March 25, 2009

Thanks to all who sent letters I got a number of them this past zone conference and have enjoyed reading them all, and then some again..

Do you crazy cats get the Liahona there in the states? or is it just here in Brazil (even in English its called the Liahona here... just wondering) it’s interesting, the articles I’ve seen lately in the church magazines have had a lot to do with member missionary work... speaking of which, there are some really great members here in the ward, last night after passing by Jamile's place (more on her family coming up) I received the impression that we should stop by this sister's house and ask if she could pass by Jamile's place and just see how they were doing during the week, make friends with her mom etc. and boom, "yeah I’ll do it" I can pass by tal sister’s place to find out where she lives, and yeah, I’ll pass by there.... amazing, if we had more help like that in the ward, all of Conquista would be baptized and firm at that. Jamile's family (minus one brother and her dad) went to church this past Sunday, it was kind of funny as we passed by, everyone was ready there with the desire to go, minus her little 9 year old brother Felipe, who wanted to fly his kite (An avid past time of many kids here) who ended up heading to church crying along the way, but as you might imagine, he came home excited as ever about church, and he will probably be baptized here this weekend or the next with his other sister Jirlane. Though as of yet Jirlane hasn’t completed the Book of Mormon reading, she isn’t such a big fan of the whole reading end of things. I love heading there to teach them, though their street has a bit of opposition, and it seems that her family has a long history of Catholics with the mentality of born Catholic, die Catholic, and the only baptism I need is that of when I was a baby. I hope that she (or in reality, all of them) will do their part, "experimenting upon the word" and pray to ask God if it’s true, the only one who can and will manifest the truth of all things unto them, if they but give place for the word, even with only the desire to believe, and ask God in faith (meaning that they will act in accordance with the feelings they received), they will come to know the truth. For if they ask their pastor, he will give his opinion that his church is the one they should stick with, if they ask us, we'll say ours is that which they should join, but if they ask God, which church will He tell them they should join? His? or some other. I know that this is the Church Of Jesus Christ in our days, that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, that he saw God the Father and His son Jesus Christ, and that they restored the fullness of the gospel through him, with the power and authority to perform the ordinances necessary for our salvation.

Jacob