Parque de Fonte Semana 1

That´s right folks, with 2 weeks left I was transfered! But this transfer was a little bit different... I have the same companheiro, I live in the same house, and I´ll keep the vast majority of my teaching pool... That´s because we´ve got a new ward in the stake!! Last year I served in Jardim Ipê, and this year I´ve been serving in Afonso Pena. Yesterday they took a chunk of both wards and formed a new one called Parque da Fonte which is where I will stay for the last 2 weeks!

It was a wonderful conference. Presidente Fernandes was there to give a few words of encouragement on helping the kingdom continue growing and preparing to divide the stake next year. The chapel was filled and we invited the whole community to see the calling of a new bishop and the creation of a new ward. I remembered back to when they took Walter´s Hill, Damascus, and Powell Valley, stuck them in the blender and poured out three wards with the same names but different boundaries. It was a very exciting conference.

We have a few people who are making huge progress. One man named Caio has grown to like the church a lot, but he doesn´t have courage to leave his current evangelical community where he knows that he will be shunned by all of his current friends when he leaves. #problems When we told him about "institute" he asked "para que serve?" which translates to something like "what is it´s purpose?/ what is it used for?" I started laughing because just a few minutes earlier he was asking about how he could find a future wife when all of the people around him don´t have morals. We told him that institute has a dual purpose :)

We´re working hard and sweating "de mais" in sun that has returned to Curitiba "com força!"

Love,

Elder House

Afonso Pena Semana 9

This week was the week of baptismal interviews! Our area suffered a bit because we spent lots of our time in other areas doing baptismal interviews and training the other missionaries. But we also had several miracles happen.

A member of our ward gave us a referral... at the very end of our area, which if we were in the US wouldn´t be such a big deal, run out there by car or on bike, but in Brasil it´s a huge deal... cause it´s a LONG way away to walk. Anways, we went out there one night and finally contacted them. #eleitos Valéria and Emmerson are a couple that was basically waiting for someone to call them to the path that leads to the tree of life. I´ll take a picture with them and send it next week. They were very excited to learn about the Restoration and are excited to come to church this week.

Mauro and Aldiclea are another couple that is making progress. They are both from strong catholic families and they have fear of what their families will say when they become members of the Church of Jesus Christ. So now we are involving the ward better to help them out... Thiago and Thaissa (recent converts) are going to help them out, because they passed through basically the same thing, but it ended up being much easier than they had thought.

On saturday we had 3 baptisms in the chapel, three young men from different wards who were all excited for baptism and we put all of their services together during a mini-youth-roadshow so the room was packed.

I got that horrible email with the plane ticket to send home, but I´m still not trunky! Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

Love you all. Hope all is well.

-Elder House

Afonso Pena Semana 7

Don´t have a whole lot to say...

This week we had Ward Council! Finally :) And we were able to talk about how to help the ward develop into an even better missionary ward. We will soon start a 40 missionary fast in which one family per day will fast to have a missionary experience. That should be cool. And it looks like the ward is going to divide right about the time that i´ll be leaving... It will be very cool to be serving in a ward as it divides!

The Gbur family is very happy with their two new priesthood holders, and the two brothers won black ties from a neat missionary :) They were at church all spify and passed the sacrament! We stopped by their house one night, and they were starting up the bbq to grill sausage and they invited us in. I think they might be my favorite family that i´ve worked with on the mission. What a grand blessing it is for them to be coming back to church in a place where gossip won´t hurt their spiritual progress!

We found an ex-drug dealer to teach... He´s very excited to be learning about the gospel and has already repented of the vast majority of his sins. Our "recém-ativo" Jefferson is a old friend of his and they were at church on sunday together! When this investigator came into the chapel, he sat down on the pew, but didn´t notice who was sitting next to him... another less active member who we´ve been working with for over a month and he finally came back to church yesterday... which just had to be the day that we had this new investigator with us and the less active shouted out, "hey, I know this guy, we were cell mates in prison" and everyone looked on, but didn´t know if they should be concerned or laugh. It was pretty funny for eveyone except our investigator.

Mauro and Aldiclea came to church! And we marked a FHE with the Elder´s Quorum President. But we left the chapel and were helping them find parking while the sacramental hym was being sung, and the lady who was recently called to be the receptionist, didn´t let us in to take the sacrament, nor let one of the deacons out to give it to us... #takingyourcallingseriously And we had to ask the bishop to let us have a mini sacrament meeting later on. But all we had were some wheat crackers... That was a first.

Denise has a baptismal date for the 23 of this month, so now we´re in the fight against cigarettes with her. But I think she´ll give up the cigarretes as she gives up the coffee. But that means a lot of headaches between now and the 23rd.

The airplanes continue making a mess of our teaching, but other than that, things are going quite well.  My area is underneath the path that the planes use to take off and land in Curitiba... so we always have planes that pass over and make a ton of noise that makes it impossible to hear anything. (usually happens during the first vision...)

"Momento GH do mês... 39 lições, 15 na sacramental"

I hope that all is well at home! I´d love to hear from ya!!

Love, 

Elder House