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