Subject: And this is why I haven't had time to update my journal
Hello Everybody!
Let's see how many miracles I can get typed up.
Saturday:
We called the assistants to mark Clara's baptismal interview for that same night for her to be baptized the next day. We called them 30min later canceling because we find out that Clara had been too embarassed to tell us that she really isn't legally married. That afternoon, we talk with Bruno's mom. She has a firm testimony but can't be baptized yet because she has to take her other son to the hospital for sirguries. But, she told us that she would like for Bruno to go ahead and get baptized without her to not lose time in receiving blessings. That night we teach our golden family: Ricardo and Simone (a couple) and Simone's sister, Samara. Samara had already received a dream to confirm that this is the true church. We were sure she was firm for baptism. Our goal was to baptize Ricardo with her. Unfortunately we found out that they too have a similar problem. Simone and Ricardo were too embarrassed to tell us they weren't married. We usually would have found that out on the first or second visit, but because of their schedule, it just never worked out. At that time, Samara told us that she knows that the church is true and that she is ready spitirually to be baptized, but that emotionally she needed more time to prepare. Her baptismal date was set for the next day, so we invited her to pray about it, and tell is in the morning what she decided. We had to exercize a lot of faith, but we were a little more confident because of how many spiritual experiences had been happening for her to be baptized that weekend.
Sunday (the day before yesterday):
6am- Alarm was supposed to go off. Didn't.
6:15- Wake up miraculously with 30 minutes to get out the door.
6:45- Take off for church.
7:00- Executive Committee Meeting
8:00- The first ward choir practice in ward history. Piano player and tenor and bass director: me.
8:45- Call investigators to make sure they are awake and getting ready. Samara tells us that she'll probably wait more to be baptized.
8:45- Leave to go pick up investigators. Split. We get 9 to church.
9:30- Sacrament Meeting. I play "The Spirit of God" worse than I've ever played it before, but the other 3 hymns work out. Fabrício is confirmed a member of the church.
10:45- Gospel Principles.
11:30- Gospel Principles ends. Samara comes up to us with her Book of Mormon. She says, "Well, I did what you asked, and I prayed if I should be baptized today. These were the three answeres that I got." She shows us three scriptures in the Book of Mormon that talk about baptism. We tell her that we'll mark her interview for right after church.
12:15- During Relief Society she starts to get nervous. But luckily she has a lot of female return missionary friends that she's made in the last 3 weeks. She goes to the bathroom and says a prayer to know if today really was the day. Receives answer: yes. (We find this part out a few hours later).
1:00- She comes out of her interview with a big smile. Passes.
1:15- She calls Ricardo and Simone that had to leave to go home after Sacrament Meeting to come watch her baptism. She doesn't get a hold of them and starts to want to postpone the baptism again.
1:30- Elder Beal shares a spiritual experience that he had the previous night. She gaines confidence. We move her baptism from 1:30pm until 7pm in hopes of getting her family there to watch. We change locations from our chapel to the stake center because of a meeting with stake leaders at 6pm.
1:35- We start Bruno's baptismal service. Everything works like a charm.
3pm- lunch.
5pm- We arrive at the stake center and do a practice with the Stake High Council in preparation for our 6pm workshop meeting for all ward priesthood leaders in the stake.
6pm- We display for all ward priesthood leaders and the other missionaries in the stake an example of a poor Ward Executive Committee Meeting and the an excelent Ward Executive Committee Meeting. Was a success.
7pm- We start Samara's baptismal service. While she changes clothes, I practice a musical number with the Relief Society President which perform at the end of the meeting. One of the most special baptisms of me mission.
8:30- We receive transfers. We find out that we are both staying! Happy day! We pass transfer information to the other missionaries of the zone. While one of us is on the phone, the other does street contacts to meet our weekly goal.
9:30- Arive Home.
10:30- Sleep
Monday (yesterday):
The São Paulo state legislature officially honored the Church in a legislative session for our Helping Hands program. Last year we remodeled public schools (I don't remember if I told you all about that). Anyway, the government official that sponsored the recognition also made a proposition in comittee to intitute a state-wide "The Family - A Proclamation to the World" Day to be celebrated every 23 Setember (the day the church usually does the nation-wide Helpíng Hands service project here in Brazil). It's supposed to get signed into law fairly soon. During the legislative session they authorized the Church to set up a display in the Assembly Hall. The Area Presidency called up President Richardson and told him to pick 12 missionaries to man the stand representing the church to state government officials. President Richardson chose the 12 missionaries from one of the two stakes in our zone. So, Elder Beal and I, and two of our districts got to go. The displays were pretty amazing. There was one table with a bunch of quilts to represent humanitarian effort. There was another table with food storage supplies. We set up a table of the family, one of the Savior, another of the Restoration, and one more explaining the Book of Mormon. We also put up some neat posters that we sometimes use in traveling expositions. During about 3 hours yesterday morning/afternoon I'm sure I talked with over 100 state government workers. The highlight was when that government official that sponsored the recognition came down after the legislative session with a dozen or so press photographers swarming around him. I didn't even realize what was going on because I was just trying to do as many contacts as possible and by that time the room was pretty packed. He just happened to be the next one I presented myself to. As I began explaining the Restoration to him, I presented him with a copy of the Book of Mormon, and right when I placed it in his hands about 20 camera flashes went off in my face. Elder Beal thinks I might make the newspaper. However, we'll probably never know because we don't read the newspapers.
