Dear Familia,
Do you realize how blessed you are that you can go to the temple?! I just wanted to cry the moment that I saw it when we got into Curitiba. What a blessing to be in the house of the Lord. I LOVED the new film. I used headphones because I wanted to hear the actual voices in English and then did the rest in Portuguese which was interesting, but wow what an incredible experience.
We were very blessed to have a sacrament meeting with lots of investigators again yesterday. Definitely some people you can pray for this week to enter into the waters of baptism:
Joanice - she has a date for this Saturday but she had a date back in October and fell thru. She’s the mom of a young man in the ward and she is awesome, just struggling at committing to it, but she’s living the commandments and going to church and I feel confident in doing this the Lord will confirm to her this is right.
Adeula - the healthiest 76 yr. old I’ve ever met. She is crazy about health but she’s receiving the benefits from it. Word of Wisdom is definitely not gonna be an issue for her. She never leaves her house without her son driving her but she had promised us she would be at church and her son didn’t get back from work to take her so she called up a taxi and was waiting for us at the bus stop. It was the first time in who knows how many years that she left the house like that, but she keeps her word! Great blessing!
Lédio and Anderson - Cousins who are finally realizing that there should be more to life than drugs and alcohol and we´re hoping they will have the faith to overcome a lot of addictions and have the blessings of the gospel!
Jennifer - An awesome 11 yr. old (Niece of Denise - our recent convert with 6 kids) she is great and her cousins always talk to her about baptism they are the best missionaries, but we need her parents hearts to be softened and let her have this blessing!
Marguerida - Knows the church is true, but just struggles with committing to go to church each Sunday because she hates to leave her house and its about 1/2 hour drive to get to church, so we’re working on helping her have the faith to sacrifice 4 hours each week for the Lord! Her husband we found out is a Less-active but ready to come back to church if she will go! :)
Also exciting announcement is Carlos and Silvia (family that Rachel taught in Paraguay and have been waiting for a long time to get her divorce finalized so they can get married and baptized) are getting married this Friday and Baptized on Saturday! So excited for them!
I had a cool realization yesterday during church. I thought about how the first time we had about 10 investigators in church I was so stressed and thought I was gonna pass out after church, but the beautiful part about the gospel is that everything can be overcome with faith. As I was sitting there yesterday I just felt so calm thinking that I’m doing my part, this is the Lord´s work and He will take care of His children and it is their agency and their opportunity to accept this blessing, all we can do is have faith and not spend time and energy being worried about things not in our control. I thought about how on earth mom raised 14 kids, but it’s like she always says that it’s thru the gospel! When we have faith in Heavenly Father, nothing can completely overwhelm us. We just do our best and trust in Him.
I also thought it was interesting this week that someone was saying – “ya know all these churches are out there just arguing about who has the right doctrine. The Testemunha Jehovahs are saying their interprestation of the bibles is right, the congregação cristão do brazil is saying they’re right and you Mormons just think your interpretation of the bible is right.” I thought, you know it really is not about who´s interpretation is right. That´s the beautiful thing that you find only in the Church of Jesus Christ is that we aren´t trying to prove we have the right translation of prophets in the past, because we literally have a prophet today! My goal is not to follow the right translation but follow God and he literally is at the head of this church! That is why it is a living church and it is literally His church with a prophet today! And because it is a living church with direction directly from God - that is why it is changing people’s lives! It was really cool after church yesterday to hear a couple of members tell us how amazing it was to see the literal change in Nelma after just 3 weeks of finding the gospel. Totally different countenance and attitude and now she’s helping us with missionary work!
I love, love, love seeing the gospel in action in the lives of people here!
Love you so much!
Sister Lewis
Here are some pictures from our day in Curitiba with Sister Monteiro.
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