Some People are Baptized because of the Examples They Have Seen

 

Tracting Pic from back in Rosario

How was your week? Really good!

Did you celebrate Easter there?

We had a huge BBQ for lunch yesterday, but nothing really other than that. 

Any baptisms in the works?

Yes we´ve got 2 dates marked for the 13th of April. 

Any guess of where you will go next transfer?

I honestly have no idea. Hopefully somewhere in the city again but I have no clue

Hello family!

What a great week. We had 5 investigators at church with us yesterday. We´ve got a date marked with Vera and a date marked with Darci, he´s the father of a member in the ward.

Vera was just the golden investigator from the moment we found her. She came to church last week and yesterday and is already just pumped to be baptized.   It´s been a great time teaching her, and she´s super smart. She had so many questions, and we answered them all by the Spirit. She´s a widow.

Darci is an ex military sargent. He is a way solid guy. We had a family night at their home this week. We invited the Bishop, Elders quorum president, and one of the High Priests to come with us. They all helped us teach him about the importance of baptism and then we invited him.   He wasn´t able to make it to church yesterday because of Easter (they had some visits come), but he´s already been in the past, and he´ll for sure come to at least one session of conference next week.  

The other 4 we had at church are all young men and one young woman. They´re all really good, we´re just having a difficult time trying to teach them with their parents. We´ve been trying to teach in the apartments again now. We taught the people that live right below us this week! They moved in about a month and a half ago and we´d never really thought about trying to teach there. We went there this week and they are such an awesome family. The father did the last prayer and everyone felt the spirit. They all said they felt something different.  It was a great lesson though and unfortunately they weren´t able to come to church yesterday. We have a lesson planned out with a member family on Wednesday to go teach them, so hopefully they can come to at least one session of conference. We have worked off and on in an apartment complex called Videiras.  So they´re inexpensive apartments. They´re really nice though. We have some less-active members in there and one active family. Yesterday we received 2 references who live in there and we went there again for like the first time in a month. The people were all really receptive because of Easter.   Yesterday was a really good teaching day. We taught like 10 lessons because everyone was a lot more receptive.

It´s a good time to remember what the Easter time is really about. We tend to think a lot about the Resurrection of Christ, but we also need to think a lot about the Atonement. Christ gave his life for us, and we have the opportunities that we do because of him. It would be impossible to return to heaven together with our families without that sacrifice. It´s really an infinite atonement. It makes it all possible. Maybe I haven´t had a lot of outward success here, but my testimony has grown so much. I truly know that Christ died for me, and through him I´m able to become clean and feel the spirit as fully as possible. Sometimes it´s just almost unbearable how strong the spirit is in our messages.   I know for sure that if my companion and I have felt it, so did our investigators.  Some feel it AND invite us to come back. It´s frustrating, but I know that the Lord is preparing people for us to find. It´s just a trial of my faith and my patience for what I´ve been going through this past little while. We did have a giant BBQ for lunch yesterday though, and that helped a ton with the frustrations haha! The lunch lasted forever though because they just kept bringing out more and more food. I felt like we were at Tucano´s again. 

 I got a letter from Kyle today, but i´ll be writing him back to his house! It´s crazy how fast that went by. It´s still going by way too fast out here. I´ll be onto my next area already in a week!  . We´ll have to see. I am so dang excited for conference next week! Actually, all of us missionaries are. It´s like Christmas!!! Elder mason and I already have plans for the foods and goodies we´re gonna be buying. All of the American missionaries will be in a different room watching it in English. I am pretty sure that there´s like 15 americans.

I didn´t take really any pictures this week so sorry for no attachments. I´ll attach some next week.  It´s been a cool time to be out here. We sweat all day sometimes to teach just one lesson, but that one lesson is worth it. If they choose not to accept again, at least we´ve planted the seed. Alma 32 talks about the seed, and there´s another scripture in the bible that refers to it as well. It´s really true though. Sometime the first set of missionaries just goes there to plant the seed, and in a few months/years those people will choose to accept because of the time they´d spoken to the missionaries in the past. That´s why it´s important to always show that we live our faith. Not just for missionaries but for all of us. Some people that we baptize are baptized just because of the examples that they´ve seen others leave. 

Well, I hope you all have a great spring break! Be safe! Have fun watching conference.

I love all of you. 

Elder Shepherd