Hello friends and family!!
Another week in the books. I cant believe I've already been here in Fortaleza for 5 weeks. Time flies when you're serving the Lord. Anyway, this week was a grind. Here in Fortaleza, the week after New Years is the week where everyone goes on vacation so it was difficult to find people we set appointments with, but we were definitely blessed this week.
While talking with Roberta, she introduced us to her friend Isaac and his little cousin Kauãn. We talked a little bit with them and set a time later that day to teach them. We taught them the Gospel of Jesus Christ and both of them accepted to be baptized!! Isaac has some problems with smoking and coffee but he is ready to give it up to be baptized. Its amazing how the gospel of Jesus Christ can open the hearts of people here. Then, another day we were having a lesson with Roberta and her boyfriend walks in and she encouraged him to listen to or message. His name is Josias. We taught him and he accepted to be baptized as well!
Its crazy when I look back on when we first met Roberta. We were looking for a contact that we had made earlier that day and we decided just to knock on a random door and Roberta answered. We taught her and two weeks later she was baptized. Now we have 3 other investigators with dates because of her help. It would've been so easy just to say "Oh well" and go to our next appointment but we followed the spirit and knocked on that door. One lesson that I have learned and that President Chamberlain has emphasized "If you feel like you should do it, do it." Simply acting in faith when we receive a prompting will result in miracles.
With the passing of our prophet Thomas S Monson, I have been thinking a lot about what he said in his last conference. That we should read the Book of Mormon every single day. Something so simple like this can easily be set aside because we think "Duh. I already knew that." But when a prophet of God says something, we better pay attention. So this week I have been focusing on reading the Book of Mormon, (in Portuguese heyyyyoooo). Its so important that when we read the Book of Mormon, that we apply the teachings to our lives. Often times, we read just to check a box. There is a young woman in my ward that said she read the Book of Mormon in 2 weeks. I asked her, "SWEET. What did you learn?". She couldn't think of anything. When we read the Book of Mormon we need to:
1) Read - Read the dang thing
2) Understand - Try to understand the meaning of the scripture
3) Apply - Ask yourself "How does this apply to me?"
When we do these things we will receive answers to our questions and we will receive power to overcome our trials like our prophet testified.
AMO VOCÊS
-Elder Eliason
P.s. no pics because I am in the sketchiest lan house of all time, but double pics next week
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