Elder Lofton Q Bean : A Baptism!! God Prepares Us One Step at a Time

Everything is going good here in Brasília. This week we had Patricia´s baptism!! It was so awesome and special. That Saturday was an overall awesome day. It started off with a "Church cleaning activity" for the whole ward and then the bishop did a churrasco (BBQ) for everyone! It was a ton of fun and we had several in-active members that went that we are helping and visiting. After the BBQ, President took us to Gama to be there for some baptisms of people that I helped teach! It was so special going back there and seeing everyone again. I felt so much joy it was insane. I felt so happy to be back there and see the people from Gama. Gama will always have a special place in my heart. Afterwards, we went back to Asa Sul for our baptism with Patricia. And she knows some members from Itapoã so she invited them!!! And at the church building, they were having an EFY (fsy) meeting for all the efy counselors (efy will be during Carnival in February here). And I got to see some more members from Gama including Sandra, Gabriel and Elycia!! Elycia was baptized in January 2014 when I was in Gama the first time. She has been a member for a year now, and is going to be an EFY counselor!! Gabriel is preparing to serve a mission here soon. It was so great seeing them.

The Baptism for Patricia was truly so special. All the members came to support and had a great turnout!! Her mom, Terezinha, felt the Spirit very strong and felt that everyone in the church is like a big family. I felt the Spirit so strong!! On Sunday she was confirmed a member and I got to participate in that. Irmão Paulo baptized and confirmed her. Patricia is going to be such a great member and will have a positive influence on so many people!! During testimony meeting at church, the spirit was just so powerful. The last testimony borne was by this sweet little old lady who happened to be the first sister missionary to serve in Brasilia. It was in the 1960s. (they are writing a book about her.) She is a pioneer for the church in Brasil, and she came back to Brasilia to visit. I cannot imagine the joy she must have felt to see how strong the church is now after all these years. Her testimony was so pure and powerful and it made me want to do better!! She is really old, but when talking with her she has such a youthfulness about her and remembers so many details about her past. She loves the missionaries!!

I got to do several baptism interviews this week. It is awesome being able to interview and talk with some amazing people who are investigating the church and wanting to be baptized. Many of them strengthen my own testimony through their thoughts and stories from their life and how they found the church. Seeing how the hand of God has been in their life preparing many of them for much time to accept the missionaries in the future when they were ready is incredible.

At church we had a great turnout from investigators. We also had a miracle in a guy named Gibran. He is studying to be a doctor and he felt prompted to visit a "Mormon church." so he looked up on the internet where the nearest church was and the times and he showed up!! I gave him a tour of the church and taught him. He is a stud and the members did a great job of integrating him. I love the people so much here in Asa Sul.

The work here is incredible. I am so grateful to be a part of this great, marvelous, and eternal work. I know that Christ is guiding this work. If we are humble and allow Christ to enter our hearts and our live, we will become changed and become more like Him. He is our perfect example. He is the way! He is the light of the world and the good shepherd. He is forever calling us to come and follow Him. I know He lives!! He is the resurrected Lord and Savior of the World, and has a love for each and every one of us. He died for us and gave us an incredible gift. We need to use his atonement. We need to show our gratefulness for Christ and what he did for us by following Him and keeping His commandments. There is an incredible talk by Brad Wilcox "His grace is sufficient". It is powerful and makes so much sense and I recommend it.

I love y’all so much!! Life is full of challenges, but if it wasn’t for the hard times, the good times truly wouldn’t be as good. If we didn’t have salt, we wouldn’t really know how sweet sugar really is. It’s the difficulties of life, that make us even more grateful for those tender mercies and those moments of happiness.

Elder Bean I