Temple Blessings

Yummy lunch by Elder Morias dos Santos!

This past week our district here in Rio Verde (the smaller version of a stake) took a bus to the temple in Campinas, São Paulo. The members that went were super excited to go to the temple and it makes me greatful for the fact that I´ve always lived close to a temple. I´ve never had to to wait 6 months to drive 11 hours to go to the temple. For the members here, going to the temple in Campinas is both a sacrifice and a wonderful blessing. The members were so excited they brought back “temple hour” cards for the missionaries. I really miss going to the temple weekly and I know that I´m going to appreciate it more when I come home.

In case you haven´t noticed, there´s been a shortage of baptismal announcements this month. In fact, Sis. Santos and I haven´t had a baptism since the last transfer...this is my first month without a baptism and I don´t like the feeling. So we´ve put into practice a miracle maker that tests our faith. We wrote a list of blessings we wanted, what we were going to do to achieve these blessings, what Heavenly Father needs to do to help us and what sacrifices we were going to make. Well...we found a man, Reilson, who accepted a baptismal date when he made a street contact with him. He came to church with us this Sunday, but due to a misunderstanding left after the quorum´s meeting. We knew he left but we weren´t sure for where. Sis. Santos wasn´t too thrilled with me when I said that we were going to go after him, but I was determined, so we left church to walk to his house. I was fasting that day and praying super hard that we would be able to have a baptism the next Sunday (the last Sunday of the transfer). I wasn´t about to let our only chance slip by without doing everything I could . . . My prayers were answered when we found Reilson at home. . . This story's not over and I know that we have got a week long battle ahead of us, but I´m going to do my part and more so that I can be worthy of the blessing of a baptism.

Christian Graffiti

Horse drawn carriage. This cart picks up tree limbs
that other workers cut down while cleaning the
city. He took us for a short ride around the block.