12-16-13
Dear Family,
I love hearing about all your fun plans for Christmas and I’m so excited to talk to you NEXT week!
Yesterday we had the baptism of Hilda, the cutest 74 yr old I’ve ever met in my life. I can’t even understand 1/4 of what she says but she makes me laugh all the time :) But as is always the case in Brazil, the day of the baptism was absolutely nuts. We were up late the night before so that everything would be ready, but of course everything goes wrong the day of so we were still running like crazy. First off we got lost for an hour trying to find Almoço (Although getting lost really isn’t just a baptism day thing, it is almost a daily occurrence because the area is huge, the maps are wrong, and the numbers on houses are almost completely random. Half the time people don’t even know their own address.) We knew we were off when we ended up on some train tracks in a field of flowers :) But we eventually got there and had to eat in 15 min so we could get to the baptism, but then our member was super late in picking us up, so we had to smash all of us in this tiny car, literally just enough room for us to breathe, and Hilda sitting in the front seat trying to calm the crying toddler (that was hilarious) and I was fearing for my own life the whole time because everyone drives insane here, but to make it better the brakes of the car weren´t working very well so I was just praying that my 74 yr. old investigator would make it to the baptismal font alive. Thankfully we made it about the time sacrament meeting was about to start, so we did the quickest baptismal service I’ve ever had. Seeing Hilda´s face when she came out of that water is definitely a moment I will forever cherish :)
Another sweet blessing this week has been seeing Anaclaudea change so much. She is the most shy 18 yr. old girl I think I have ever met. She literally was hiding from us when we got to her door. The first lesson with her she told us she wasn’t sure if she really believed in God and you could just tell she was so sad because she is just at home alone on the computer all the time. But we visited her or had her at ward activities almost every day this week and the last time we taught her, she was teaching us all kinds of stuff she learned on Mormon.org and asking so many good questions. She has gone from not sure if she believes in God, to having a beautiful testimony that God is her loving Heavenly Father in such a short time. J She just has a totally different light about her! I love it!
One scripture really quick that I have come to understand so much more on my mission is the Scripture Mastery in Matt 6 about how ye cannot serve God and Mammon. It is so sad how we teach some people who love to hear what we have to say, but they love their sins and don´t want to give them up. Even though they realize that their habits are short term happiness, they just don´t want to give it up. It reminded me a lot of what mom used to always say about how one of the greatest tragedies in life is when we give up what we want most (Eternal joy that is only available in living the gospel) for what we want in the moment. I see a lot of extreme examples in the mission, but I know the same applies to each of us. There are so many little things that sometimes we will do because we want immediate gratification even though we know better. I’m so grateful I was taught the gospel when I was young so I don’t have so many of these habits that so many people here are struggling to overcome.
I love you all! Keep sharing the Light of Christ this Christmas Season!
Love Sister Lewis
These are 2 pictures of the place that we ended up in when we got lost. Yesterday. We thought it was pretty so had to take a picture :)
No comments:
Post a Comment