Week 49

This is our neighbor´s crazy dog. No matter what time of day it is, whether it´s raining or super cold, he never misses the opportunity to go nuts barking at us when we pass. And it´s only to us, with anybody else he´s super chill.

First of all, this week I was super impressed with our family, Vanderlei & Cristina, and their 3 kids, Cauan, Gabriel, and Bruna. They went to all efforts to change their previous way of life in harmony with the gospel. They found out that last week had been fast and testimony meeting and even though only Cauan is baptized so far they all decided to fast for 24 hours as well. Later irmã Cristina told us how Cauan waited until the very last minute, counting down the last 5 minutes before leaping on the table and chowing down dinner!

We found a young woman named Vanusa during the week and after the first lesson, we set a baptism date for her which she accepted without hesitation. However, trying to visit her in the following days, we weren´t able to find her at home and her grandmother didn´t help. We had a dinner with Vanderlei´s family and I was super impressed with the prayers they said before and after. Cristina made a really good lasagna and Cauan made 3 desserts!

Although we had planned a few baptisms this week, they asked for a little more time to get to know the church and others were difficult to find at home. We also had a divisão Thursday and Friday so we switched companions and went to other areas. During the divisão I found a new neighborhood that looked very promising. From what I heard, no other missionary had been there before. It was really humbling to see the circumstances in which some of the people there found themselves.

Saturday night there was an activity of the branch. We impressed the branch president by bringing so many investigators that they almost out numbered the members in attendance. They all enjoyed the night and ate churrasco.

On Sunday it was a bit difficult to get people to church due to Father´s Day. One girl cried because we had picked her up a bit late. She´d almost convinced her mom to call a taxi so she could go to church! During a meeting with the church leaders, I felt proud of our investigators when the Relief Society and Primary leaders began ´fighting´ for Cristina. We had to explain to them that Cristina hadn´t even been baptized yet!

Sunday night we had an FHE with our missionary ward leader, Roberto. We invited Vanderlei´s family and taught them how to hold an FHE on a weekly basis. For the activity and food, I taught them how to make Pancakes with Buttermilk Syrup. They couldn´t get enough of them.