Well, this is the strangest email I have yet to write. Tomorrow I am on the plane headed home but I still don´t really feel like this is for reals. Let see if it hits me in the airport. I love Brasil with all my heart, and more then that I have loved my mission and love this gospel. I have watched it change the lives of so many people and families in the last year and a half! There really aren´t words that adequately describe this time I have spent. I have learned so much about the love that God has for us and the great plan that has been prepared for our eternities.
These last two weeks have been going without a break. I don´t even remember sleeping ha. Everyday we had so much to do and so many people to go and see and teach. First of all, I LOVE my companions. In these last three weeks we have not stopped laughing, I think that is why time went so quickly. We have been so blessed with the families and investigators that we have been finding. Natal is a great time for us because everyone is more willing to talk, listen and share about Christ. It has been even more cool with the campaign that the church has "Ele é O Presente" (It should be like He is the Present or something in English). Now, when we are doing contacts in the streets we have been finding people who have already watched the video or seen something on YouTube. It makes it easier to start a conversation and helps people be more willing to listen to our message. Also, it seems like the gospel is much easier for our investigators and members to share so we have been getting lots more referrals from members, and teaching much more families together. We are focusing a lot also in helping the members help us in the work. We have been doing our meetings Noite Familiares every 2 weeks of ward missionary work. This last week we watched the ancient first vision. Irmão Claudio has one of those old projectors so we watched it in style! Then we also had our Ward Christmas Party, which was actually just a dinner but it was really yummy so we can´t complain.
It is cool to see how the gospel comes to people in many ways to help them be prepared to receive the missionaries. This week we had a cool experience finding with the Elders. These last few weeks we have been teaching a really awesome family that we found while we were showing the elders around their area. We had passed by to introduce them to an investigator at her mercadinho that she has in the favela in the elders area. While we were there the Elders started talking to her friend, Edna, who was visiting with her and it turned out that she lives in our area. After her friend started telling her about how our visits were changing her life, she agreed to let us visit her and we marked an appointment. Since the very first lesson, we knew this family was special. She gathered everyone to here the message and we taught literally the entire family (grandkids, son in law, everyone). She lives with her husband, Manuel and her son Igor, but whenever we are there he calls his son and daughter, Vitor and Taína (who live with their mom most of the time in the favela of the elders) to listen as well, so we have been teaching them all these last few weeks and it has been great. This weekend we decided to go to their house (where they live with their mom) to invite them to the ward dinner because they weren´t at ednas when we called. Since we were entering the their area, the elders decided that they wanted to come with us so the whole gang went and hunted down Vitor and Taína´s house. When we got there Taína invited us in and we met her mom and sat and began to talk to them a bit. In the corner of their living room I saw that there was a little Christmas tree. The tree was plainly decorated, with just balls and in the middle of the tree was a picture of Christ. As I looked closer I realized that it was one of our pass-along cards! As we talked with her I tried my hardest to remember if we had given Taína and Vitor a card but I couldn´t remember ever doing so. Then we asked if we could leave a Christmas message with her, which she accepted. We used her cell phone to pull up "Ele é O Presente," the Christmas video the church released. When the video started playing she said that she had already seen the video, a friend had passed it on to her and she and she had loved it. As we watched it together again a special spirit filled the room. After the video she said, " I had no idea this was your church" I decided to ask her where she had gotten the pass along card and she said that she had found it in her purse. She had been searching for the perfect topper and had come across this one and thought it was just right because it wasn´t a Christmas tree without Christ. Em fim, the Elders marked a return appointment to start teaching her and I can feel that she is going to progress rapido. It is pretty amazing sometimes how Heavenly Father sets up the timing just right, and sets the scene just perfect so that His children receive the gospel in just the right moment that they are needing it and are also ready to accept it. It seems like through out the year she has had lots of contact, without even knowing it, with church so that when we arrived in her home this weekend she was prepared to hear our message and accept our invitation. I know that this is the Lord´s work.
We had an awesome p-day de zona last week, churrasco and volei and other sports. (That's why I didn´t have time to write a big email last week.) Then we had our activities this week too. I am a little tired of writing haha so I will just talk to ya´ll during the week:) I love you so so so much. Have a good week. See you soon!
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