"A mini Book of Mormon book club"

District Meeting

Hey everyone!!! 

How is everyone doing!? I hope all is well and that you all had a great week! Our week here was a good one. It ended a bit sadly yesterday but then last night got good again! I will explain the whole story in the rundown of the week! 

Monday night we had an awesome family night with Irmã Leide and her family. Johnny and Rodrigo and Anizio (the nonmember husband) were all there! We shared a video about member missionary work and then did a cool activity with them so that we got a bunch of referrals. The coolest part was that Anizio, who isn't even a member, gave us like 10 people as referrals!!! It was so cool because at the beginning of the lesson I was deciding if I would share that video or a different one and felt like I should share the one about member missionaries. I am so glad that's what we did as well as the activity! Now the only thing that needs to happen is that Anizio needs to realize that the number 1 person who needs the Gospel is him!! We will keep praying for him and doing all we can to teach and help him.  

Tuesday was a great day back to the grind. Towards the end of the day we finally got to teach this family that we had contacted earlier but had never gotten to actually visit and teach. Their names are Gilmar and Isabela. They both have around 25 years old and have one 2-year old girl. They were so awesome! Isabela's mom was there too and we taught the Restoration. Gilmar and Isabela have never really been religious but Isabela's mom is so it was really cool to see how she enjoyed the lesson. I love how God has blessed me to be able to recognize the Spirit a lot better. I can tell exactly when the Spirit enters into the room. Everything outside seems to fade away and all those who are present start to get quiet and really think about what is being said. It is so cool. That happened during the part of our lesson when we taught about Jesus Christ and his life as well as when we talked about the First Vision. The craziest part is that people always seem to remember the First Vision. Even with inactive members who have been 10 plus years inactive always remember the First Vision. Why? Because for me at least, it is one of the most special parts of all our messages. It is the story of how God once again visited man on earth like he did in the Bible times and the glorious beginning of the Restoration of the Gospel! Of course it is memorable! But anyways, they all really liked the message and we will go visit them again this week! 

Wednesday we went to visit Lucas! I can't remember if I already wrote about Lucas or not. But to share his backstory really quick, Lucas is 13, we found him when we were out doing contacts and he is really cool! He lives close to us and is always playing soccer in the plaza in front of our house.  He is awesome and we started to teach him last week. Anyways we went to teach him Wednesday and it was just awesome. We taught about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and then at the end I said, "So we have three invitations for you." He raises his hand and asks, "One of them is to be baptized, right?" I was like "umm".... hahaha "I wasn't going to say that one right now but..." And then Elder Machado invited him to be baptized and he accepted! It was awesome! He has a goal set to be baptized February 17th and we just need to get him involved with the members and for him to go to church. He is really smart and awesome so we are excited! 

Wednesday we also went and visited with Rita and Ellen again! They are the best and Ellen's mom and little brother should get here this week which we are hoping will help with Rita being excited for baptism and staying strong in the church. Also because our ward needs another family to start coming! Anyways, we went to teach Rita about the commandments. We were a little nervous for a couple reasons. One, Rita's whole family smokes and drinks coffee. It is not very rare obviously but we were worried. Reason two, Rita has a boyfriend and we were going to also teach the law of chastity. So we got there and started the lesson and it was great! One thing I have learned is that you cannot beat around the bush with this type of lesson. You have to be clear so people understand 100% and that's what we did. It was a great lesson and we had a little miracle because it turns out Rita doesn't drink coffee and she hates smoking!! So that was perfect! And about the boyfriend thing, she was fine about everything we taught so it was great too! The sad part with her was that later in the week she got sick and wasn't able to go to church on Sunday :( which means her baptism is going to have to be postponed to next week instead of this week! But it will be ok and everything will work out in the end as it always does! 

Thursday we went and passed by Marlene's place to see how they were doing. Since Evely has kind of stopped wanting to have the lessons since she already has taken all of them I was really stumped on what to do with our visits there. I have thought and prayed about it and I had an idea. We needed to focus more on the Savior. So we have started a little program of visits where we are reading all the chapters in 3rd Nephi of when Jesus is visiting the Nephites! So far it has been awesome and it is like a mini Book of Mormon book club, haha. Evely really likes to read in groups like we are doing so it has been good for her. I just hope now that she opens her heart up again a little bit and lets the Spirit enter. Little by little I know it will help her be happier! 

Friday was a day where everything fell through but we had fun anyway because we were with Felipe. Felipe is a dude in our ward who is going on his mission later this year and is preparing right now. It was a fun day and we did a lot of contacting and found this guy named Jonas. He was pretty interested and we taught him about the Restoration and he liked it. I love how people here just let us in and they always want to hear "a palavra" or the word! Gotta love Bahia.

Saturday was really cool too! We had a great day but Saturday night we had some lessons fall through so we were out of plans. The worst thing ever is to not have plans at night! So we started walking around on streets that we usually don't walk on and started to do contacts and knock doors. We knocked on this one door and this man named Domingos answered. He was really polite and let us in to leave a message. But after a little bit I realized that the Lord hadn't guided us there for him. His daughter was also there, named Evelyn and it was clear we were there for her. She is about 23 and has a 2-year old. The reason I realized that is because the minute we started to teach she was all in. She was so curious and thought it was the coolest thing ever! She couldn't go to church yesterday because we taught them on Saturday night about 8 o'clock and she already had plans but we are going back this week! Evelyn was super interested and said she would read and pray like we invited her too! 

So why did the week almost end sad but didn't? Well Sunday was a good day but we ended up not having any investigators at church. I can't remember the last time that happened!! And it just feels rotten because it seems like a whole week of work was for nothing because none of our investigators went to church! We had like 7 people marked to go with us but almost all fell through on Saturday. The good news is that church was still great. I actually got to teach Gospel Principles and it went really well. I love teaching the Gospel. 

Anyways, after lunch we went out to work and found this awesome couple!! Joilson and Crislania! They have 2 kids with one on the way and they are awesome. They have never really been religious which is rare to see here but they are great! We taught the Restoration and they seemed really interested! We'll see them next week and I really hope they progress! 

Really quick I wanted to talk a bit about my companion Elder Machado cause I don't think I have said much about him yet. He is from Fortaleza, which is a little north of where we are here in Bahia. He is 19 almost 20 and is a cool dude. He has been through a lot in his life but is super excited to be a missionary and the BEST part is that he is a WORKHORSE! He does a great job when he talks about the gospel and is really persistent. He also seems to listen to the promptings of the Spirit really well which is really neat. He is a little quiet at first but now he has opened up to me a little and we have become good friends. He is a good trainee. I'm looking forward to the rest of this transfer since after 2 weeks he is already learning so quickly and doing great! 

Anyways that was my week! It was a lot of stuff and I am really tired but the Lord will bless us like always if we do our best! Have a great week everyone! 

Elder Spencer P. Christofferson

I realized I only took one pic this week, sorry! Sorry Mama! I know you like lots of photos!