Week 57

This week we focused most of our efforts on a young woman named Suellen. She's the friend of a young woman in the branch and they go to the same school together. She had previously gone to Passo Fundo with her 2 sisters and this member to a huge Stake dance and had had a great time there. She went to church the following day, last Sunday, and we began teaching her this Tuesday. Every time we visited her to follow up and teach her more I was always impressed with her understanding and being in-tune with the Spirit. When we taught her the Word of Wisdom she had a big problem with coffee, but we challenged her to stop and the next day when we returned she told us that she knew the Word of Wisdom is true because she had prayed about it that night and received a witness that it was. Even though she usually drank around 4 cups each day she stopped immediately.

Suellen's little sister Emili also went to church with her last Sunday and had asked Cristina (who was teaching in the Primary as her new calling for the first time) what she had to do to be baptized. She also participated in the lessons we taught Suellen and after she was interviewed her mom was hesitant because she thought that Suellen was too young still. Then to our surprise Suellen spoke up and bore her testimony to her mom, also telling her how Emili would be part of the Primary where they take care of all the kids and that there are always activities to keep them involved. I was very impressed with her young testimony and I'll never forget how she had said simply after we asked her if she believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet, "I know he was, I felt it."

We also worked with a woman named Marlene, who is the mother of Mateus, who was baptized last week. She had had a few more questions and doubts but this week we were able to help her. Her son Mateus really helped out as well, already demonstrating the change in him after baptism.

Igor (baptized 2 weeks ago) left with us quite a bit during the week and introduced us to all his friends in the neighborhood. He as well changed a ton after his baptism. Even though we had given him a ride to only one session of conference, he came to the other 3 just because he loves church so much now. In between sessions of conference I took a picture with the 3 young men that were baptized in the last 2 weeks:

Igor, Mateus, & Endrius

After the first session of conference on Saturday we held the baptism service for Marlene, Suellen, and Emili. Vanderlei once again helped us out and used his Priesthood by baptizing all 3. He didn´t even mess up once! I was very happy because many of my other baptisms participated in the baptismal service.

On Sunday we were blessed to have a few of the members bring their friends to church. General Conference was awesome! Cristina and Vanderlei loved it especially and were absolutely enthralled with all the speakers and music.