Love you all!
Goodbye for now!
--
Elder Jason Morgan Allred
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
May 12, 2009
Jason's Letter:
Subject: A Plan of Happiness!
Hello Everybody!
I really enjoyed talking to everyone on Mother's day. I love you all!
I'm sure that everyone knows that I won't be able to make it to Grandma's funeral this Saturday. However, Jordan, Ryan, and I are all where Grandma would like us to be. I'm remembering everyone in my prayers. How blessed we are to have a knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. I have taught so many people on my mission that think that death is the end, that the ressurection is only spiritual, that the ressurection is only for the righteous, or that reincarnation exists. But we know that Christ has overcome physical death for all! Oh death, where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. Christ also has overcome sin conditioned on our living of the gospel, something Grandma did her whole life. Now she is just continuing the same great work on the other side of the veil. Hurray for temples! Hurray for revelation! Hurray for eternal families! Hurray for sealing power!
On Sunday, we also celebrated a birth. Well, a "rebirth" that is. Fabrício was baptized. Samara, Ricardo, Bruno, and Rodrigo were also at church on Sunday.
Samara was really prepared by the Lord. She moved here a month ago and at the same time left another church. When she moved here she had been praying for Heavenly Father to show her the "true church." I'm glad she found it. :)
Ricardo is Samara's brother-in-law. Samara's sister (Simone), his wife, is showing great faith by giving up her daily habit of downing 3 liters of coffee a day.
Bruno will probably be baptized here in a couple weeks. His mother already knows the church is true but hasn't been able to come to church yet because she stays home taking care of here 16 year-old disabled son Fúvio.
Well, Goodbye for now!
--
Elder Jason Morgan Allred
Subject: A Plan of Happiness!
Hello Everybody!
I really enjoyed talking to everyone on Mother's day. I love you all!
I'm sure that everyone knows that I won't be able to make it to Grandma's funeral this Saturday. However, Jordan, Ryan, and I are all where Grandma would like us to be. I'm remembering everyone in my prayers. How blessed we are to have a knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. I have taught so many people on my mission that think that death is the end, that the ressurection is only spiritual, that the ressurection is only for the righteous, or that reincarnation exists. But we know that Christ has overcome physical death for all! Oh death, where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin. Christ also has overcome sin conditioned on our living of the gospel, something Grandma did her whole life. Now she is just continuing the same great work on the other side of the veil. Hurray for temples! Hurray for revelation! Hurray for eternal families! Hurray for sealing power!
On Sunday, we also celebrated a birth. Well, a "rebirth" that is. Fabrício was baptized. Samara, Ricardo, Bruno, and Rodrigo were also at church on Sunday.
Samara was really prepared by the Lord. She moved here a month ago and at the same time left another church. When she moved here she had been praying for Heavenly Father to show her the "true church." I'm glad she found it. :)
Ricardo is Samara's brother-in-law. Samara's sister (Simone), his wife, is showing great faith by giving up her daily habit of downing 3 liters of coffee a day.
Bruno will probably be baptized here in a couple weeks. His mother already knows the church is true but hasn't been able to come to church yet because she stays home taking care of here 16 year-old disabled son Fúvio.
Well, Goodbye for now!
--
Elder Jason Morgan Allred
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
May 5, 2009
Jason's Letter:
Subject: Miracles are everywhere.
Hello Everybody!
Monday (yesterday):
A huge wind/rain storm brought us a miracle. We were trying to contact a referral that we had received - Clara, the mother of a lady that was baptized in a different ward. We got to the house and knocked (or clapped as is Brazilian custom). No one answered. Well, we thought, plan fell through. President Richardson told us that whenever a plan falls through we should try to find someone to teach in the neighborhood. Because of some unnatural wind storm that came up, everyone ran inside, and there was no one on the road with whom to talk. So we knocked that next-door neighbor's door. The man who answered didn't really want to talk to us and tried to invent some absurd excuses. Then, when the rain started to pour down a little harder and he saw that we were without an umbrella, he decided to let us in to his garage just to avoid getting to wet. As we continued talking, he mentioned that his wife had recently visited our church. We asked what his wife's name was. Who would have guessed! It was Clara, the woman we were looking for. We had received the wrong address but had still been guided to the right house. When he realized that we were actually looking for his wife, he became quite kinder and let us in. We taught them both the first lesson and Clara accepted baptism!
