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| Missionaries on a bridge above the Rio Santa Maria |
Did you
get any of the packages I sent yet? I sent 2 flat type packages a couple
weeks ago.
No I didn´t get them this week. For
some reason things are taking a lot longer to get in this area than my last
area.
How was the week?
Very good. I actually had a lot of fun
this week and we got a lot of things done.
Will you be emailing us next Monday?
Yes i will. Maybe it will be shorter
since I´ll be talking to you the next day.
Do you know what time for sure you are Skyping?
I´ll be calling you around 12 Noon your
time.
Baptisms - any this week?
Yes we had one! A young woman named Suelen. I
attached a photo.
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| Baptism of Suelen December 15, 2012 |
Do the
cowboys there smoke or chew tobacco?
Everyone in this entire city smokes.
That isn´t even a joke. Very few people chew, because it is so expensive here.
There is a lot of contraband cigarettes here, so everyone smokes them.
Whats the
hardest thing outside of marriage that you are dealing with
investigators? Have many of them heard of the church?
A large problem is just that people say
that they are born into the Catholic Church (or another) and all of their families
were part of that church. They say that they don´t want to move churches
because then maybe it would have an impact on if they´ll be with the rest of their
families again. It´s hard to explain the Temple in our first lesson, but
usually the Plan of Salvation lesson can really help them out. Most of the
people in this city have heard of the term Mormons, but they don´t know
anything about our church for the most part. Some have a book of Mormon given
to them by friends; others just have friends who they know have been baptized.
I´d say about 90 percent of the time we find people, they have a general idea
of the church, but they don´t know the teachings or the doctrine for the most
part.
How do
most discussions start.. what do you start talking about the restoration or
other?
Almost always we will start off by teaching the
Restoration. That is the key message for people to understand, because all of
the keys to the priesthood were restored through Joseph Smith. There are a lot
of people here who practice Masonry. Their church has a lot of doctrine and
teachings that are similar to ours, and we have a lot of days where we will
teach someone familiar with their doctrines. Sometimes we will teach the plan
of salvation first if the spirit directs to do so, or if they have questions
about life or have had a recent death in the family that is really bothering
them.
What is
the most "impactful" discussion?
The Restoration. When people really focus on what
we are saying AND they understand it, you can see their facial expressions
change. They realize that the only way God´s church can be on the Earth is if
it´s our church. Then it just comes down to them doing a simple prayer to find
out if it´s our church. I always end with this statement: ``Our message is
simple, because I don´t want to convince you that these things are true. All
over the world we have pastors and other preachers opening churches, asking for
money and promising blessings, and trying to convince people. I don´t want to
do that here. Now you have the information and you have felt the spirit here
with us. My invite to you is to pray tonight to feel these same feelings. When
you feel these things again, you will know with absolute certainty that these
things are true. Then, and only then, you can believe and trust in our message.”
With saying that right there, I have found a lot of success in this area. People
see that we´re not here to convince, but to share Christ´s message and show
people the only way to truly come unto Christ.
Hello Family!
So like I said above, we had a baptism for Suelen
on Saturday! My companion baptized her. It was a way awesome experience, and
the spirit was very strong. We are getting close to our goal of 80 people in church
by the end of the year. I forgot to get a count of heads yesterday. We had some
investigators there as well, so I was happy with that. We have a baptism coming
up next week for Vanderlei and Mari. I am so excited for them. We did a service
project for them for a few hours on Friday and built these closets for them. He
bought the materials and we threw them up. I hope they stay up haha. We had two
huge wind storms this past week! They were crazy! The Lord protected my area,
and none of our members had any serious damage. There were trees down
everywhere and roofs ripped right off of a lot of homes. We went a day without
water and electricity too, I´ll tell you right now how fun that was. We had no
electricity for the fans during the night, so it was just bug bites and
sweating all night. Loved it. Elder Avelar is becoming a really awesome
missionary. He is still a little scared teaching bigger groups of people, but
he´s getting the hang of it.
