Monday, May 2nd 2011

Oí Família!!!

This week was a pretty good one now that I reflect on the things I have learned and experienced. We had another baptism in the ward here in good ol´ Lorena! His name is Jadson and his baptism completed his family! I have just baptized my first complete family here in Brazil! And how cool they are! They ride their bikes together to Church and love to watch and learn in Sunday School. The ward here got super happy when this family was baptized. Everyone is trying to have us teach their neighbors now! I won´t complain about stuff like that. This week there were a few pastors from the church they used to attend that were trying to persuade Jadson to not be baptized, but their visits just strengthened his decision! He is awesome and I hope he keeps going and eventually serves a mission as well.

We also found another family this past week. They have 13 people in the family who all live in the same house! Would you all like to know how we found them? I don´t think you´re all ready yet... are you sure? All right, but you´ll never believe it! We were talking with a member here one day and we were leaving their house. We saw their neighbors, just the mom and little 2 year-old son. As we were talking with the members, all of the sudden we heard the name Moroni, but no one from their house had said it. We looked at their neighbors and it was the mom who was calling her little son... Moroni! We asked if we could pass by another night and talk with them. When that night came, we met the father of the family. When we walked in their living room and met the rest of the family, we saw sitting on their coffee table, can you guess? A Book of Mormon! Everyone in the entire family has already read the Book of Mormon at least once, the father has already read it three times! He considers himself a "true witness" of the Book of Mormon. He knows that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and that through the Book of Mormon and the Bible we have the fulness of the Gospel here on Earth. The only problem is that they think that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints uses the Book of Mormon wrong. Because of a few passages in the book of Mosiah, he understood that there only exists one God and that God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are the same person. He is so dead-set on these thoughts that he is having a hard time accepting that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ restored on the earth because of this confusion. I have never taught anyone who already has a testimony of the Book of Mormon but won´t be baptized. It´s been really fun studying with my companion trying to find scriptures that could help him understand more clearly.

Today was actually a great P-day! We went fishing!!! We went out to the big river out here with a member who reminds me a lot of Grandpa Clark without all the cuss words :) love ya Grandpa! We got out there, got eaten alive by mosquitos, and got only one fish, but it was awesome! And you won´t even believe the size of the fish that I caught! It was huge! Like the size of my thumb! Haha I will have to send the picture to you all for you to see. We all got so happy when one of us finally caught something that it didn´t even matter that it was a baby fishy.

I hope that all is well there at home! I cannot believe that it´s already May! The time is passing by so quickly that I don´t even notice it. This next week is Mother´s Day!!! I can´t wait to hear everyone´s voice again! Hopefully Brady´s voice hasn´t gotten any deeper. If so, I´ll need to use a phone that is ready to support the huge baritone voice of his haha! Love you all and hope you all have a great week! Tchau! Beijão!

Elder Clark