Athia's baptism was wonderful.
I am really impressed with how Mauricio dedicates so much time to helping him
out, many times neglecting his own household chores to give Athia attention.
All of the ward is really willing to serve. Paulo gives him a car ride
every week without hesitating. I think Athia was impressed too, cuz he
started getting emotional when the quorom and the bishopric formally welcomed
him to the ward. It was also kind of a miracle that Athia was baptized at
all, since we found out afterwards that Satan pulled a fast one on us
Saturday. Somehow Athia got it in his head that he could ask Cynthia (a
member of the ward who is 30 years younger than him) to be his girlfriend.
She politely declined the invitation. Luckly he wasn't so heartbroken
that he cancelled the baptism.
We were also really happy that Victor
was able to watch the baptism. He is down from 30 cigarettes per day to 5
cigarettes per day! And Sunday was perfect because Gospel Principles was
about the Word of Wisdom, and then Sacrament Meeting was about
eternal families, and then to top it off, he got to watch a
baptism. He was pretty emotional all through the baptism, thinking about
how badly he wants this chance to start over again and help his own
family. It was all so powerful that by the end of the baptism, I
felt like saying something like, "Victor, God loves you. He has
commanded you to quit smoking. By way of his commandment and in His holy
name, will you stop smoking cigarettes?" But instead, I just said,
"You're next." And he said, "We'll talk."
We had zone conference this week and
I got to catch up with the sisters from Jardim Climax. Since I left,
seven people there have been baptized, all of whom I knew and six of whom I
taught, including Edneia and a bunch of those teenage boys (Diogenese, Julio,
Gabriel, etc.). Even though, as we always say on the mission,
"I did not come here to plant seeds," it's nice to know
that some seeds I helped plant bore fruits anyways. Oh yeah, and that
couple that I started teaching in Planalto (Fernanda's parents) was baptized as
well. :)
I loved zone conference because it
was about the Book of Mormon, and I love
the Book of Mormon. Sister Tanner bore such a sweet testimony. She
has read the Book of Mormon like 100 plus times and always takes Moroni up
on his challenge to pray about the book at the end. She doesn't pray
because she doubts it's true. She prays because she loves the feeling of
being wrapped up by the Spirit again.
And we got to use what we learned on
our new investigator, Rose. We found her when we were walking around in
Liberdade and all the sudden we spotted that LDS painting of the Second Coming
on somebody's wall. I love it when God just makes it super obvious who
you have to contact. We knocked and Rose answered. She said that
her niece is a less-active member and was about to move in with her. Rose
is awesome. She totally accepted our baptism invitation. Said that
she was baptized into the Catholic church when she was a baby but didn't feel
like that counted cuz she was just a little baby and didn't know what she was
doing. She was also baptized in an evangelical church, but said it was
kind of hurried and she didn't feel like it made any difference in her
life. But if this is God's true baptism, she's all for it. When we
next met with Rose, she had read The Book of Mormon but hadn't prayed. She got emotional
when we testified that she needs to pray about what she read. Knowing
that The Book of Mormon is true isn't the same as knowing that just any book is
true. It's knowing that Christ was resurrected, that he lives and is
working constantly for our spiritual welfare, and that the truth doesn't
change.
We also had quite the adventure
Saturday morning when we arrived at Lilian's house to help her organize and
clean the place. This lady is nice and super helpful but also kind of an
airhead. When we got there, she was washing the dog...with something
called "kerolina". I'm not sure exactly what this chemical is,
but I hear it's normally used for removing paint or starting fires. But Lilian says
she uses it to kill her dog's fleas. She says no matter how many times
she washes him, he gets fleas again. She suspects her evil mother of bringing a
container of fleas over each time she comes and spilling it on Alvie's
head. Only this time, Lilian was fed up with the fleas, so she didnt
dilute the kerolina when she washed Alvie. He started to get all drunk,
and we rushed him to the vet. It was a pretty dramatic ER crisis--every
time they tried to give Alvie a shot, his vein popped. But in the end he
survived.
Well I love you,
Sister Carter
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