May 23, 2016
Oi família!!! How are you all doing!! Can you believe it´s almost
the end of May! Crazy how fast time flies in the mission!
This past Saturday night Matheus was baptized!! As we walked into the baptismal room, we saw a huge smile on his face, and he gave me
a HUGE hug. I have never seen a young boy as happy as he was on the day of his
baptism.
His mom, who is a member, gave the opening prayer, and his teenage
sister, who has withdrawn from the church for quite some time, attended the
baptism, and is being more and more receptive to returning to the Church.
Whenever we teach Matheus in his house, she is always listening in another
room and at times, responds to some of the questions we ask Matheus when he
doesn´t know the answer. His sister´s name is Aline, and she has made huge
progress, because in the past, when Sister Cellurale and I had arrived in the
area, she didn´t even want to talk to us.
Now, she gives us hugs, and talks with
us as if we´ve known her forever. I love being a part of the reactivation of
members!
Back to the baptism of Matheus: unfortunately, the gas of the baptismal
font hasn´t been working, so Matheus was baptized in ice cold water. He had
practiced bending his knees a lot with the member who baptized him (irmao
renan), so he was an expert by the time he was actually baptized in the water.
After he was baptized, he shivered a lot in the water, and Irmao Renan gave him
a great bear hug in order to warm him up. It was the sweetest experience ever. I
don´t know if I´ve ever been happier to see a child get baptized! The primary
president bore her testimony to Matheus, and the Bishop told Matheus´ mom, who
has struggled in the past to remain active, that her son was choosing to be
baptized because of her decision to recently go to church every sunday.
Before
Matheus´ baptism, he had interviewed Matheus and asked him what was the cause of
his decision to be baptized. He told the Bishop that it was because of his
neighbors (instructors of the MTC) who invited him to a family night, and taught
him the importance of baptism; two young women, named Vanessa and Danielle,
invited him to receive the missionary lessons from the Sisters. They had opened
the heart of Matheus to being baptized again (remember that he had almost been
baptized in the past, but had a lot of fear of water, and he had been baptized
by his brother, who wasn´t able to support his weight). I know that without the
members and their friendship and service, missionary work wouldn´t be
possible. At the end of the baptismal service, we ate cake and brigadeiro, and
celebrated Matheus´decision to be baptized.
What happened before the baptism was a funny story. A member of the
bishopric, who had planned to bring food at the end of the baptism, wasn´t able
to make it to the baptism because he needed to travel for his job. He left money
for us as missionaries to buy the food/supply everything, and we ended up
knowing about this situation about 3 hours before the baptism. We then had to
leave behind our plans for the day to proseltye, and go shopping for cake,
plates, cups, utensils, napkins, soda, and anything else we could think of. We
ended up buying cake, and making a frosting to put over it, and we ended up
making brigadeiro as well (a sweet treat here in brasil). We almost arrived in
the baptism really late because we received the news with short notice that we
would need to organize the food/drink after the baptism. It was a bit stressful,
but everything turned out alright.
I forgot to tell you all that after a lot of persistence and a lot of
faith, Donna Esther is going to be baptized this Saturday morning (the
grandmother of Letícia). This month of may has been the month of consecration,
meaning we are dedicating more of our time to missionary work as missionaries
and members. We asked the members to participate in a 40-day fast. This
basically involves one family per day that fasts for the purpose of missionary
work, but 40 days in total of many different families fasting for the same
purpose--that the work of the Lord can progress with ease. We have seen a lot of
miracles in our area from the faith of the members, including the decision of
Donna Esther to be baptized after 3 months of trying to convince her of the
goodness of baptism.
Yesterday I was thinking a lot about faith, and we had learned about faith
in the Gospel Principles class, but I realized that miracles only come from
faith and sacrifice. Faith without works is dead. We can´t just hope we are
going to receive a blessing from Heavenly Father or reach a goal in our lives
without working towards it, and sacrificing another choice in its place. We
can´t hope to obtain forgiveness without exercising faith in our Lord Jesus
Christ, and believing that He will wipe away our sin, and doing all we can do to
never commit the same mistake again or avoid the bad habit. We have to have
faith in Jesus Christ in order for His ´´sacrifice´´ to be valid. Faith always
comes with sacrifice, and produces miracles.
I love you all!! Have a wonderful week, and know I pray for you each and
every day!!
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