My First REAL "Interesting Story"

Happy Halloween Everybody!!!

Halloween has never been my favorite holiday but I didn't think I was going to miss it! But I do! They do not have this holiday here in Brazil. I hope you all had a great week! My week was great too. 

Tuesday we had a cool experience. We taught our investigator Patrick. We have been teaching him for a while now. He is super busy so cannot meet a lot during the week but he is serious about learning about the gospel. So our last visit we left him a Book of Mormon with a chapter to read. When we returned he had not read it yet which was sad but we read it with him there. We read 3 Nephi 11. The chapter when Christ first comes to the Americas. It is such an awesome chapter. So much power and spirit. So after we read I asked him how he felt, like how he felt about all this, everything we have taught him. Usually he doesn't say much but he admitted that he had had some doubts but that after reading the Book of Mormon there with us his doubts left and they were replaced by peace. It is so cool to watch people change and truly be touched by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So Logan is gonna be happy because I had my first real "interesting story." This happened just before we taught Patrick on Tuesday and it was insane, haha! Patrick lives at the top of a big hill so we walked all the way up there Tuesday afternoon and knocked (actually clapped haha everyone here has gates so you clap). He was not there and right as we were about to leave this really old lady comes up to us and starts talking about something, I couldn't understand.  We tried to leave because she was obviously a little off but then she was like can you come share the word of God with me? We said yes and she so happened to live right across the street from Patrick. We sat down in her house and she began to explain to us how she has so many trials and needs more patience. Then her son came in from the other room. He was a good sized dude probably in his 30's. He started talking to me about how his mom is crazy. He was saying how she tries to kill him with knifes. As he was saying this the old lady(80ish) silently stands up, walks over to him and just punches him HARD right in the face!!!! My face was probably hilarious! So the son kept going on after he recovered from the punch to the face about how crazy she is and obviously we now saw what he was talking about.  And when she was talking about patience we could see that she was right about that. She was standing there trying to beat him up. He was showing me scars on his hands of where she stabbed him with knives. She starts screaming "MENTIRA!!" which means liar. It was insane. Elder Quintana looked at me and said, we should go. We left REAL quick! After we left we saw that Patrick had gotten home and we went over and taught him that awesome lesson. We told him where we had just been and he just started to laugh. So I hope you guys like that story of the crazy old lady fighter! 

Wednesday was also a sweet day. We met up with 2 of the young men in our ward and went out to do some work! We found a 25-year old woman named Jaciada while looking for a different person. She seemed really interested and we taught her the 1st lesson. One of the young men who was with us, Leo, leaves on his mission to Belem Brasil next month. He shared his testimony during the lesson and it was really spiritual and powerful. Belem is getting a great missionary. On Friday we went back to Jaciada and she had done her "homework!" It was just reading the pamphlet we left but she actually did it! I love when our investigators do their part! We taught and left her with a Book of Mormon and no doubt she will read it. 

Wednesday we found another AWESOME person. So Elder Quintana needed a pillow for sleeping. An older lady in our ward heard and said she had an extra one at her house we just needed to stop by and get it. The Relief Society President in our ward told us that one of the neighbors of this older lady was maybe interested in the church. She had gone to some activities and enjoyed them. Wednesday night we stopped by to get the pillow and the neighbor, Edinalva, was there. She is around 50 years old and now lives alone so she is always and this members house. We talked to her for a long time and taught her the first lesson. She is really awesome. She had already read the Book of Mormon a little bit! She saw one at the member's house and picked it up and read a little! On Friday we went back and taught her again. She told us, "I know that God placed you two in my path for a reason." How amazing!! I love missionary work!!

Friday night Leo, the young man in our ward leaving on his mission in less than a month, had his mission party type thing at the church. It was really fun and awesome and reminded me a lot of when I left. Crazy that was so long ago but not really at the same time. 

I hope you all have a fantastic week! Miss and love you all! I love missionary work!! It is all true! 

Love,

Elder Spencer P. Christofferson

Feet are getting better!