Monday, August 11, 2014

Street Contacts Are Where It's At


Bom Dia para vocês! Espero que tudo estejam bem com vocês!!

Olá,

This week flew by so fast! The weeks are starting to feel like days! Last night I realized that today, in one week Noah will be leavin home for the MTC. That’s crazy!! It has come up so fast. It feels like yesterday I was in Gama at a lanhouse watching the video of Noah opening up his mission call!! the time has flowwn by so fast. But I’m super stoked and excited for Noah and the experiences that he will have!! Atta boy!!!

Me and Elder Fernandez worked our butts off this week!! You know you had a good week and worked hard when come Sunday night you are just exhausted beyond belief. Pday is definitely necessary, not just to email and write home but also to rest up for the next week. Our mission has a new rule, of making 100 contacts with people in the streets per week. We found out Wednesday, and me and Fernandez ended up with 102 contacts! on top of teaching 37 lessons in peoples homes this week!! We try to do most of our contacts while walking from appointment to appointment or when appointments fall through and people aren’t home. We normally have to walk about 25 to 30 minutes from one house to the next appointment. We found 12 new investigators this week that are really solid and really interested and that we were able to find and teach this week. Just shows you might have to talk with 10 people, to find 1 good one that is interested. Two of the people we found are Valto and Conceição.
Thursday night while we were walkin to an appointment, we walked past a house and I had a strong feeling to go back and knock on it. So we went back and knocked and "asked for water". Something we usually do is say that we are missionaries, have been walking a ton are super thirsty (even when we had just asked for water at another house a minute earlier) ha.  It seems to be working!!
Valto came and brought us water and he is a super cool guy!! He is in his later 40s and is married. He welcomed us in and we taught him the Restoration! It was super spiritual and he had so many good questions! When we answered them, it all made sense to him and we invited him to get baptised if God answers his prayers about what we taught him! He was like Of course I would!! and we marked a date for August 31st!  The dude is a stud!!
Conceição was a contact we did in the street. She was walking by us and when I guess she could tell that we were gonna talk to her cause before we opened our mouths she said "No, I don’t want anything to do with what you want to say." And walked right past us in a hurry. I smiled, kinda chuckled and took this as a challenge!! :) , So I jogged after her and say "Irmã espera, espera!"  She then stopped and explained to us she is really strong in her church Assembleia de Deus and that her husband and 13 yr old son happen to be members of our church.  After we were talking for a bit in the street, we started inviting her to church and asked if we could write down her address and share a message with her and her family. She said No. After we kept tryin to convince her she looked me right in the eye and said "Why should I!"  Then I just went off on pure testimony and by the power of the Spirit. It was incredible experience, the words were just flowing faster and better sounding then I think I have ever spoken. It was probably better than I would of done in English. She just had a shock look on her face and I knew she had felt the authority and power that was behind the words. After I finished, she smiled and told us her address and said we could come by Sunday night!  Sunday night we went over there and brought Raimundo with us too. We taught the Restoration and it was one of the best lessons that I’ve had the privilege of participating in. We invited her to be baptised on September 7th if she received an answer from God, and she accepted!!  The feelings that we had after leaving that lesson are difficult to explain. It’s a surety that you feel, that you know without a doubt what you taught is true and you just feel so happy!
Raimundo ended up driving us around and teaching with us all Sunday!! The dude is seriously a stud!! He gave us a reference of his friend and took us over there, his name is Augusto. The lesson was awesome and Raimundo spoke a lot and boar his testimony! It was such an awesome moment to see the changes that Raimundo has made in the past two months when I got here. His first Sunday back to church was my first in Itapoã so we both have 8 Sundays straight!!  Him and Ivaneide will get married at the end of the month or beginning of September, and she really wants to get baptised the Sunday after!  Raimundo and Ivaneide treat us like family and Raimundo is always wantin to make sure that we are takin care of and have what we need! It’s a blessing for me to have gotten to know them!!
Augusto (Neymar Jr.) is still doing great!! We give him readin assignments in the Book of Mormon with questions he has to answer and he has been doing them! One of the proudest moments thou, was the other day at his house. We were sharing a message with Augusto, his whole family, and his mom´s friend. It was awesome while we were teaching, Augusto would look at me and ask, "Bean, can I explain this part?"  yaehhhhh buddy. haha it was awesome. And then his mom started crying when she talked about how grateful she is for us and that we were willing to leave our own families to come find her son! (I almost cried when she said those words too).  She talked about the changes she has seen in Augusto and it is amazing. Her friend even mentioned to how much Augusto has changed. She said that Augusto use to be really rebellious, and very disrespectful and not care about anything, only soccer. When she would come by the house and ask if his mom was home, he would be really disrespectful and just not give a darn. He always disrespected people and his mom.  But the other day, she came by the house and asked if his mom was home, Augusto welcomed her in with a big hug and kiss on the cheek, and then got her a cup of coca-cola before she could even ask for something to drink. She said that she was shocked and thought "Is this even Augusto?"  He has literally become a whole new young man!! I am beyond proud of him. Seeing him at church, he goes around and introduces himself to people he doesn’t know and is proactive and is signing up to go to EFY (FSY) next spring 2015!!!  It is so hard to explain how proud I am of that kid. It is incredible seeing how much being a part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ truly does change lives and makes you into the person God hopes and expects you will become here. Augusto even is workin on his "Duty to God" everyday (something I didn’t even finish or focus on like I should of)  It will be the hardest thing saying goodbye to him when I have to leave Itapoã. He has grown to be like a little brother. 
But I am so grateful for the experiences that I’m having here!! Its incredible how much God loves us!!  This work his true!! Go out and spread the word!!!!

Love,

Elder Bean

About to start the day

Eating Açai

Augusto's mom's friend, Fernandez, Augusto, Me


Augusto "Neymar Jr"

Eu corri means I ran. It's a marathon shirt that Raimundo always wore and
I would always tell him that's a sick shirt dude. He brought it wrapped up as a
gift for me one Sunday. Love it

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