The week ended great with a baptism! Pedro!!!! It was
awesome. He was baptized on Saturday and then confirmed on Sunday. When he
asked me to baptize him, I felt honored and so grateful to be in the water with
him. He is such a stud! He is seriously such a cool kid. He always has a smile
and has me laughin every time we visit him and his family. Him and his sister,
Paulinária, are goin strong! They get to church every Sunday before we even do!
ha. This past Sunday they got there even before the door was unlocked.
There are so many special people here in Itapoã that I am so grateful to have
gotten to know.
We marked a baptism date in October with a 17 yr old
named Antônio! He is a cool guy with a good head on his shoulders. He is
Raimundo´s cousin. He has already been to church several times and when
we invited him to be baptized, he said he really wanted to, but had started to
work at a job on Sundays so now he won't be able to go to church. I felt really
strongly when promising him that if he prayed after the lesson and after we had
left, that he needed to baptized that God would let him know and provide a way.
We returned a couple days later and he had received a powerful answer
from Heavenly Father!
This week we also visited an "Assembleia
Church" on Friday. When we are invited by people, we are allowed to visit
other churches. We are teaching these two teenage brothers, and they are both
liking what we are teachin. Maxwell (16 yrs old) told his pastor about our
visits and even showed him the Book of Mormon. The pastor told Maxwell he
wanted to meet with us. Maxwell thought we wouldn’t want to, but we were
stoked!! We ended up going over there to his church. He lives in the back
of the church so while the church band was warming up before his sermon, we talked
with him in the back and the conversation started really good. We were talking
back and forth and it was going really well. Then he just went off on us.
The natural man in me wanted to just fire back and go off on him and use
scriptures in his own Bible to prove to him what he was saying was wrong and
made no sense. But we just kept our tongues. When he took breathing breaks, we
would mention kindly scriptures from the Bible to show him what he was saying
was wrong. It wouldn’t even phase him, he wasn’t willing to listen, just
talkin. The time came for him to leave, so he got up and wasn’t even going to
think bout given us a chance to talk more. He’s a little guy, so I got up as
well and just looked down at him in the eye and bore him my testimony. Briefly,
and from the heart. The Spirit was so strong! We left and realized that
we had done our part. And we had shown Christ-like love to him, even
though he was saying many things that weren’t true about us. There are a ton
of little churches here, so we always run into pastors in the streets. Many
times they are awesome to talk to and they think the work we are doing is
great. They have a lot of respect. But then we run into others who just wanna
try to tear us down. We tell them that we respect all religions and we
are here to help others come unto Christ and to help people have more faith,
hope, and love in their lives.
We are teaching this lady, Conceição whose husband and
son are members of the church. She and her daughter attend a different church.
We had a powerful lesson with her and she really likes us a lot and is wanting
to receive an answer from Heavenly Father. She is listening to the books on
tape of the Book of Mormon and really liking it.
This weekend is general conference and I’m stoked!!!
Being a missionary, general conference is like super bowl Sunday!! Getting to
hear the words of the prophet, the apostles, and the other leaders of the
church that they will speak to the world. I truly know they are called of God
and that what they will say, will be exactly what we need to hear. What the
Lord would have us know. I love yall!! take care, have a great week and
enjoy General Conference! and hope Olivia has an awesome 14th birthday this
weekend!!! getttin old :)
Love,
Elder Bean I
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| Pedro with his sister, Paulinária, his mom and his friend |
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| Pedro!!! |
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| Paulinária and Pedro |
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