Elder Spencer Christofferson: "If you want to know, just go ask Him!"

Elder Palma ahead of me on his bike

Hey there everybody!!

How are you all doing?! I hope you all had a fantastic week! We had a great one here in Eunápolis! I really love this city! It is a small town compared to what I am used to on my mission but man I really love it! It just has such a cool feeling and the members here are the best! Our week was another busy one with a few holidays here. Bahia, the state I am in here in Brasil, has soooooo many holidays it is hilarious! It makes working tough because most of the people are partying but we made the most of it! I'll hit the highlights of the week!

Before I start, quick update on the whole truck drivers situation. As of now, I actually have no idea if it is still going on haha! We were told it was over earlier in the week and we believed it because the gas stations started to get gasoline again. Then other people told us that it actually had not ended but that they were just letting some people thru on the freeways they were blocking. So who knows haha!

Tuesday we had a great lesson with Alefe! Even though he bailed last minute on the baptism last week, he told us pretty much not to give up on him, so we aren't! We decided with our awesome ward mission leader last week that we needed to get him more involved with the members and integrate him more into the branch. So we are taking more members with us now when we can to visit Alefe. So Tuesday we took Brother Cabuia, who is the 2nd counselor of the branch. It was good actually because Cabuia lives really close to Alefe and they already kind of know each other so it was perfect. Alefe was ready and waiting for us and we talked about tithing and fast offerings with him. But we focused more on the fasting part. Because this week was the first sunday of the month we wanted to challenge him to fast. So we explained about fasting and what it means and stuff and why we do it and he really liked it! Cabuia shared a cool story about fasting from his mission and then I talked about how my family used to fast all the time for my Grandma! I literally fasted almost every Sunday and I remember passing many, many Sundays watching all my buddies eat snacks during class that our teachers would give us! But because of that I gained my testimony of fasting! It really works and makes us spiritually stronger!

Wednesday we went to visit Elizia. So she still hasn't been able to go home because of the whole strike thing so that's good for us hahaha! But we were excited this week to see how she was doing because we had invited her to pray and ponder about the challenge we extended to get baptized on Saturday. We got there on Wednesday night and she was acting super strange. She wasn't all bubbly, and excited as usual. Right off the bat we could tell something was wrong but we continued with the lesson. She had read the chapter of the Book of Mormon that we had left with her but had not understood very well so we decided to read it with her to help her understand. We were reading and she really wasn't very into it. I felt like we needed to change what we were teaching. So I shut my book and said, "Let's change the subject." And we started to talk about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The rest of the lesson went pretty well I thought. She was still a little out of it but it was better. At the end we talked to her about the baptism on Saturday and she said she didn't know yet so we invited her to keep praying and to remember the feelings she has felt during the time she has been learning about all this.

Thursday was the holiday. In the morning there was an Elders' Quorum activity. Guess what it was? Well if you happened to guess soccer, than congrats! You're right! Haha shocker right? Soccer activity here in Brasil. Anyways we had been invited since some non-members were going to be there. It was fun and I realized that I still am very bad at soccer. I play soccer like a football player haha. But we had a blast and I even took my mini-football to throw around. It is the funniest thing ever to see grown men not know how to throw a ball. I was dying of laughter. But it is just a cultural thing! They think it is hilarious that we can't juggle a soccer ball so I guess we are even. The member who organized it brought 4 of his friends and we got to talk to them a little about the church and it was great!

Thursday night we had a "noite de integração". Which means like integration night. It is pretty much just an activity with members, and less-actives and investigators for them to get to know each other. We had organized it with our ward mission leader and it turned out pretty good! We had a better showing than I had thought we were going to get so that was good. We had the ping-pong table set up, and a couple tables with cards and games! It was fun, the only thing that was missing were investigators! We had invited a TON of people and the members did too and no one showed. We had a couple less-actives which was good but we are hoping next time for some investigators!

Friday we had a fun time with Laura! She is a young woman in our branch who is awesome! She is only 16 but she is already a stud missionary! She came with us to visit a few people. The thing that was sad was that all of those appointments fell thru!! So we decided to knock some doors! Laura did the first one and got turned down, then Elder Palma knocked another door and also got rejected. I stepped up and said, "Let me show you guys how it's done." I was TOTALLY joking, but the man who answered let us in super fast hahahaha! It was awesome. His name is Juarez (that is where Elder Palma is from) and he is a good man. He is a little older and lives alone. We had a good first lesson with him and hope we can find him again this week!

Friday we also went over to visit Elizia. Thankfully she was a LOT better on Friday and even said sorry that she had been so weird earlier in the week. She said sometimes she just gets sad and a little out of it. So friday we talked about fasting with her as well! We challenged her to fast this weekend. We did that because she had told us that she didn't want to get baptized this week because she still doesn't feel like she has gotten an answer. So we challenged her to fast and pray to get that answer! It was a great lesson and she accepted the challenge!

Saturday was good but we didn't have a lot of action. We talked to Branca who had to go to take care of her mom in a different city. Branca is good and I just can't give up on her! I am hoping this week some big things happen with her!

Sunday was a great sabbath! I offically gave my last testimony from the pulpit as a missionary! It was crazy. We had some meetings in the afternoon and then that night our awesome Ward mission leader, Lenini, invited us over to his house for dinner. He overheard me and Elder Palma saying we didn't have food in our house haha. We had not bought food Saturday night because we were fasting but we didn't think about Sunday. So we got to have a nice little dinner with Lenini and his family! They have helped this branch so much!

So that was our week! We are hoping that we can have some miracles here and have a baptism before the end of the transfer! I KNOW that this is God's true church! And I am so grateful for that knowledge! And if you want to know, just go ask him!! Love you all! Have a great week!

#itsalltrue

P.S. I will have P-day next week on Tuesday I think because we have our zone conference on Monday in Porto!