Me with the berimbau.
Here's Debora, Bahia's daughter, baptism from a couple weeks ago.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
This week we found the most elect person I've seen so far on my mission. A long time ago when I first got into the area, a guy passed by us in his car, stopped, and came back to talk to us. He only wanted to talk because he assosciates white shirts and nametags with Americans and wanted to practice his english. But he was nice enough, and invited us to his house to talk- except that as he was leaving he started using some pretty heavy language and Elder Anderson was offended and said we weren't going back to talk to him.
Elder Anderson got transfered last week and we went back to talk to the guy. We got to his house, and the lady (who turned out to be his mother) said that he wasn't home and to come back later- but there was a kid sitting on the steps so we started talking to him and he mentioned that his family was very important to him and when we asked if we could share a message with his family this voice from above said, "Of course you can! Come on up!" It was his mom looking out from the second story window; she had been listening to the conversation.
It turns out that she had had a bad experience in the church that she attended and had recently been praying to Heavenly Father asking for His help to find the church that she and her family should go to. When she saw us, she said, she knew that he had answered her prayer.
The first lesson was fantastic. The Spirit was so strong, she cried at the end, and through tears when we invited her to pray and ask God if what we had said was true, she said, "I already know." When we asked her if, receiving an answer from God that our message was true, she would be baptized in His church she said, "of course."
The second lesson was also exciting. She had read 3 Nephi 11 and Moroni 10:3-5. We asked her if she prayed about it and she said, "I didn't need to ask, I felt that I was true as I read it."
So anyway, it's a family of four people. They're all very excited to go to church with us this Sunday. She and her two sons have baptismal dates for the 30th of November, so if you could all pray for that that would be wonderful. I've wanted my whole mission to baptize a whole family- complete with a Father- and we have an excellent chance now to help these people progress.
In other news, Transfers was last week and I'm so glad that's over. I had to take care of everything myself, since Elder Anderson was leaving and it was rough. But it's over now, and I can take a deep breath. Things have returned to their normal level of stressfulness.
The other day we had to go to another city to pick up a missionary so he could come to the office to fix our computers which were not working correctly. We got on the bus and asked the driver if he was heading in that direction and he was like, "Yep, I'll show you where you need to go, just stay up here with me," and he made us stand in the front of the crowded bus next to him.
It was actually kind of cool, I felt like a VIP standing behind his giant Bus Driver Seat. Turns out that he's a member of the church for like 12 years and he has three sons that all served missions. He wouldn't let us pay for the bus either. If the transit system found out that he was letting people ride for free he could get in big trouble- even fired- so we insisted on paying, and then he got angry and was like, "I'm in charge here! If I say you don't pay you aren't going to pay!"
So we didn't pay.
That's all my news for this week.
Let it be known that I am still waiting for letters from anyone who reads this Blog. There's been a letter drought since I got here in the office; it'd be fantastic if we could all work together and resolve this problem.
Love,
Elder Sisco
Elder Anderson got transfered last week and we went back to talk to the guy. We got to his house, and the lady (who turned out to be his mother) said that he wasn't home and to come back later- but there was a kid sitting on the steps so we started talking to him and he mentioned that his family was very important to him and when we asked if we could share a message with his family this voice from above said, "Of course you can! Come on up!" It was his mom looking out from the second story window; she had been listening to the conversation.
It turns out that she had had a bad experience in the church that she attended and had recently been praying to Heavenly Father asking for His help to find the church that she and her family should go to. When she saw us, she said, she knew that he had answered her prayer.
The first lesson was fantastic. The Spirit was so strong, she cried at the end, and through tears when we invited her to pray and ask God if what we had said was true, she said, "I already know." When we asked her if, receiving an answer from God that our message was true, she would be baptized in His church she said, "of course."
The second lesson was also exciting. She had read 3 Nephi 11 and Moroni 10:3-5. We asked her if she prayed about it and she said, "I didn't need to ask, I felt that I was true as I read it."
So anyway, it's a family of four people. They're all very excited to go to church with us this Sunday. She and her two sons have baptismal dates for the 30th of November, so if you could all pray for that that would be wonderful. I've wanted my whole mission to baptize a whole family- complete with a Father- and we have an excellent chance now to help these people progress.
In other news, Transfers was last week and I'm so glad that's over. I had to take care of everything myself, since Elder Anderson was leaving and it was rough. But it's over now, and I can take a deep breath. Things have returned to their normal level of stressfulness.
The other day we had to go to another city to pick up a missionary so he could come to the office to fix our computers which were not working correctly. We got on the bus and asked the driver if he was heading in that direction and he was like, "Yep, I'll show you where you need to go, just stay up here with me," and he made us stand in the front of the crowded bus next to him.
