Elder Lofton Q Bean : Working and Laboring in the Lord´s Vineyard Here in Brasília

What a great week!!! We are working hard, having a ton of fun, and enjoying "working and laboring in the Lord´s vineyard" here in Brasília. Asa Sul is such a great area!!! The members of the church are awesome, always willing to help, and the people are great. At least once a day, someone comes up to us out of interest and starts talking to us. Whether it is at the bus stop, on the metro train, the grocery store, or on the street. We do our best to try to talk with everyone, but here a lot of people make the first move and come to us which is so cool!!!

The Bishop of the ward here is awesome! Bishop Marcelo. He is so involved and is willing to do whatever he can to help us and help our investigators. We visited him last week and asked if there were certain people that he knows that are needing our visits. Since we work in the office, we only eat lunch with the members on the weekends so it’s hard to know who is needing help. He gave us a few names and addresses. We felt inspired to contact one of them on Sunday night. So we went to visit Hedson and his family. An in-active family. We get there and Hedson was so happy to see us. He is in his mid 40s, married, and has three kids. All members of the church. Just Hedson was there and the visit was so special. I know it was inspired for Bishop to give us his name and address, and for us to go that night. Hedson hasn’t been to church for 3 years, but still believes very deeply that it is true and still reads the scriptures. He told us that us coming was an answer to his prayers to Heavenly Father. We shared 3 Nephi 18 about prayer and it really touched his heart. He shared experiences from his own mission when he served. After we bore our testimonies, he got really emotional when thanking us for coming by and knowing that it was divinely inspired by God for us to be there. He recognizes the Spirit and he told us he would go to church on Sunday and also to the Ward Churrasco (BBQ) on Saturday at the church. We knelt in prayer to end our visit and the spirit was just bursting. Me and Elder Barbosa left there feeling elevated and knowing that the Lord had put us in the right place at the right time. They will be such a strength to the church. We returned there two nights ago as well. This time I went with Elder Clinger (another secretary). They were all waiting for us to get there and this time the whole family was there!! There is a special spirit in that home. We got to know everyone, and then read 3 Nephi 11 about when Christ visited the people in the Americas after his resurrection and showed the marks in his hands and his feet just like he did to the 12 apostles in Jerusalem. To show to the people of the Americas, that He is the Savior of the World, and died for them as well. The Spirit was burning and everyone could feel it. Cleiton, an 18 year old member of the church who is preparing to serve a mission also went to the visit with us. Hedson bore his testimony and then asked everyone in his family to share how they were feeling (Hedson is a stud!!). His 15 year old son Matheus is big into basketball and plays really good. Lucas, who is the professional basketball player in our church, is also one of the leaders in the young men´s program so that will help Matheus a lot! At the end of the lesson, I felt really touched. Hedson asked us really humbly if we could please take his "role" and give a "Father´s" blessing to his kids since the new school year was about to start. It touched us that he was really wanting us to do it for his kids. He was very grateful. They are a special family!

We visited another super awesome family. Chris and Marisa and their daughter. Chris (non-member) and Marisa (member) are in their mid-50s and super cool!! Chris is from the Carribean islands and where he is from everyone speaks English. So he speaks English and is trying to learn Portuguese. He has been in Brasil for about a year. Marisa is Brasilian but works in embassies as a diplomat so speaks English fluently and has lived all over the world. China, Los Angeles, Europe, etc. And in a couple months they will be moving to the middle east. Their six kids all live in the US except for one that lives in Brasil. They had us over for dinner and we taught Chris. It was a ton of fun. They made us really feel at home. He showed us pictures where he lived in the Caribbean and it looked so legit.

Patricia is really progressing and superr excited about her baptism on Saturday!!!!!! She is really integrated with the members. We will visit her again tonight at Scott and Cris´s house! We are super excited for Saturday night!!

Espero que tenham uma ótima semana!! Amo vocês!!

Elder Bean I