Wednesday 28 September 2016

Turn Blue

Terra Branca is moving along here, good things are happening :)

This week started off with talking to our investigator, Obona, who successfully showed up to church twice, and came to a baptism as well. We had marked him for the 8th of October, but we didn't see any reason to have him wait any longer, so we asked him if he would be ready for baptism on the 24th of September instead. He accepted :) We spent a little bit of time with him every day preparing him for his baptism. For someone who doesn't have a phone or ever stay inside, he's incredibly easy to find, and he has a way of always finding us, it's hilarious. One day we waited to take him to a Family Night with some members, but we couldn't find him. We decided to sit by his house cuz he usually shows, but he didn't, so we started on our way to the member's house where we scheduled the family night, and sure enough, he found us on the way! We invited him to invite as many people for his baptism, and when he showed up, he turned more than a few heads with his sister and niece who came to support him. On Sunday, he even waited to bring one of our other investigators to church with him. He even paid tithing this week too! It's cool what a converted thug can do to change to world little by little :) he was a miracle this week. 
 
Another cool thing coming from this week was the progression of our investigator, Zezinho, who was someone I taught in my last area, but lives riiiiight on the border between my last area and my current one. He and Obona are buddies, and when he heard Obona was getting baptized on Saturday, he was like, 'that's cool, can I get baptized with him?'. I was a little taken back, but he has come to church 3 times now, so we sat down with him to talk about the Law of Chastity, which we knew would be an issue since he has a child with a woman who he is still together with, though they don't live in the same house. We explained the commandment, to which he responded he would like a little time to talk to his woman to figure stuff out. We had a good follow up lesson with him on the importance of families and how he could talk to her about the Law of Chastity. Last night when we talked to him, he told us that marriage wouldn't be the immediate solution, because his woman is leaving to work on Sal. However, that means that he will be able to be baptized on the 8th, a week after general conference. He's been a really cool example of someone with a changed heart.

One cool experience we had this week was that we got to walk with President Mathews, as part of a training he's doing where he's trying to get out with as many companionships this month. I was pretty nervous, but it turned out really well. He visited a few of our investigators with us, like Obona, and Tommy and Debora, and gave us some solid pointers as well. It was really interesting to watch him take over parts of lessons or to bear testimony simply and powerfully to an investigator, it seemed that after he taught, the investigator had nothing to do but soak in the Spirit. Even Debora, who is usually full of questions, accepted his testimony and listened with intent. It was a lot less stressful than I thought it would be :) 

The Lord really blessed us a bunch this week. One last thing I wanna talk about is a family he's helped us find. We door knocked this woman named Neuza a few weeks back, and were able to teach her and her twin 9 year old sons, Tiago and Telmo. Upon our return visit, we found that Neuza's man (not quite husband) had passed away suddenly in an accident that way, and as is per tradition here, had many people over mourning at her house for a week or so. We visited briefly in that week, but this past week we've had the opportunity to visit her again and teach. We showed up at the door and she was visiting with many friends who came over to mourn with her, and we offered to come by another time, but she invited us in. We followed up on her Book of Mormon reading, which she had read, but while I was talking to her, a visitor started asking questions to my companion about the Book of Mormon and why 'we think it's better than the Bible' and stuff, and Neuza started arguing with her and defending us without me saying a word! It was hilarious. We're really gunna push to get her to General Conference this weekend, it'll be really good. 

Love y'all :) 

Elder Massey




reconnecting with Kenny - from his last area

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