Week 6 Pictures!

October 7, 2013 

Opa!

I’ll give you a description of the photos first:



Rainy season is starting up.  Sunday night the rain was so hard that it sounded like people were throwing rocks at the window.  These are the clouds that roll in over the mountains.

This is a family in our ward.  Hugo and Rita are the kids in the picture.  Rita speaks English which is fun.  Their dad is an English teacher here.  The mom and Rita left to return to their home in Portugal after being in Brazil for 4 years.

It seriously rains so hard here!!!  We were soaking wet, but that's OK.  People will let you into their house when they see you are freezing cold and wet.  Also, you can see the graffiti on the wall there.  That's basically every wall here in the Vale do Jatoba.  Lots of it is actually super pretty.

You can buy fresh coconuts here for less than a dollar.  There's a fresh market that sells them near our house.  So good!

We went to a wedding on Saturday.  Geam and Monica got married.  Geam is one of our investigators.  Monica is a great member and we have a date set with Geam for later this month.  I was pretty psyched.  There were tons of members at the wedding too!



This was at conference.  Me, Elder Souza, Diego, Ana Clara, and Rebeka.  Diego and Ana Clara are our two investigators.  Rebeka is their cousin, and she is a member.  Rebeka’s brother’s name is Moroni.  They are a huge blessing in getting Diego and Ana Clara to church and making them feel welcome.  Diego is probably my favorite person here in Brazil.  He is super cool and keeps all the commitments we give him except for baptism.  He says that he thinks that this church is A church of Jesus Christ, but he doesn’t know if it is THE church of Jesus Christ.  We have a lesson tonight with him about the atonement.  He has lots of questions after the Sunday morning session of conference.

 

Conference was awesome this weekend. As a missionary, it is the equivalent to a Jason Bourne movie.  I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen because I didn’t want to miss any of the action. We only got to watch the two sessions on Sunday, but I learned so much!  The power of the atonement to change people is something that we need to incorporate better into our lessons.  Thomas S Monson is without a doubt a prophet.  When he speaks it’s so powerful.  I also loved the story about the Man in Papa New guinea who accidentally started a fire too big to control.  After he had done all he could do to stop the flames he prayed for help and God sent rain.  We must do all that we can first, and then after that, God will send us the miracles in our life.  Also, I have a new favorite scripture.  Hebrews 12:1 Run with patience the race that is set before us (something like that).   

We had some really good lessons this week.  We found a great family.  It’s a family that’s kind of different than most.  We are teaching an older woman name Lucimar and her son Luis who is 23.  Luis has two sons that live with him that are 6 and 3 years old.  We also teach a friend of Luis, who is always at the house name Eduardo.  Then we also taught the fiancé of Luis.  We taught them about the restoration and the plan of salvation.  They like it. It’s always exciting to see people understanding and learning about the church.  I get seriously pumped up!  This is one of the most important messages of their lives!

I love what we do here! The church is so true and will always change people for the better.

Love,

Elder Marsh

 

1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the ^asin which doth so easily ^bbeset us, and let us run with ^cpatience the race that is set before us,  (Hebrews 12:1)