Casseo's Bucket Brigade Baptism

 Missionaries from the MTC district reunited in Brazil

the view of the city from the apartment

11-18-13

 Dear Family,

Biggest Miracle this week: Bacacheri Had a Baptism!!!! First time since this area opened!!! We had a referral from a member to teach Casseo, an 18 yr old. And he got baptized yesterday! But holy smokes it was the craziest day of the mission! We left at 8 am to go wake up 3 of our investigators for church. We got them up but in the process missed our bus, so started walking, then bispo called and said that the water wasn't working so we’d probably have to fill up the font by hand with buckets. So we needed to be at the church immediately but we were like 5 miles away so I grabbed my comps bags and was like ‘well we gotta run or we aren't gonna have a baptism today’! So we ran all the way to the church (My poor comp is a champ to put up with me. She is very sore today and all day yesterday was telling everyone about her crazy American companion who made her run to church) but we get there and then the water in the kitchen stopped working. It turns out a pipe broke so the whole street was without water.  In the process our 2 members who were picking up our investigators weren't answering their phones and we weren't able to get a hold of any of our investigators either so we were running around like crazy trying to help them get to church too. By several miracles we finally get water for the font and by the end of church it was full, but during the service, a child had gone in and pulled the plug from the font so when we got in there to baptize Casseo the water was to his knees. So he got baptized sitting down legs flat in the font, but he did get baptized :)

Other crazy story this week and huge tender mercy. Earlier this week we were tracting pretty late. My comp said she felt uncomfortable in the street we were on, but we literally had 2 min’ til we should head home and I thought, “Man 2 min”, but then I started to feel uncomfortable too, so we left anyway. On the next street I heard what I thought were "fireworks" because it was a holiday this weekend. Come to find out the next day… we left that street at 8:58 and at 9:00… there was a shooting on that street and one person died. So we were incredibly grateful that we left when we did.

We had conferencia do missão this week and it was awesome. I love hearing President speak! He talked a lot about how right now we are in the best school on earth for learning to become more like our Heavenly Father. So true.

Other exciting news: My other mission in SC is starting to use iPads and the stuff Elder Perry was talking about this week :)

And everyone always asks about the language so one exciting bit of news is that I started talking in my sleep in Portuguese this week J

Anyway I love yall! Go share the gospel!

Sister Lewis

Miracles through MEMBERS in Bacacheri

11-11-13

Dear Family,

We were SOO blessed this week! Ah so amazing to see the changes that are taking place here. My first couple weeks were so hard because there was Zero faith in Missionary work in this area. I can´t tell you how many times I heard missionaries and members alike say, “Oh good luck no one baptizes in Bacacheri and the members don’t have any desire to do missionary work”.

The last time missionaries were here there were problems with the ward so it got closed, and when they reopened it 3 transfers ago there wasn´t a ton of support and missionaries were having less than 10 lessons a week and never having anyone progress. It was so sad that as soon as we would talk about missionary work with members they would just close down. But my comp and I have been working really hard to change the attitude about this area and really working hard and leaving the rest to the Lord and guess what? Miracles! We had 18 new investigators this week!!!  We had like 3 times as many new investigators and lessons this week AND 6 investigators were at church yesterday! That´s like as many investigators as came to church all of last month!

The other part that was so cool was to see the change in the members over this past week! Instead of pushing them to find, we´ve started pushing to have them come teach with us and we’re talking to them about how missionary work is a call from the Lord thru the prophet, so it’s not us asking them to do the work. With 6 investigators at church they were all running around like crazy trying to meet our investigators and ask us about them and they started asking US what they can do to help! We got 2 new referrals from MEMBERS where we are going to have a lesson with their friends in their home! It was like once they saw us starting to have success and realized we were working for it they started to catch the wave -- and get this: One of our members was so excited he went out and started knocking doors last night so he could get addresses for us to visit :) So cool! Bacacheri really is the best: everyone just didn´t know it yet. J 

We also started doing something I did in SC just a little different: Rather than just go share a scripture at lunch-- ask for referrals and get denied, we´ve started talking to them about Elder Ballard´s talk from last conference (Elder Ballar's talk). But in Brazil I have 3 ways they can help rather than 5 because we don´t have all the resources we had in the states.

#1 - Just talking about the church. I really feel like if we are being good examples and not afraid to talk about our membership, others will see our examples and want to know about what we have. So we role play 2 examples with our members that they can easily do - When someone asks about your weekend, don´t forget to tell them you went to church. Share something you learned or tell them you work with the children or YW there or whatever it may be to let them know a little about the church. The other example is inviting a friend or neighbor to FHE. It’s a really easy way to invite them into your home and allow them to learn a little about the church. And be willing to invite them to activities (Like mom you inviting your friends to the RS luncheon is so awesome! That’s what we’re trying to get our members to do!)

#2 - Doing the 3 things elder Ballard asked EVERY member of the church to do. Pray for missionary experiences. Look for those experiences. And pray for your missionaries and their investigators by name. (It was cute, we ran into a member in the street today and he named off 6 of our investigators that he has started to pray for J ).

#3 - Help us with our investigators. When can you come teach with us? When we have new people at church, take the time to introduce yourself and be their friend! I think the number one thing I hear from investigators when we ask about church is "The people are so friendly there". It makes a difference!

Then we ask them who we can pray for that they feel like they should share the gospel with so we can pray for them in their efforts as well and help them know how to help their friends. We´ve asked them to share with us whenever they have missionary experiences even the little ones!

It was also really cool this week - we invited a LA (less active) to come teach an investigator with us that knew her. (I totally have a testimony of reactivating non-members thru missionary work even though at first my comps always think I’m crazy).  She bore such a powerful testimony of how much her life changed when she was baptized and she invited her friend to go to church with her thatSunday! So cool! J

The small bit of sad news is that we have 2 awesome young families progressing, but they aren't legally married and can´t afford to get married so it might be a while before they get baptized. Unfortunately a lot of ppl here get married in their church but aren’t legally married so they don’t see the problem with it. L But we will keep working with them and helping them and having faith that the Lord will provide a way!

Also the Lord is definitely blessing me in the language a lot. It’s crazy how when we are just chatting with members or something like that I understand probably about as much as I should understand, but in lessons I can understand everything I need to understand and most of our investigators don’t know I haven’t even been out a month because the Lord gives us the words at the times that we need them!

Anyway I love yall! The gospel is true and it blesses lives so share it with your friends!J 

Sister Lewis