Hello!
These last couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of teaching and so I haven't even really had time to sit down and think about all of the stuff that we have been doing, much less write about it! I will do my best to fill you in though.
First, foremost, and most exciting, As of March 1, 2014, Jo is officially a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints!! The baptism was small but great. It was so wonderful to be able to watch her make promises with Heavenly Father that she has had to work so hard for. It has been such a blessing to see just how much Heavenly Father loves his children and knows each of them personally and knows what they need. In my email a couple of weeks ago I told you that we had been worried about Jo because after we had to push back her date she seemed to lose a bit of the fire and excitement she had about baptism. Well, we had been praying as a companionship for her to find that excitement that she had before and Heavenly Father answered both our prayers and hers. We were all asleep one night when we got a text from her saying that she was so sorry to be texting so late but she needed to tell somebody that Heavenly Father had answered her prayer and she knew we would understand. She had been praying for her daughter Katie, who has a cancerous brain tumor, to go into remission. She texted us to tell us that she had found out that she is cancer free! She told us later that week in a lesson that she knew that God was telling her that He was listening to her and that it was time to be baptized. From that moment on, she was so solid, Satan didn't stand a chance! Seriously, in the last couple of weeks her life has been trial after trial. From family and friends in the hospital and passing away to family member's houses burning down... if it was bad, it was happening around her. On top of all the stress that she has been feeling because of worry for the people around her, she has been really sick for the last couple of weeks and the doctors haven't been able to tell her why. She has so much pain that it triggers seizures when it gets really bad. Despite all of this, she just kept saying, "I don't care, I am getting baptized. I am not letting satan make me push back my date again." She would says things like, "I'll kick satan in the face" or "Give him the CHAIR!" So we were pretty sure she was going to be able to withstand the adversary. haha! The service was on Saturday, some of her family even came! Her husband was there to support her and he even came to sacrament yesterday to watch her be confirmed. She is just so amazing, she came to sacrament to be confirmed even though she was having seizures all night from the pain! That is diligence! We hope that everything will be okay with her physically and are so grateful that we know she is doing well spiritually.
We had an amazing zone conference last week! President and Sister Hess and the Assistants are so inspired in the messages that they share! The assistants challenged us all to work on our obedience by purifying out lives. It is the BEST thing ever!!! We have been working on these goals for just a weeks, so we are so far from perfect that it is ridiculous but what is so cool is that already as we are applying this, we can feel the spirit stronger as we teach and find. It works like this.... First you fast for a day, as you fast you pray for Heavenly Father to bring to mind some of the things that you can change in your life to help you to be more obedient and pure. As the day goes by you write down the things that you think of. For instance, I am super sarcastic and I want to be better about not being sarcastic, so that's one of my purification things. Or sometimes I get radio songs stuck in my head and struggle with not getting distracted, so that's another one that I am working on. Now that you have a list, you wake up every morning and the first thing you do is pray for help for your goals that you have set.. whether it is to stop doing something or to do something more. Pray specifically and fervently for help in each of those areas and then get up and go to work on improving. Every time that you mess up, you acknowledge, repent and move on with your day trying again to be better. At the end of the night, before you go to bed, you say another fervent pray, this time reporting to Heavenly Father how you did and asking for help in the areas where you fell a little short. Then you rinse and repeat. As we do these things everyday we get better and better about being obedient and the blessings and miracles come more and more often. I know that this was presented to us for mission work but I know that it will work in any area of life. If you feel like your testimony needs a boost, try it out, it is the best method for feeling closer to our Heavenly Father that I have ever felt.
Also this week, we were able to meet with Ken 3 times in a row! It's an all time record for this guy! Also, no disappearing at all this week, and he came to church AND he has a job interview! We are all praying that he can get this job so that, A- he can pay off his fines and be worthy to make his baptismal date, and B- so that he can pay for his phone to be fixed so that we can find him haha. There has definitely been a change to him in this last week. We decided to start again from the beginning with the lessons because they have been so scattered and it was the best decision we have ever made. I have never had a more powerful lesson about the Restoration of the gospel than I had that day. The room just filled with the spirit as we talked about the true significance it had for him in his life. He opened up to us a lot and was able to talk about concerns that he has and the set backs he had been feeling. We were able to help him to overcome his worries and now when he introduces himself to people at church he tells everyone that he is going to get baptized. It's awesome!
Brandon is doing pretty good as well. He is still struggling with smoking but has made such great progress! He has cut down in the last month from 40-60 cigarettes a day to 6 a day. We are like proud mommas. He had a birthday this week so we got him a huge stop smoking kit... thank you dollar tree! This week he is trying to start the 12 step program they give us and so we got him all the tools he will need for that.
Also this week some of our members asked us if we were chain smokers because we smelled so strongly of cigarette smoke... haha we were devastated. So now we have purchased extra strength febreez and soaked our entire wardrobes, apartment, and car.
Alright I am running out of things to say, so I love you all. Have a great week! and check out this video... it is kinda long but it is amazing.
PS the most current news on Brazil is that my visa should be approved in the next 2-4 weeks... then I don't what happens. We aren't sure if they will send us out right away or if we will wait til the transfer to leave. President told me this week that it is possible that we will be sent to the MTC in Brazil for 2 weeks to refresh (okay who am I kidding, relearn) our Portuguese before they send us to the field. He also allowed us to extend our language study so we are thinking that is a good sign!
A Complete teaching record!
Pure White!
