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.
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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