and it has been good to hear that elder kenczka is doing good! i love that elder! he is an example to me! i cannot wait to see him in two years!
so like you asked me last week about the visas. Yes, this transfer is ending and we will be losing a lot of missionaries, and we won’t be gaining hardly any. We will be getting some brazilians. so president is only going to put missionaries where there is good work to do! but i can see that without new missionaries it is going to cause a little problem! so here in brasil, not as many areas will be covered but the work will always go on!
and i already read a little part of your email mom! that is sad about the baptism. but it will work out! seems like the missions in the states are a lot more strict than here! but i know that daniel will be baptized. it seems like he has a testimony and is ready to follow!
and now for the news on our investigators! everybody that we have baptized in this area is really strong! i have never seen this before. seems like usually one or two fall away! but as of yesterday everyone was at church! and to top it off----- fernando blessed the sacrament for the second time. so he is progressing really well!
this week we didn´t have baptisms. but this coming saturday we will be having two. i don’t know if i have mentioned much about them, but their names are michelly and edimilson. they aren’t a couple, but they both will be getting married to their spouses this friday and will be baptized on saturday and confirmed on sunday.
michelly is awesome! she is a woman of extreme faith. we have been working with her for 3 months now. and her process has been a bit slow. first of all she needed to get married,which we got finalized this last week and she also needed to stop smoking! the marriage part was easy for her. she has always wanted to get married. so this last wednesday we went to the center and finalized the paper work. but she didn’t have a desire to quit smoking. Then after a time she wanted to quit because she had a huge desire to be baptized, but she said that she just loved to smoke. so it was really difficult for her. she went from smoking about 25 per day to 2. so she progressed really well. but to give those last two cigarettes up was really hard. until monday night last week. we had family night with her and afterward she came up to us and was just crying because she couldn’t quit. she said that she just didn’t have the will. so we conversed with her for a bit and she still said that she didn’t think that she could do it. the next day on tuesday we went to see how she was doing. when we got there her eyes were completely swollen like she had been crying all day. and that was the truth, she had been crying. but she said to us that she had quit!!! she said that it was the most difficult thing she had ever done. so i asked her what helped her quit. and she said that after family night she went home and opened the book of mormon to read and she turned to a verse that just hit her. she said it was what she needed to quit smoking. and when we were there and as she was telling us all this she said; ‘i now can say like you two say, i know that this is the true church! i know that Jesus lives and that this is the path that leads back to his presence!"
for me that moment was very spiritual! i could see the difference in her because she had received a personal testimony! it was amazing! and every since that day she hasn’t smoked! it is amazing to me the power of the book of Mormon and the power of a true personal testimony! with these things we can have strength to keep the commandments.
and mom, michelly added me on face book and wants you to add her. so could you get on my face book and add her? thank you!
and edimilson! he has been wanting to get baptized for a long time as well, but has been waiting for divorcement paper so that he could get married with his current wife. but all went well and he will be married this week too. he is a man of about 50 years. he is awesome! very humble and willing to follow Christ.
i know that this is the true church of Christ! i know that he lives, and that the atonement is real! faith is essential to this plan. we need it so we can follow. also i know that through sacrifice we can develop faith necessary to return back to our Heavenly Father. i know that’s why he asks us to do things that are hard. so we can become stronger!!
I love you all so much!! thank you for everything! for your support, prayers, and love! i pray for you as well! and i miss you! but wouldn’t give this time that i have now for anything!
just keep going. look to sacrifices as blessings and you will see how much there is to learn!!
Love your son, brother, friend, grandson
Elder Tyler Hugh Larsen
No comments:
Post a Comment