24 March 2014

So its officially been two days since I emailed and I have to admit not a whole lot has happened, but they were a great two days! 

One big surprise we got was that yesterday we were having a quick meeting with Bishop Munhoz and Irmão Olimpio (ward mission leader) and the other sisters and we found out that we had misunderstood the division of the ward because my companion had learned it wrong from her companion who learned it wrong from the previous companion and so forth, which probably began with a companionship that didn´t understand portuguese or something. Anyway, what this means for us is that we lost about 80% of our investigators, less actives, and members... yeah. So we have a great adventure ahead of us, basically starting from scratch. But I think that will be good for us, because it means that we have to basically completely rely on the Lord in everything. I will let you know how it goes. 

This week on divisions with Sister Diaz, we taught Bruno Eduardo (8 year old son of ward members who wanted him to have the missionary lessons) about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sister Diaz had made papers that had all the steps of the gospel with us at the beginning and a paper saying Heavenly Father at the end. We put those two on the floor, far apart, and he had to try to go from where we are to where Heavenly Father is in one giant step. Even with a running start and multiple attempts, he could not make it. However, when we put subsequent papers down with Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End, he was easily able to hop from one to the other. It made me thing of the next steps that we take after baptism, such as priesthood for young men, temple, temple marriage, etc, and reminded me that Heavenly Father has provided simple steps for our whole life and that He doesn´t expect us to do everything in one giant leap, rather little by little we can continually walk forward and progress toward Him. Bruno´s baptism was super well done and a wonderful experience for everyone, including some of his school friends and their families. The visiting families took home conference Ensigns that we had set out on a display table! We are going to follow up with Bruno´s family and hopefully start working with the families that came. 

Love you all!

Sister Smith