On Monday, we also taught another lesson to Fabrício, Vera, Bruno, and Júnior. Only Júnior has been coming to church. The parents aren't going to reach their baptism goal because the dad doesn't want to get married. Júnior has already been going for a few months now with his next-door neighbors which were baptized a year ago, so we finally decided to let him be baptized. We were trying to get the whole family in the water, but the others just aren't progressing.
On Monday, we also taught Luisa for the second time. She was a contact we made on the road two weeks ago. I went there while I was on a split with Elder W. Nogueira. This was on Thursday of the week before last. When we knocked (clapped), she answered by saying that she didn't want anything to do with us and that we weren't ever to come back. So, plan fell through, we thought. We knocked on her neighbor's door. A golden family! We thought. Adilson and his wife an 4 kids. At first Adilson said he was too busy, so we put into practice a tecnic that Elder Araújo had taught us that same day. We offered to enter the house and say a quick prayer to bless the family, which they let us do. Then they agreed to let us come back to teach the first lesson. We came back and taught and everything, but as the days passed on, they showed less and less desire, and we ended up dropping them. On our last visit there (last Saturday) we were leaving their house when who should call us over but Luisa (the first lady next door that said she didn't want anything to do with us). She asked us to say a prayer to bless her family as well. We ended up teaching her the first lesson and inviting her to church. Sunday morning when we passed by, she was all ready to go. Then on Monday (yesterday) we taught her again she accepted baptism! (She'll just need to get married, but we'll work that out).
On Monday, we also taught Roberto and Válery. We read our favorite parts of the Book of Mormon with them to give them more of a desire to read.
Well, that's the most important stuff that happened on Monday. I was going to talk about what happened on the other days, but I'm out of time.
Goodbye for now!
--
Elder Jason Morgan Allred
Subject: Miracles are everywhere.
Hello Everybody!
Monday (yesterday):
A huge wind/rain storm brought us a miracle. We were trying to contact a referral that we had received - Clara, the mother of a lady that was baptized in a different ward. We got to the house and knocked (or clapped as is Brazilian custom). No one answered. Well, we thought, plan fell through. President Richardson told us that whenever a plan falls through we should try to find someone to teach in the neighborhood. Because of some unnatural wind storm that came up, everyone ran inside, and there was no one on the road with whom to talk. So we knocked that next-door neighbor's door. The man who answered didn't really want to talk to us and tried to invent some absurd excuses. Then, when the rain started to pour down a little harder and he saw that we were without an umbrella, he decided to let us in to his garage just to avoid getting to wet. As we continued talking, he mentioned that his wife had recently visited our church. We asked what his wife's name was. Who would have guessed! It was Clara, the woman we were looking for. We had received the wrong address but had still been guided to the right house. When he realized that we were actually looking for his wife, he became quite kinder and let us in. We taught them both the first lesson and Clara accepted baptism!
On Monday, we also taught another lesson to Fabrício, Vera, Bruno, and Júnior. Only Júnior has been coming to church. The parents aren't going to reach their baptism goal because the dad doesn't want to get married. Júnior has already been going for a few months now with his next-door neighbors which were baptized a year ago, so we finally decided to let him be baptized. We were trying to get the whole family in the water, but the others just aren't progressing.
On Monday, we also taught Luisa for the second time. She was a contact we made on the road two weeks ago. I went there while I was on a split with Elder W. Nogueira. This was on Thursday of the week before last. When we knocked (clapped), she answered by saying that she didn't want anything to do with us and that we weren't ever to come back. So, plan fell through, we thought. We knocked on her neighbor's door. A golden family! We thought. Adilson and his wife an 4 kids. At first Adilson said he was too busy, so we put into practice a tecnic that Elder Araújo had taught us that same day. We offered to enter the house and say a quick prayer to bless the family, which they let us do. Then they agreed to let us come back to teach the first lesson. We came back and taught and everything, but as the days passed on, they showed less and less desire, and we ended up dropping them. On our last visit there (last Saturday) we were leaving their house when who should call us over but Luisa (the first lady next door that said she didn't want anything to do with us). She asked us to say a prayer to bless her family as well. We ended up teaching her the first lesson and inviting her to church. Sunday morning when we passed by, she was all ready to go. Then on Monday (yesterday) we taught her again she accepted baptism! (She'll just need to get married, but we'll work that out).
On Monday, we also taught Roberto and Válery. We read our favorite parts of the Book of Mormon with them to give them more of a desire to read.
Well, that's the most important stuff that happened on Monday. I was going to talk about what happened on the other days, but I'm out of time.
Goodbye for now!
--
Elder Jason Morgan Allred
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