July 6th 2010 in MTC

Oi Família! I hope you all know that you can translate my Portuguese sentences through the internet if you don´t quite understand them (except for Uncle Jeff, he already speaks Portuguese). This week was absolutely amazing! I felt like a real missionary, not just a missionary in training. We had the opportunity to go proselyting in the city around the MTC here and give out Books of Mormon, or Livros de Mórmon! My companion and I were each given three books to place and only two hours. I was a little apprehensive at first because I didn´t know what to say to people to begin talking about the Book of Mormon, even though we had been practicing that for the past four or five days. The first person we talked to completely shut us down and told us that we are devil worshippers and that we don´t really believe in Jesus Christ. That definitely knocked the cobwebs out of my head and I was determined to not let my testimony be bashed like that again. So said a prayer in my heart for Heavenly Father guide me to someone who would be more receptive, and sure enough we found him! We were walking up the street and this guy had his iPod in and I didn´t think he would stop to talk to us, but I stuck out my hand and said "Tudobem Senhor?" and he talked to us and I bore my heart to him about how this book, along with the Bible, has helped me grow so much closer to Jesus Christ. He took the book and said that he would read it and call the number if he had any questions about it. I was so happy and I smiled for the rest of the time. I didn´t care that nearly everyone else wouldn´t talk to us or were rude, because I knew that we had been accepted just once. We continued and ended up passing out ALL of our books and when we returned, we were the first companionship finished so our instructor gave us one more to pass out. We wanted to make this one extremely special, so we both waited until we felt the Spirit really tell who to talk to. We failed three times until we finally came across an old man waiting at a bus stop. I am not exaggerating when I say that he was litterally reading the Book of Mormon before we had even left. We were so happy to finally be able to practice doing what we had been called out here to do... to invite people to come unto Christ through His restored Gospel. This was a complete testimony builder for me, especially when I would see that these people were happy to take a book that they knew would help them grow closer to Christ. I love this country so much as well!!! Brazil is my home away from home and I love it here! It´s so good to hear from you all! I am really jealous that Brady is already taller than me and that he is still growing. And I am especially jealous about the Stadium of Fire! That is really cool! Dad and Jill, you guys are so lucky to be able to go to Cali and watch baseball!!! I love you all and thanks for the letters! Fique bem e eu amo vocés muito!!! Love, Elder Clark