We still didn't work much, between the baptismal interviews
and me still being sick and the other meetings we had. There was plenty of
stuff to do this week, though. We had a meeting with the Brazil Area President,
and it was awesome. Elder Costa is his name. He's an amazing man and he had so
much insight into the gospel.
At the beginning of the meeting he just answered
questions from the missionaries that were there (it was a bunch of the zones
in the mission, but not all of them) and it was awesome the way that he was able to
answer every question. I was going to bring my notes with me to the LAN House
today, but I ended up forgetting... Sorry! I'll try to remember stuff that he
said.
Elder Costa told us a story about when he was a mission
president in Brazil. He had two elders call him up one day and said that they
were teaching a family, and the family decided to bring in their pastor from
their church to talk a bit with the missionaries, so the missionaries invited
Elder Costa to come along. Elder Costa prayed about it and accepted, and also
received a little bit of inspiration to ask one of the elders to bring a Bible
in English. Which is kinda weird considering they're in Brazil, right? Where
everyone speaks Portuguese and all. So the elder brought the Bible and they got
to the family's house, and it turns out that the family had invited not just
one, but 3 pastors from their church to come and talk with the missionaries. 3
vs 3 - Fight! So they got to talking about the training that these pastors had
gotten, and one had a doctorate in theology and had 13 years of education, one
had a masters in theology and 9 years of education, and one was almost finished
with his masters in theology with 8 years of education, and all three of the
spoke English. Then Elder Costa talked about the training that him and the
missionaries had. One of the elders was Brazilian, so he had 19 days of
training. The other was American, so he had 2 months of training. Elder
Costa had 3.5 days of training. Seems like they were pretty outnumbered, huh?
Well, they started talking and the biggest thing that these pastors had a
problem with was about the day of rest, which happens to be Sunday for us, but
Saturday for the pastors' church. In the Bible in Portuguese, it clearly says
that "Sabado" is the day of rest, which is the word for Saturday. But
Elder Costa grabbed the Bible in English, which the most educated pastor had
said was correct and the word of God, and showed that it doesn't say
"Saturday," but instead it says "Sabbath," which happens to
mean a day of rest. Elder Costa then asked the main pastor what day was the day
that he took off from work as a day of rest, and he answered that is was Sunday.
After a little bit more of this banter, the pastors left and the family ended
up being baptized. Moral of the story: Listen to promptings of the Holy
Ghost! They might seem ridiculous in the moment, but there is always a reason.
Never lose an opportunity to follow the guidance of our Heavenly
Father. He always knows what is best for us, and will always help us down the
right path as long as we seek out his guidance.
Well, that's all I got for this week.
I love you guys!
Elder Hopper #1
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