It was actually kind of cool, I felt like a VIP standing behind his giant Bus Driver Seat. Turns out that he's a member of the church for like 12 years and he has three sons that all served missions. He wouldn't let us pay for the bus either. If the transit system found out that he was letting people ride for free he could get in big trouble- even fired- so we insisted on paying, and then he got angry and was like, "I'm in charge here! If I say you don't pay you aren't going to pay!"
So we didn't pay.
That's all my news for this week.
Let it be known that I am still waiting for letters from anyone who reads this Blog. There's been a letter drought since I got here in the office; it'd be fantastic if we could all work together and resolve this problem.
Love,
Elder Sisco
Thursday, November 6, 2008
October 31, 2008
Let me tell you a little bit about The Best Sunday Ever. I woke up, went to church, ate a fantastic lunch, and then because it was my day to stay with Elder Dantas, we took a bus home and I took a two hour Sunday Afternoon Nap. I believe that I will never again have the opportunity to do this. At least not for another 13 months.
That night, we took a bus to the chapel where we had a baptism. Debora, Bahia's daughter, was baptized by the Bishop. It was an awesome meeting. Also, I sat next to our new Ward Mission Leader who is 80 years old. He was baptized 36 years ago, when the church was just getting it's roots down here in Brazil, and he was confirmed a new member by Elder Howard W. Hunter of the quorum of the twelve at the time. Sweet, huh? He showed me an old Aaronic Priesthood manual that has a story about him in it. Y'know how whenever they read those example stories with morals in them you always wonder if they're actually true? Well this one used his name and everything.
It talked about one time while he was a taxi driver in São Paulo and he rear-ended someone and he got out of the taxi and was like, "I'm sorry, this is completely my fault, I'll take care of everything. Now, I know that everything happens for a reason, so I'd like to take this opportunity to share a message with you about the gospel of Jesus Christ." The guy was baptized two weeks later. When I was done reading the story in the manual he leaned over and said, "that guy is a Patriarch now in São Paulo." Pretty crazy, huh? He's been a missionary for a very, very long time, and has had a lot of success.
The other day we ran into this guy who seemed to know the missionaries, so we asked if we could go to his house. Turns out his whole family, minus him, was baptized in the church but now are inactive. They go to some evangelical church now. We asked his wife (who is a member of the church. Or was.) if she could pray and she was like "sure, but I'm going to do it my way" and then she started praying really loudly and saying a lot of hallelujah's and Praise Jesus's and up until then I was thinking "this is the most horrible irreverant thing I've ever heard."
But she quickly outdid herself and started speaking with her "Gift of Tongues."
It went something like this: "chamalamahamawama oohwee oh chamahamahama (about a minute of this, coupled with a lot of rolling of the tongue. we had trouble controlling ourselves). Amen."
I was unable to identify the language.
That night, we took a bus to the chapel where we had a baptism. Debora, Bahia's daughter, was baptized by the Bishop. It was an awesome meeting. Also, I sat next to our new Ward Mission Leader who is 80 years old. He was baptized 36 years ago, when the church was just getting it's roots down here in Brazil, and he was confirmed a new member by Elder Howard W. Hunter of the quorum of the twelve at the time. Sweet, huh? He showed me an old Aaronic Priesthood manual that has a story about him in it. Y'know how whenever they read those example stories with morals in them you always wonder if they're actually true? Well this one used his name and everything.
It talked about one time while he was a taxi driver in São Paulo and he rear-ended someone and he got out of the taxi and was like, "I'm sorry, this is completely my fault, I'll take care of everything. Now, I know that everything happens for a reason, so I'd like to take this opportunity to share a message with you about the gospel of Jesus Christ." The guy was baptized two weeks later. When I was done reading the story in the manual he leaned over and said, "that guy is a Patriarch now in São Paulo." Pretty crazy, huh? He's been a missionary for a very, very long time, and has had a lot of success.
The other day we ran into this guy who seemed to know the missionaries, so we asked if we could go to his house. Turns out his whole family, minus him, was baptized in the church but now are inactive. They go to some evangelical church now. We asked his wife (who is a member of the church. Or was.) if she could pray and she was like "sure, but I'm going to do it my way" and then she started praying really loudly and saying a lot of hallelujah's and Praise Jesus's and up until then I was thinking "this is the most horrible irreverant thing I've ever heard."
But she quickly outdid herself and started speaking with her "Gift of Tongues."
It went something like this: "chamalamahamawama oohwee oh chamahamahama (about a minute of this, coupled with a lot of rolling of the tongue. we had trouble controlling ourselves). Amen."
I was unable to identify the language.
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