Yesterday we had an awesome experience. After
church we went down to our lunch a ways away and had a great meal. I played
some weird game on the playstation with the little boy of the family haha. 9
months without playing video games will make you pretty rusty Tay! ha! After
that I just had some random feeling that we needed to pass this members´ home
who lives nearby. The dad is not a member, but the mom and 6 children are.
Tereza (the mom) and her kids were all baptized about 15 years ago. At the
time, the dad was taking the messages, but then decided not to go along with
it. He hasn´t accepted the missionary talks since then. Two of his kids have
served missions and they all still live in the city. Yesterday we sat there
with them and just started a friendly and simple conversation. We joked around
with him for quite a while. He has a lot of health problem, and he smokes and
drinks. He lit up a self-made cigarette right in front of us. When he started
smoking he blew the smoke out and the wind blew it right into his wife´s face.
She got ticked off and picked her chair up and moved away from him.
Then I had
a feeling to start a spiritual part. I asked him why he smoked. All he
responded was that he liked it. I told him that the smoking isn´t only
affecting him, but it´s also hurting Tereza´s health as well. The conversation
turned very serious from there. I don´t think anyone has really stood up to him
like that, but I said it very boldly and bluntly. I asked him if he wanted to
see his last daughter get married. He said yes. I asked him if he wanted to see
Cleber (his son) have children and see them grow up too. He said yes. Then I
just straight-up told him that he won´t see that if he keeps smoking. He is a
very, very big guy, just keep that in mind. But then he got all teary eyed. I
just let the conversation sit quietly while the spirit worked on him. My
companion was too scared to talk this whole time pretty much. My companion
asked him if he knew about the Temple. He said yes, but very little. Tereza has
already been through for herself. I told him that if he wants to be with her
forever, he has to stop smoking NOW. He slowly gave in. It took a lot of work
but we worked and worked on him. I left there with a sack of tobacco and little
cigarette casings in my hand. I asked him if he could stop and he said yes.
Then just told him that he needed to give me the stuff. So he just gave it to
me. Then I assigned Mosiah 27 for him to read, and he said they would both read
it tonight. I wrote my phone number on the chapter and told him to call me when
he had a desire to smoke. He still hasn´t called, so I am sure that the Lord is
blessing him through his prayers and reading. We´ll see what happens! My goal
for him is to be baptized the first week of January. I know that he can do it,
especially after the spirit worked on him so hard.
The rest of the week was just teaching and helping
our investigators move along. No one else is really progressing; because they
still don´t have any desire to get married. They will though, I just know it.
We will give them a message that will touch their hearts, just like Vanderlei
and Mari. They investigated for 17 years, and only now agreed to be married and
to be baptized because of the message we gave my first week in the area.
Everyone has a time, and we cannot give up on those that are still not quite
here. We all know people like this! God will touch their hearts through our
prayers, fasting, and our diligence! Whether they have already been baptized
and are waiting to come back, or if they aren´t quite members of the church
yet, they will have their time. We can´t give up on anyone. Let´s all think of
someone right now, and we will do a fast for them next week after we talk on
Skype. Be thinking of names, and we will do it! I know that we can all find
happiness and comfort inside this gospel. Sometimes we deny it because things
aren´t going perfectly, but God will always manifest these special blessings
inside his true church. Remember: Faith, Hope, Charity, Love. If we show these
4 simple things for these people, they will be back!
On Christmas things... I will be calling at 12 noon
your time next Tuesday. I will email you on Monday. I
want my alone time to talk to each of you on Tuesday from 12-1. Somewhere in
there I need time to talk to Sammie. Then when the family gets there I can talk
to whoever wants to talk to me. Invite Grandma and Grandpa down please! I would
love to talk to them.
Well, if I missed anything please put it in there
for next week! Good job on your talk [in church] and in swim Tay! The hard work is going to
pay off buddy, just keep it going. A lot of it is mental too! So keep your head
right in there with ya. And Hailey good job in dance! Sounds like your body is
starting to get a lot more flexibility! That´s so exciting! I’m happy for you!
I love all of you! Remember what this time is
about, and that this is the season of Giving! Do lots of service this week!
Have a great week.
Love,
Elder Shepherd
PS. the
other picture is on the bridge that overlooks the river! (Rio Santa Maria)
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