Airplanes

This week was super fun!  The conferences ended yesterday with a trip to Montes Claros.  It’s the longest zone (8 hours on a bus)  from Belo Horizonte so we went by plane! Pretty cool right?  

The conferences were great. It’s great to see how inspired President is for our mission. In every zone he talked about different things depending on what the missionaries were needing.  He even asked every missionary to write down questions they had about the work or their area or their investigators and promised them that all the questions would be responded. All of them were in all the zones. It’s a miracle really. I love seeing miracles.

This week we are working a lot with Ailton and Silvana's daughter, Pamila!  She didn’t really want to hear the messages with her parents but after their baptisms she has really started to open up. She likes the Book of Mormon and is close to receiving an answer I think!  We are hoping that Ailton will be able to baptize her next Saturday!  

Good things are happening here!

Love,

Elder Marsh

Conferences

What a busy week!!!

I'm so tired!  We did 4 7 hour zone conferences this week and then went on splits with the elders in the zones we went to.  GOOD STUFF!!  On Tuesday we were in "Sete Lagoas" (Seven Lakes) and I went on splits with an awesome missionary named Elder Molinaro.  We found out that he had lived in dorm right above mine while we were at BYU.  Crazy!  We lived super close to each other, but I had never met him before.  The time we spent together was awesome!!!! Every conference that we are doing we talk about the importance of teaching the people by following the spirit and asking inspired questions.  It’s probably one of the most important things we need to do in order for the people to feel conversion and the importance of the Book of Mormon, The Church of Jesus Christ, baptism, etc. in their own lives.  Elder Molinaro and I totally applied it in the 3 hours we spent together and had some awesome results.  The only appointment he had in the time fell through, but we kept looking and talked with everyone in the street until we found a few people to let us in. In the end, we taught 4 lessons and found 2 new investigators who had already been to church before and had just never been invited to be baptized...the Lord is so gracious.  The last lesson of the night was the greatest though.  It was a man and his daughter that live behind the chapel and have just had problems accepting a baptismal date.  We conversed about the plan of salvation and I could tell that he knew that the church was true and wanted to be baptized.  I asked him, "Why aren’t you baptized yet?"  And he responded, "I don’t feel worthy yet because I used to drink and smoke."  Elder Molinaro came in and said, "When we look at you, we don’t see who you were, and neither does Christ.  He sees you dressed in white being baptized with your daughter. He sees you leading your family to the celestial kingdom." He looked at the ground and thought for a little and then accepted a baptismal date.  It was a good feeling during the lesson.

I love being a missionary.

Love,

Elder Marsh

Quick Email

I don't know what to say about this week.  It's been crazy busy!  We did 3 zone conferences already in Ipatinga, Divinopolis and Cotagem.  It’s been an awesome experience so far.  It's cool to see how much inspiration that President Fortunato has for the mission.  Every conference is different depending on what the zone is needing.  

My part in the conference is about Teaching Techniques. It’s a good topic and I learned a lot preparing for it.

Baptism of Ryla and others

Also, Ryla, the girl I talked about last week, will be baptized today!! We were so blessed. We literally had an hour and a half of proselyting time this whole week but the Lord kept her ready and excited for her baptism.

I love you,

Elder Marsh 

This week

I like the photos!  It sounds like things are going great back home…keep it up mom, you’re awesome.

This week was really busy.  Seven new missionaries got here in the mission, (we got 4 new Elders that are giants.  All 6'3" or taller.) and 11 finished their mission and went home, including my companion Elder Bellini.  My new companion is Elder Bruxel!  He's a way good Elder from Rio Grande do Sul, and we're already seeing miracles together!  He took my place in "Lagoa" when I was transferred from there, so we have had some similar experiences.  This is his last transfer in the mission and I'm sure it's going to be powerful.

Last night was awesome.  This whole week we had only had about 2 hours of proselyting Monday through Thursday, so I was dying to get out into the field.  Yesterday we got to the office early to finish up everything that we needed to do before lunch, and then we headed out to teach everyone that we could.  It was a fun day because we found a lot of people at home to teach, but there weren’t very many interesting in becoming members of The Church of Jesus Christ.  But in our last lesson we found the person that we had been searching for and the person that God had prepared for us!  We taught a less active family and invited them back to church. They accepted, and their non-member daughter accepted to be baptized!  I love it!  It's the greatest thing in the world when the Lord blesses us to "come off conqueror".  This gospel is so good.

Next week we will start the zone conferences.  I'm excited to see all the missionaries again and to get to know the whole mission area.  It’s going to be a good time.

Love you all,

Elder Marsh

Belo Horizonte AP Apartment (not too bad!)

Elder Bruxel coming, Elder Bellini going and Elder Marsh staying.

Brazilian wildlife--Coati

Happy New Year!

Baptism of Graca

This week was way fun for us.  It started last Saturday with the baptism of Graça.  It was so awesome teaching her.  A recent convert, Fabiola, gave us the referral to start teaching Graça about the gospel.  The problem was that every time we went there, she was drunk and couldn't understand our messages.  We decided that we would have to stop teaching for a little bit, but then she showed up to stake conference.  We talked to her afterwards and she told us she had loved the meeting. Long story short, Graça never drank again and is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!  What’s cool is that everything changed about her.  She kicked her friends who were bad influences out of her house, she threw out all the coffee and drinks, goes to church every Sunday and to all the activities, and it just feels different to be near her.  People tell her everyday that she looks happier and she loves that. 

We were able to visit a couple of cities that I had never been to on the mission doing splits with other missionaries on New Years Eve. We went to Pará de Minas and Itaúna.  It was fun being with the other missionaries and we got to teach a lot of new investigators.  We missed our bus though to get back to Belo Horizonte and had to wait until the next one leaving at 9 pm...yikes.  We ended up getting home pretty late, and I was exhausted so I definitely did not stay up until midnight.  New years day President and Sister Fortunato took us out to a Brasilian steak house.... it was the best food I've ever eaten!  I love Brazil so much.

This morning we woke up early to go to a national park near the city.  It was really cool and we had some way pretty views of the whole city and the mountains that surround it.

I love you all,

Elder Marsh

View from Praca do Papa

Staff at Praca do Papa

Brazilian Wilderness

Mountains in Minas Gerais