Monday, Jan 24 2011

Oí Família!

This week we had another baptism! Her name is Andreza and she is 13 years-old. It was kind of interesting how everything worked out. We had been teaching her and her little sister Iris for about three and a half weeks. They started out really soft and never wanted to pray or read anything that we asked them. I really never thought that they would progress and was always hesitant going back to their house. That was a fault in my own faith. Andreza started to catch a fire. She started reading the Book of Mormon everytime we asked her to and even passed a great test of her own faith. She has a lot of friends who are from other evangelical churches (who do not like us at all), and they were talking to her this last week. They kept telling her that we are false prophets and that we are just trying to lead everyone to darkness. She told them, "if they were really false prophets, they wouldn´t be asking me to pray to God to find out if they are telling the truth." When she told me that, my spirits were lifted so much :) It was really something that I was needing. She was baptized yesterday and her little sister will probably be baptized with her this next Sunday. Their neighbor, as well, we have been teaching and after the very first visit he believed that there really is a prophet of God here on the earth and he was so excited that he told his wife all about it and they prayed together and got an answer! They have yet had the opportunity to go to Church, but we´re hoping this Sunday works out for them. It´s nice to notice the great blessings the Lord places in front of you when you aren´t feeling your tip-top best.

Oh so yesterday at lunch after Church, we went to a member´s house to eat. She had told me that there was some crab leftover that she had made the night before and that she save some for me because she knew how much I love crab! I was so excited to eat crab again because it´s been almost a whole year! I got there and saw these little critters on the plate and thought to myself, 'these aren´t nearly as big as the ones back home,' but I was happy still. I cracked into my first crab and started to search for the meat. I found a little bit, but these crabs here in Brazil are not nearly as good as the ones back home. I soon found out that here they eat crabs they find in the mud instead of the sea! That explained the taste of dirt. But I finished the crab anyways...

I really didn´t have too much of an interesting week. I kind of wish there were more adventure right now; the work is going really slowly as of late. Our forces for finding new people is really going down and not producing a lot of success. It´s been a really hard couple of weeks and I don´t really know when things will really start to get better. This is where the perseverance kicks in. It´s not worth it to just last through your troubles, you have to endure them well. This week will be my test to see if I can really put my strength in the Lord and let Him help me out.

Thank you all who are sending me letters and emails and packages. I really am so blessed to have people back home who want to help me and know how I am doing. I love you all and hope you all have a great week.

Elder Clark