"So much in life depends on our attitude. They way we choose to see things and respond to others makes al the difference."
President Thomas S. Monson
Family and Friends,
For me, this last week was to go out
with a bang, and ladies and gentlemen, Medina and I certainly did.
Nothing happened of note on p-day.
Elder Hunt's District, the highest baptizing district in the mission
Tuesday-We had our final Zone Conference
before transfers, it was good, we did more practices and we took pictures
and stuff. It was honestly a little sad because I quite like my zone,
especially my district.
Elder Hunt with some of the 'guys'
Purituba Zone
This is my last week of training, and
my last week with Elder Medina before we part ways. I will miss him a ton, we've
had our ups and downs, but I love him like a brother, he’s been good to me, and
it will be hard for us both because we’ve gotten so close.
Elder Gimenez, one of the Zone leaders, and Elder Hunt
We are shooting for 7 more baptisms
before the transfer ends. If we do it, that will be 17 in one transfer,
breaking the record of Elder Costa and Elder Borba, the legends of the mission,
who had 15.
It’s been rainy and cloudy which is
nice. We had good lessons with everyone we are trying to baptize this
week. Elder Taylor and I also bought 5 kilos of açai tonight so that’s always
a good time.
Brasilian Money - Reais
Mo Money- Mo Problemz
Wednesday-Happy Birthday Dad! No I didn't forget! I hope your birthday is
great! Out of the 7 baptisms we
are shooting for this week, Maria is the toughest. Maria is a 68 year old woman
who is very strong in her Baptist church. But she believes the Book Of Mormon
to be true, and if the Book Of Mormon is true, our whole religion is true. The
Book Of Mormon truly is the keystone of our religion. If the Book Of Mormon is
true, Joseph Smith truly was a prophet of God, and through him, the Church of
Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth, along with the truths and
authorities of God. This is why we focus on the Book Of Mormon.
Maria on her baptism day
Anyways, Maria believes, but her
whole family is against her, but being the oldest, leading the family, it
does help her, but the rest of her family wants nothing to do with us.
Right now is the silence before the
storm, or the time period before you know a bomb will go off. Everything is
going perfect with all 7 of our investigators, but when the Devil gets a
hold of someone and causes them to fall, we know that a problem could develop and get in the way of them getting baptized this week.
Thursday-We made great progress and
helped solidify every single person for baptism, but with Maria being the least
firm.
Ana Marcia on her baptism day
One who will be baptized this week is
the 9 year old Ana Marcia, she is so sweet, cute, and smart. He parents are
less active, but are coming back, this is why we are able to baptize her. She
goes to church and has a part in the Primary Program on Sunday and she will be
talking about baptism. So to make it as special as possible for her, she will be baptized Sunday morning, one hour before the Primary
Program will start. She can give a real testimony of what it is like to be
baptized, and the importance of it. This family lives on the very cusp of our area,
so it takes forever to get there.
Today as we were leaving, we decided to take
a very small side path that we thought would help us get to where we needed to
go faster. It was just a very small turnoff, and we were certain we would end
up in the same spot that our other path takes us. We followed it for about 20
minutes and everything still seemed right, until we stumbled upon a road and area
we did not recognize. We asked around and to our surprise, we had stumbled into
a different zone! It took us 2 hours to find our way back to where we
needed to go.
The best donuts so far
But on our way I did find a bakery
with powdered donuts with fillings of: Strawberry, Cream, Chocolate, Maracujá,
Goiaba, Condensed milk, Doce de leite, and more, so I bought some, and they
were the best donuts I’ve had on my
mission.
But this whole story reminded me of a
Conference talk by Dieter F. Uchtdorf that talked about a plane being so very
slightly off course, and ending up crashing. This is what I will relate to my
story of getting lost, and this same lesson we can apply to our lives. We
thought this other road would be slightly quicker, prettier, just to change
things up, forgetting about our other normal path that we knew for a fact the
other road would take us to where we needed to go.
We know that the way of Christ is the
way or truth and light, we know that commandments are direct revelation from
God protecting us, not holding us back, but in the ways of the world we
are enticed to choose differently, we are lead astray, just to see where will
go or what will happen.
