2-17-14
Dear Family,
Today we start up a new transfer and even though I´ve only had Sister Araujo for 3 weeks, I will be getting a new companion. I get to train again woot woot! Filha #6! But Sister Américo, Pereira and myself will still be the Sister Training Leaders of the mish. This week has been super hectic between getting ready for transfers, moving houses (we should finally be moved in tonight.. I hope) and 5 baptisms! We were super blessed this week! Friday was the casimento of Carlos and Silvia and it was so great to see them like Newlyweds again (they are newlyweds but they’ve been living together waiting for a divorce so they could get married for a super long time so it was a great blessing) and then their baptism Saturday as well as the baptism of Adeula, Marguerida and Pedro. Adeula said it was the happiest day of her Life! (And she is 72 so that´s pretty cool). Marguerida - wow she is one incredible example of seeing the gospel change people. Her husband is a Less active, but only didn´t go because his wife wouldn’t go. It was a miracle how we ended up finding them thru a sequence of events. We found Pedro (husband) while knocking the door of his son. He told us he was a member and about his wife. We asked if we could talk to her. He said we could but he would just give us the address because he was scared to introduce us because missionaries and members have been trying for years to get her to go to church. So we went over there and wow the Lord truly does prepare people for the right timing! Every time we told ´someone that Marguerida was going to be baptized they would respond something like "what! no way how did you do that?" but truthfully we didn´t do anything different. She told us that the day before we got there she had thought for the first time that she needed to start thinking about church and then we showed up! Her family wasn´t at church with her the first Sunday because they didn’t think she was serious, but she was there and because of that we were able to teach her son Pedro as well and they both got baptized on Saturday (Pedro´s Birthday.) And she has a completely different light about her it is absolutely amazing!
It´s been really cool as well to see the changes that are happening with this mission. People think of Brazil in general as a place that baptizes a ton, but Curitiba was always kind of the exception for that. Apparently in the Brazil mtc if you said you were going to Curitiba it was always like - oh I’m sorry to hear that. You’re basically serving in the US or Europe then. The culture here in general is a lot more closed and when Pres. Monteiro got here (a couple months before I got here) they were baptizing less than we were baptizing in the states. And then the mission split so there were half as many missionaries. But he is so smart and with the changes that have been made in this mission we´re baptizing in a week or 2 as many as used to be in a month! And I think it´s the timing too. The Lord really truly is hastening the work. The people here are ready to have the blessings of the gospel!
One more cool thing I heard this week - The Book of Mormon is the most important book in the world and one more reason why: - how many times does the Bible talk about the atonement of Christ? How many times does the Book of Mormon talk about the atonement, what it is, why, how it´s important in our lives? And the number of times it says the name of Christ is more than any other scripture as well! There were numbers of each, but I don´t remember the numbers, just thought it was pretty cool. It really is another testament of Jesus Christ with the fullness of the gospel!
Thank you for your prayers! If you could keep in your prayers Lédio (he´s preparing for baptism this Saturday but has been pretty sick) and Eliana and her children, Marielle and Leonardo.
Love yall tons!
Sister Lewis
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