Week 69: A giant accomplishment, or 3 more giant accomplishments to add to the 2 giant accomplishments from last week. Oh, and one other accomplishment too!

Hey guys!

Soo...as you could perhaps tell by the rather lengthy subject...We baptized 3 people this week!! Its been a crazy week, and somehow in the end, everything worked out as we wanted it to work out! We have seen SO MANY blessings this week, that Im honestly a bit overwhelmed by how many things went right. AND, to add to it, we also successfully reactivated a person this week. Here are the details!!

Lilian, Ryan- My goodness, this family was elect. We taught them the commandments this week, and they accepted very easily all of the commandments. To our surprise, Lilian has already started going deeper into gospel knowledge. Lilian has started listening to every single conference talk, ever since the church was organized almost 200 years ago. She downloads a few talks, and listens to them while shes working. They were interviewed on Friday, passed, and on Saturday, they were baptized. Elder Marciano baptized Lilian, and I baptized Ryan (who always jokes that my accent makes me sound like Im from Portugal, which is as far from the truth as can be, but its cool, we're friends.) 2 baptisms!!

Daniela- FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY, FINALLY!!! WE FINALLY BAPTIZED DANIELA!! Daniela was avoiding us a bit at the beginning of the week, but we went to visit her on Thursday, and we firmly stated that her baptism would be on Saturday, and that João Vitor wouldnt be able to baptize, since he wasnt ordained. We explained that the ordinance of baptism is much more important than who baptizes (as long as the person has Priesthood authority to do so), and that the only thing that a lot of things will go wrong before the baptism, but that the only thing that will be perfect is her right after the baptism. And oh, how everything went wrong. She had to show up late, and the Bishop (her 2nd choice) couldnt baptise her because he couldnt make it later in the day. Her Mom showed up late, so we had to wait to do the service separate from the service we had for Lilian and Ryan (we wanted to baptize the 3 of them at the same time.) And all of the youth were getting rowdy, so it was hard to control. So, we convinced her to let Elder Marques baptize her (he also taught her a lot during divisions, so we were good with this). When her Mom came, the mom was complaining that she needed to leave quickly, so make the baptismal service as fast as possible. So, we tried. And it was going so, so slow, because of the length of the hymns, youth not being quiet, etc. But, everything changed when Elder Marques and Daniela entered in the water. Everybody got quiet, and it suddenly became an incredibly spiritual experience. The mom stopped talking about how she needed to leave. Afterwards, everything was great. The Young Womens president gave a touching welcome talk, and all of the youth, including Daniela, began to cry. It was, all in all, a very spiritual experience. And, in this process, we managed to finally get Daniela's brother, João Paulo, to come back to church. Ever since we had started to talk to Daniela, he had always avoided us. But, he also cried during the baptismal service. And that Sunday was fast and testimony meeting, and João Paulo gave his testimony, apologizing for having gone inactive, and stating that he really does know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ. What an experience this was.

(And, fun fact: During these crazy days of getting 3 people ready for baptism, I was sick! When I send the pics of the baptisms, you can see, especially in Daniela's baptismal pic, that I was super sick. I didnt throw up. I think it was a migraine? A super duper duper strong headache that made me feel weak and sick everywhere else. I dunno. Ive never had a migraine before. But, I survived.)

(Other fun fact: When these 3 and Lucas were confirmed on Sunday, we realized something legit. From the baptisms these past 2 weeks, Elder Marciano and I managed to baptize someone for every organization: Quorum, Relief Society, Young Women, Young Men, and Primary. So that was cool.)

Stephanie (new!)- Our baptism for this week, that fell from heaven. Shes a family member of the bishop, already has a testimony, and wants to be baptized. Its just a matter of getting her mom to give permission, and then baptizing her. Pray for Stephanie!!

Other notes:

I got two packages from my Mom, who loves me more than anybody else! Thank you, Mom!!

And, Christmas is coming!! During this time of the year, let us remember the true meaning of Christmas. Go tochristmas.mormon.org and watch a super cool 3 minute video about Christmas. Its for free! Watch it!!

Alright, well Im gonna go now! Ill send pics of the 5 baptisms from the past 2 weeks! Love you all!!

Elder Youd