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
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