9-30-08

Hello Everybody!

This is Elder Allred speaking! How is everybody doing?

Well, Shirley had been having a little trouble with coffee last week, so we´ve moved her date to this Sunday after General Conference. Thankfully, she´s now decided to never drink it ever again. Sarah hasn´t had any coffee since we taught the Word of Wisdom! She was going to be baptized on Sunday, but she wants to wait and be baptized together with her mom.
Great news! Rodolfo (Shirley´s husband) got the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday! Now he can baptize his wife and daughter on Sunday! The bishop designated a few of the priests in the ward to confer the priesthood upon him.

Sérgio and Valdira and Fabrício and Débora got their first triple combinations on Sunday. The ward did a ward temple trip on Saturday and we sent money with the members to get them. I also got a triple combination for Rodolfo´s family that I will give them this Sunday at the baptism.

Luciano is the fiancé of a young lady in our ward. He´s been coming to church steadily and finally at church on Sunday decided to get baptized. It was really neat. He told us that he want´s to get baptized as soon as possible, so wee marked the date for this Saturday night. Because he will work this whole week, we had to teach him the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th lesson all at once after the meetings at church on Sunday. He readily accepted everything because he´s been so involved with the church for the last couple months. He was our best student at English class while it was still going on.

We´ve been teaching an older lady called Maria Lúcia (probably about 60-70 years old). She´s been coming to church regulary now for a few months. Her son, Oduvado(probably about 45 years old), has been a member of the church for 5 years. Unfortunately, about a year ago he suffered an accident and hasn´t been able to go to church since. The joints on the right side of his body don´t really work to well. For example, his right hand don´t close and he can´t bend his right knee. He´s been pretty much bed-ridden. He´s been having great progress! He can now sit up on his bed, and thinks that here in a little bit he´ll be able to leave the house in a modified wheelchair that his brother has been working on. We visit them a couple times week to teach him and his mother. While we´re there we help him with his physical theropy. Maria Lúcia doesn´t want to be baptized yet because, as she puts it, "baptism is for young people." Anytime we try to teach her about baptism she refuses to listen, but she´s been building a lot of good friendships at church lately, so hopefully she´ll soften up here in a little bit.

I don´t think I told you guys about the baptism a week and a half ago. Maria Juliawas baptized and confirmed the Saturday before last. She isn´t a convert however. She´s the eight-year-old daughter of Mário and Joelma. Mário is a little less active, so Maria Julia asked me to perform the baptism. I called President to see if missionaries could do ward baptisms, and he said as long as the bishop says so, which he had already done. Joelma went through the temple for the first time this last Saturday. We´ve been working with Mário to reach the same goal so that they can get sealed soon.

(I just realized that I had been spelling Saturday wrong, so I went back and corrected all the "Satterday"s that I typed.