Monday, November 7th 2011

Oi Família!

Let me just start this e-mail off telling you all just how great of a week we had! After all of our work throughout the week we were blessed with the opportunity of baptizing 8 people this week! Would you all like to know how? Of course! haha Well since we arrived in this ward, we have started a weekly schedule of activities in the Church. Monday we have Jiu-Jitsu classes in the afternoon, on Thursday we have English class, on Friday we have soccer, and Saturday has Mutual with the youth. We go through the neighborhood inviting all the youth to attend these various activities and they go crazy for it all! They all say stuff like, "I have never seen a Church do such cool things. I am SO going on Sunday, too!" The youth are so enthusiastic here about the Church, a LOT more than the adults in the ward, and we are able to help a lot of youth start preparing for missions! We have already baptized a group of friends here in this ward that are absolutely amazing. We have Diego, Paulo, Roseval, and Patrick who are all close friends, but the thing is that they are all our recent-converts and they weren´t even friends before they joined the Church. They met each other in Seminary and all the other activities and now they are stronger than ever! Yesterday, after Church we saw that there was a bunch of cars in the parking lot at about 5 o´clock. We walked in to see who was all there and it was just the Relief Society Choir, but we were looking in the other rooms and we saw our converts there just playing the piano and singing hymns! They even wrote on the blackboard "Elder Moreira, Elder Jappah, and Elder Mascarenhas". I am so proud of these guys! We even have a family that is starting to come to Church. We baptized the children these last few weeks and they became fanatics for the Church. They came to Church yesterday in dresses and everything! They even saw us and showed us their new purses they bought to carry their scriptures to Church! And next week we are going to baptize their mom!!! There was even a young man yesterday who came up to my companion and asked, "Hey! How many times do I have to come to Church before I can be baptized?! I have been here three times already and I want to be baptized!!!" We just thought that he was a member already! So we went to his house after Church and we met him mom and his older sister. They loved the message so much that they also accepted to be baptized in two weeks! Another whole family!!! I am really just astounded at the many blessings that we are receiving here in this ward. The members are extremely happy, especially the youth leaders and seminary teacher! And we are feeling the Spirit so much! I give all the credit to obedience and hard work, because I know that the Lord would not trust us with His children if we were slackers, especially these special children! I love the mission SO much!

Well, last Monday we had a Family night in a recent-convert´s house. So we ended P-day and went running there. I got there and started to tell that everyone was acting funny. When I entered the room, everyone turned on the lights and yelled, "Surprise!!!" They had thrown a delayed surprise birthday party for me. They made a cake and gave a few small gifts that were amazing! I really did love it. But the best part wasn´t even that. Here in Brazil, there is a tradition here where on your birthday you get eggs smashed on your head and then they throw flour all over you, but usually they don´t do it, they just threaten you... but I got egged anyways! You can see it from the pictures that they didn´t spare any part of my body. I got ambushed by my companion and converts with eggs and flour and my clothes were completely covered! We all got a big laugh until I started threatening to hug everyone! Haha It was fun!

Well, that was my week! Hope ya´ll liked it! haha I love you all and hope and pray that we can all keep working hard in school and at work so we can feel good about our work at the end of the day. Heavenly Father really does reward His children who try their best with amazing results. I am seeing this every day here on the mission. Have a great week! Love you all!

Elder Clark