They all returned about 30 minutes later having talked with over 100 people. The point was well understood. It´s not hard to share the gospel and invite people… you just have to open your mouth.
Elder Costa also shared some great stories about the people of Manaus who had to sell everything they owned to afford the 1 week trip by boat and bus to the temple. That makes the 15 minute car ride from the stake center here to the temple a piece of cake.
This week it´ll be raining new people to teach. The whole stake “ficou bem animado!”
Love,
Elder House
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