well...this week has been a whirlwind. the first 4 days were really really slow and bummer days, we had to cut almost all of our investigators, none of them were progressing, and we had already given them many opportunities to progress. Well, it just so happend that we were reading in Preach My Gospel about how to find new investigators and of course the best way is to use the members, every day we ask the members at lunch for references, and we usually get 1 or 2 that they have already given to the missionaries, but we try again and again. well, yesterday, one of our recent converts, Carlos, age 20, asked us if we could eat lunch with him and his family. Of course we said yes, his family are not members. We canceled our lunch yesterday and went to his house. He not only had invited his family, but 5 friends also, to all of which he had been talking about us and were all excited to meet us. Well, they all said that they will try and come to church next week! Knowing Carlos, he won't let them forget. We then had another lesson scheduled, so we had to leave, but then after the next lesson we got a call from Carlos telling us that he had a family that he wanted to visit with us, of course we were excited and left with him. He is kind of short and he walks slow, so it took a while to get across town, but it was so worth it. We get there, in a very poor neighborhood, and go to the back where there is a very well-constructed cement house. He clapped and a buddy of his came out, along with the other 6 members of his family. one left right away, she had to go to work, but the others stayed and we talked for over an hour about the church, they had a billion questions. We covered the restoration and invited all of them to pray about the truthfullness of it. It was quite incredible. Carlos is incredible.
Saturday was also a day for the best. One of the techniques that Preach my Gospel says to look for new investigators is by going through the old investigators of other missionaries, and of course we have boxes and boxes of old files, so we started. We selected a few and left for the afternoon. Well, three days later of no success...we came across a kid named Anderson. Anderson comes from a very poor family, the mother abandoned them when he was young, all of his brothers and sisters are crack-cocaine addicts and the father works 2 full time jobs to put food on the table for them and clothes on their backs. Well, he is 16, and is trying to decide what to do with his life. About a year and a half ago, some elders ran into him on the street and invited him to learn more about the gospel. He accepted, learned a ton and was totaly willing to learn more, but he had to run away from home because of his family. Well, things got resolved back home, and we came cross his file, passed in front of his house and he was sitting on the front door step talking to a very old Gaucho, his neighbor, and smiled when he saw us. He is going to be baptized this Saturday. He went to church yesterday and loved it. He went several times before, but had to stop when he left. He is also very good friends with a family in the ward, who over the last year has gone to church maybe 2 times, well, when we told them that he was going to come to church yesterday, they went to church too, and they all told us that they are going to start returning. It is incredible. Count the billions of blessings, including the blessings of your own family. Seriously. Anyways, a little piece of our gigantic puzzle down here in the south.
Dad- You are right, Here in Brazil, we baptize 1 person for every door they knock in Germany. It's really interesting, here in the South, it is not nearly as easy to get baptisms, but in the north, they baptize every weekend, families, they are very receptive to the church up north. It also is interesting because Elder De Souza is from Rio Grande do Norte, the nordeste- north east. Well, the way that the missionaries get converts and get people to be baptized is very different and he is still adjusting to the fact that people on the street don't imediately accept the fact that we have the gospel. It is very interesting, because the poorer areas are a lot easier to work in, so he feels inclined to work there, but the quality of the investigators and the duration of their perseverance in the church is usually VERY limited, so we have our little scuffles about where to work, but we are getting along very well. Mother, if you want to know what a gaucho is, google the following words:
Bombachas
Bomba de Chemarrão
Quia
Matte
Chemarrão
Faca de Gaucho
Garrafa termica
Little piece of the south
I love you all, the Church is true.
Elder Eliason
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