"So Now For Marcelo...."

District Meeting

American Pancakes that Elder Santana wanted to try. He LOVED them! 

Hey Everybody!!

I hope you are all doing good! I pray for you all everyday. This was an AMAZING week for me. I realize I am so blessed. 

Tuesday we had our first "hora do cha." This is an idea my companion Elder Santana came up with. The idea is that members of the ward invite their non-member friends over just to kind of have a snack. In English the name of the activity translates to "Tea Time" but we are obviously not having tea. The purpose is to help members with missionary work and find new people to teach. When we work with the members the work is so much better! During this we just talk normally and get to know everybody. It isn’t like a sit down and listen type of lesson thing. We did this with some members and they invited a woman named Diani. She is a single mom with a 3 year old daughter, Sofia. So we started talking and having good conversation and naturally the conversation turned gospel related. We ended up answering a lot of her questions and we watched the 20 minute video about Joseph Smith and the Restoration. During the video Sofia just started to cry and was really sad. No matter what the mother tried she would not stop fussing. I did not know what to do but it was just really distracting for all of us. Then Elder Santana stopped the video and said we should say a prayer that little Sofia could be happy. So we did and she did not cry the rest of the night after that prayer. After the video we had a really emotional conversation about prayer. The Spirit was so strong. Later in the week we went back and gave her a Book of Mormon and taught her about it. 

Wednesday was great too. We had some miracles happen. We were walking in the street and I was thinking about how we need people to come to church more because the minimum before baptism here is 2 times. Then all of a sudden a lady from the other side of the street called us over. She and her family had taken the lessons from the missionaries a long time ago. They were preparing for baptism at the time AND had already been to church more than 2 times!! But then the Elders who were teaching them got transferred and there was a mix up somewhere and no other missionaries came to see them. So we said we would gladly come teach her and her family again. An awesome miracle; We did go back and found out that her and her husband are not legally married but that they will look into it. So we are still gonna teach them! 

Later that day we were looking for the house of a really promising potential investigator we had found in the streets. We could not find his house. So we stopped and said a prayer. After the prayer we started to walk and this little kid, probably only 2 or 3 yelled "Oi!" at us and just pointed down the road. And about 50 yards away was the guy we were looking for. So cool! I do not know how that little kid knew who we were looking for but it was awesome. 

So now for Marcelo. He got BAPTIZED!!! It was so so so awesome!! He was so happy! As a side note, let me just say that in the pictures we took he looks kind of scary/angry, haha. I don’t know why cause I promise he was excited and smiling all day. The baptism was at 2:30 in the afternoon and when we got to the church at 1:20 he was already there outside waiting for us. So obviously he was pretty excited. My worry of a no show was gone! I had the opportunity to be the one to baptize him and it was amazing! Being able to see him so clean and happy after he was baptized made me truly happy. I felt the Spirit the whole time. And I did not mess up the words when I performed the Baptism! My companion said baptisms are like a recharge for missionaries and boy he is right. I want to do it again! I will never forget that experience. 

It sounds like the week at home went good! I am happy to hear about Annie and the Triple Threat girls. That has always been a blessing and something we will never forget about how Annie never played Basketball on Sundays. She’s a stud. Also sounds like all the kids are doing well!! I realized the reason I love p-day and the updates so much is because when I left I was really scared that I would miss so much. But when I get the updates it kind of feels like I am not missing as much!

I love the sports updates. I didn’t bring any Broncos ties but I do have that one blue and orange one and I might happen to have worn it every Sunday in the field but who knows ;)!

The pics are from the baptism, our district meeting, and the American pancakes that Elder Santana wanted to try and make and he did and they were so good. We had them like 3 days in a row. And the purple shirt guy is Samuel the new Elders Quorum President. He is hilar!

So that was my week. This church is true. The happiness I feel, and those we teach feel, shows me everyday how awesome this work is. I love it!

I love you all!

Elder Spencer P. Christofferson

PS- This week please pray that we can find families to teach AND that I will be able to understand conference in Portuguese. J