This week has been another great week here in Vila Medeiros! We have been working diligently, and we're starting to see the fruits of our labors!!
Firstly, most exciting news: I got my first baptism commitment! On Tuesday, we were about to go visit an investigator that's about to drop us because he doesn't want to commit to change, even though he told us that he received an answer about the Book of Mormon. On the way, we saw a woman sitting on the porch. We thought we'd try and talk to her. She told us, "Who are you representing? I've seen people that look like you and I've always been curious, but they've never talked to me before." So we talked to her for about an hour, and now Jessica is planning on getting baptized on October 19! We still have work to do with her (She smokes and might live with her boyfriend?) but she has great faith, and we are very very excited for her.
We technically had another baptismal date marked, but that's not gonna happen with Ramiro. Ramiro is Bolivian, and for some reason, Bolivians and Paraguayans here have to work a lot more for less pay. But, he also doesn't speak very good Portuguese, so we're trying to teach him in Spanish. Last week, he told us that he believed in our message, and committed to a date; however, we then started talking to him about commandments, and guess who isn't legally married? Him! And he said that it'd take him a year to get married through Bolivia, which brings up other questions. So we'll see what happens.
We also have about 3 or 4 other investigators that could commit to baptism this week. Firstly, Andre. This week, he and his mother Claudine accepted a second lesson, which is usually our maximum before they drop us. But, then we visited him on Friday. We weren't able to go in because they had a visitor sleeping in their living room, but Andre found the Restoration movie on Youtube, and is "muito curioso". His preacher said not to talk to us anymore, but he's too interested to stop. We also have Luciana, who works and learns from us at the Pizzeria (double win, because I can teach and eat amazing pizza), and Bruna, the 17 year old that has a ton of faith, and is the only one in her family that can read a lot. So this week, as said in conference, pray for Jessica, Ramiro, Andre, Claudine, Luciana, and Bruna!! They are our main focuses. I'd really appreciate it!
Also, last week I realized I didn't talk about my mission president. Pres Martins is super duper strict, but absolutely amazing. He was the first black missionary ever, and I'm guessing he'll be the first black apostle. His rules are hard (for example, we aren't allowed to do sports or cultural activities on P-Day, only prepping and writing), but he is a genius. A true genius.
I got to see most of conference, except priesthood session and the first hour of the first session (refer to my voice clip for thoughts on it.)
This is hard, hard work, and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't exhausted all the time from doing constant 16-hour days. But as of now, it's absolutely amazing, if nothing else, to see the successes of the 5 people after the failure of teaching the 95.
Alright, I'm gonna attach a voice clipping (which I'll do every week, so that you can all hear my lovely voice), and then respond to these individual emails! Thank you all so much for your support. You have no idea how much it means to me!! Tchau!
Much love,
Elder Youd
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