March 18, 2013

Good morning people!

Well, it seems like the work here is kind of in a slump. These past couple weeks have been the same ol' story. Lots of rejections and lots of appointments falling through. Though this week I have a couple of good stories.

So we were supposed to have a baptism on Saturday, right? Well... That didn't happen. Our zone leader went to her house on Friday to interview her and it went well. She's ready to be baptized. (I didn't go to the interview, by the way) Then, after the interview, they were sitting there talking with her and Renato, when they noticed something weird on the baptismal forms that they were filling out. Maria (the investigator) never took her husband's last name. Odd. Renato said something about that and how it was weird, and she was just like, "Yeah. I guess marriage is the next step, right Renato?" At that moment, Elder Gade and Elder Pereira just looked at each other. You can't be baptized if you're living with someone of the opposite sex unmarried. Soooooo she couldn't be baptized. And most of the people here have quite a big problem with that because of the money. But this family doesn't. Theeeeey have a good amount.  So Maria said that she would talk to her husband about it and they would figure it out. She called us later that night and said that her husband wanted to do the whole marriage thing, that he wanted to start sitting in on the lessons, and that he would start going to church with her. Wooo!!!! It's interesting how the Lord works sometimes. Now, because they weren't married, we'll teach the whole family!

One more story. On Saturday, Elder Gade and I were working in the poorest part of our area, João Rossi. Nobody was home. NOBODY. Even the guy that never leaves his house because his legs are broken and he lives on the fourth story. HE NEVER LEAVES HIS HOUSE. But he did on Saturday. So we were pretty down. We went back home around 6 because we had no idea what to do. Elder Gade suggested that we walk all the way to the center of the city (about a 45 minute walk) to deliver some DVDs that some investigator had asked for. We had nothing else to do, so we went. On the way, some lady stopped in her car and waved us over, and asked if we could give her a blessing. But I didn't know the lady. She pulled into an empty parking lot, we got into her car, and started talking to her. She had been baptized in 2004, then left the church. She had recently moved back to the area and didn't really know many people here. Soooo she had been looking for someone to help her spiritually, so she went to some lady that said she would say a prayer for her. She spent almost R$100 on towels and junk that the lady asked her to bring, and then when the prayer was over, the lady asked her to buy 3 candles to help out. The candles were R$250 each. That is total bologna. So this woman got totally sad and depressed and left. Then she found us. We gave her a blessing and then she asked if she could buy us some pizza. So she did. It's interesting how the Lord works again. If everything hadn't fallen through that day we wouldn't have been on that road at that exact moment to help her. We are guided in everything we do, even when our plans fall through the whole day! I love this work!

 

That's all I got! I love you all! Have a great week!

 

-Elder Hopper #1