This all again reminds me of a Mormon Message from my
Grandpa, called " The Voice of the Spirit." Go watch it right now if
you can!
Mateus and Nata, on their baptism day. With their mother and Elder Hunt and Medina
That night we taught 13 year old
Mateus and his brother Nata, we have been teaching them for about a month, but
their mother will not let them get baptized. We have been praying and fasting
and working so hard for a miracle with her. The kids want to get baptized but she
just won’t let them! We started off the night great by doing a Family
Home Evening and playing a game that involves using 2 spoons to unwrap mini
chocolate bars with a dice and the number 6. It was a huge success!!! We got
the whole family involved and then we went Pastor status on the mother (Brazilians
quite enjoy that) and at the end we asked once more to let the kids get baptized
and she said yes! What a miracle!
Friday-We did a huge division for all the
baptismal interviews, but to get more experience, this time, I went with Elder
Baron to all the locations for all the interviews. All the interviews went well
and we were feeling good, but one phrase Medina and I live by here is
"Nothing is certain until they are in the water."
Gabi on her baptism day with her family
Family of De Paulo Sueli, Lucas, and Gabi
Saturday-We pulled the trigger- secured
all the baptisms for Sunday. We
also had the baptism of Gabi! Medina baptized her older brother Lucas (11 years
old) a few months back, and we've always been trying to help the parents, Paulo
and Sueli get married, but they still haven’t.
The story behind this
was great, Tuesday we visited them and Medina said "Paulo, I’ve known you
and your family for 6 months, I’ve baptized your son and tried to help you for
so long, but next Tuesday I will leave for a different area. I know if I asked
you to buy me 3 pizzas to enjoy together because I will be leaving, you would,
but I ask to baptize your daughter on Saturday, and enjoy pizza afterwards to
celebrate" ...and Paulo said YES!!!
Elder Hunt with 2 puppies. He says these were cuter and much cleaner than last weeks
Sunday-We woke up extra early for the
baptism of Ana Marcia, because this is Brasil and things aren’t quite as organized
as the US. The bishopric let the father of Ana Marcia baptize her, even though he’s
technically less active, but because Ana Marcia is 9 years old and we have been re-activating the family, it is our baptism and not a baptism of the ward.
During the
closing prayer, Legia, the mother of Ana Marcia, started to weep because she
said how thankful she is for Elder Medina and I for teaching their child and
helping them come back.
After, we picked up Mateus, Nata, and
Maria. After the 3-hour block, Medina baptized Nata and I baptized Mateus and
Maria, who had some difficulties because the water was cold.
Maria, Mateus and Nata on their baptism day
Later, we got our transfer calls.
Medina will be a zone leader in a nearby zone, Costa and Taylor will stay, but
Elder Da Silva will leave :( And my new companion will be Elder Aguirres, a
Brasilian of Rio de Janeiro. He has about 8 months on the mission.
That night Paulo bought us pizza
even though it was Sunday and we told him no.
As of right now we have 15 baptisms,
which ties the mission record, BUT, we have 2 tonight. I know I said nothing is
sure until they are in the water, but the 2 that will be baptized are 2 twins
who just turned 8 yesterday, but were at the beach so couldn’t make it
yesterday, but will FOR SURE 100% tonight. They are in the family of the 7
little cute black kids in the favela who love me :) The mom is extremely
supportive and they will be baptized tonight at 7pm. Their names are
Elizabeth and Ezequiel, they are the cutest and funniest, I love them so much!
:)
And then afterwards, we will
celebrate the end of the transfer and breaking the mission record of 17 baptisms
in a transfer with pizza! At the beginning of the transfer we set our goal to beat
the mission record and baptize every single week, now we have done just that.
We have accomplished what we set out to do, this week also celebrates or 10th
consecutive week baptizing.
Thiago Family
Transfers are tomorrow and it will be
tough leaving him, but I feel I’ve learned all I can from him and that I will
need to grow and learn more from my next companion. I bought my new comp
frosted flakes, (a novelty here) a chocolate bar, and pasçoa to welcome him and
try to get things off to a great start.
Carlos and Zilda
My new comp will need to know that we
will baptize every week and we will love each other. This week will be a
week of big changes, but I’m ready.
Elder Hunt
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