One Week Left

Boa tarde !!!! :)

One week left at this point in the empty sea (Elizabeth calls the MTC this as a joke) and just recently President Silvia sent us a letter of soon to be welcomed and a good list of well, all the scriptures in the PMG (Preach My Gospel) lessons to memorize, kinda nuts, but I look forward to it. I think I'll get the references down first, then memorize them after. So far I´ve collected the following about Salvador, looks like they have lots of spicy food, large parties every month, (about as close as I can get to a direct quote "carnival all year round") plenty of black magic/voodoo, open/humble people, and apparently Salvador South is the 4th highest baptizing mission in Brazil. I wonder about the retention rate though, guess we'll just have to wait and see, also heard from one of the instructors who servd there we invite them to be baptized on the street contact, bold but not overbearing eh? can't wait to get out there. Had my first taste of teaching last Friday. We were out tracting, and while talking to a man who at this point was saying many things I didnt quite understand, a 19 or twenty year old guy came up to Elder H and I and said he respected our church and would like to ask us a question; he then pointed across the street and headed over there. After tying things up with the older man, we headed over there and for about thirty minutes talked to two, the previously mentioned guy and another of his coworkers, both of whom had read at least some portion of the Book of Mormon, and were interested in finding out more. A. (the one who first talked to us) was really quite interested and wanted to learn more so we gave him the Christ dvd card and another Book of Mormon card, (they had one BOM tween the two of them) and L. (his co worker) had some questions about the Book of Mormon that I feel we answered with the help of the spirit, which was undoubtedly there. We shared with them about Christ´s ministery, and how he established His Church, giving the apostles the authority to act and work miracles in his name. Then how that power was lost, taken by God from the earth as the people Crucified our Saviour and killed the apostles. How the earth went for a time without this power or the fulness of the gospel on the Earth, but that in 1823, Joseph Smith, a young boy desiring to know the truth, was reading in the bible, in James 1:5 "If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upraideth not, and it shall be given him." After which he went and knelt in a clearing in the woods near his home, and asked God, the Eternal Father, which church he should join. After which, God the Father and Jesus Christ his Beloved Son appeared to him, and revealed that the truth was not yet in its fulness upon the earth, but that they would restore it through him. That the Book of Mormon another testament of Jesus Christ, a record comparable to the Bible, containing words of ancient prophets here on the American Continent prophesying of, and bearing record of His Ministry was brought forth as a voice speaking as from the dust, translated by and through the power of God, to restore that which was lost, and to be convincing evidence that one could hold, touch and read, as to the truthfulness of this restoration of the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I know this is God´s church on the earth today, I know Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Reedemer, I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that we have a prophet on the earth today, In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Jacob