Monday, October 22, 2012

October 22, 2012


Baptism this week! Wooooo!!!! We finally had a baptism that we've been working so hard to get! His name is Guilherme, and I'll go ahead and tell the story of him and his family right off the bat. So he is 12 years old, and he had been practically raised in the church. His mom, Shirley, had taught seminary for 7 years, taught institute for a couple more, and had been a huge power in this area. Theeeeen she made a little mistake and got excommunicated. Or I guess we could say that it was a pretty big mistake. But we won't get into the details there. A while ago, Elder Stewart and I were by her house and we were pretty thirsty, and so we decided to drop by and see if she had a bit of water that we could drink. So  we went in, she gave us some water and talked to Shirley for a while. Turns out that she has a pretty big desire to return to church! And bring her new husband with her who knows nothing about the church! His name is Jonas, by the way. The next week, Shirley went to church, and brought Jonas, Guilherme, and her other son, Gustavo with her. So the whole family was there! From that point, we started teaching Jonas the lessons, and we ended up finding out that Guilherme was never baptized! When he turned 8, Shirley and her husband were in the process of separating, so he never got around to getting baptized. So we started teaching them both, but Guilherme already knew everything. And by everything, I mean everything. Down to all the stories in the Book of Mormon. He practically taught us the story of Amon (I have no idea if that's how you spell his name in English anymore...). So we baptized him this week! Jonas has a baptism date set for the 3rd of November, but the marriage papers are still processing, so he might have to wait a little bit longer. And Gustavo is going to talk to Bishop Fabiano this week to talk about preparing to go on a mission, and Shirley is returning! Oh my goodness it is an awesome feeling to have a lost sheep come back into the fold. 

Then we've got Vanderlei and his family. He was another member that made a tiny mistake and got excommunicated (I guess these people really aren't making tiny mistakes, but that's alright) but wants to return. His daughter had a baby last week, so he's been pretty crazy running around helping her out with all that. We haven't visited his daughter in quite a while (she doesn't live with him), but we're going to try later today.
So this first picture is one of Guilherme, right before the baptism, which was crazy, by the way. There was a special someone who realllly did not want that baptism to happen. A special someone who doesn't like it when another person is baptized, especially when it's helping a super powerful family return to the church.







The second picture is a water balloon that we filled up a couple weeks ago. It was quite fun. Also, shortly after this picture was taken, the balloon exploded inside that tank. It was a very sad moment.


Well, I think that's all I got this week. We're currently on the 7th week of this transfer (weird, huh?) and we should find out at the end of this week what's happening with us!


Love you all! Have a great week!

-Elder Hopper #1

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