minha história Missionária: March 31, 2014

What a great week this was! I started by learning a new word. This is a very important word that I would like all of my brothers to learn and use – Fera. It means BEAST. And surprisingly, it's used in the same way that we use it in English (as in, Cara- tu é fera! Dude, you're BEAST) Remember, that for good pronunciation, the "r" will use the sound of a "d."

Another cool thing that happened – I ran out of shampoo. Yeah, for the first time on the mission. And yes, I do use it every day. I don't know what sort of miracle was happening inside of my shampoo bottle, but it lasted the past 9 months here in Brazil. And I didn't even buy it new before leaving home, it was the same one that I used at home for several months. Anyway, I finally ran out. So I had to take a risk and find a new brand. And guess what, I found a bottle of shampoo that has the smell of Guaraná (a delicious fruit)! And of course that's the one I bought! I didn't even have to hesitate. So yeah in case you're wondering my hair smells like magic angel tears now.

So we started off the week with a FHE at Junior's house. He has 16 years and most of his family is a member of the church. He reminds me a lot of my brother Jason. Anyway, I told a bunch of jokes and then we did some fun games like writing in Chinese with a fork and a knife and "Tom tom tommy tom tom" (ask my dad about that one). It was crazy fun. Junior's problem is that he doesn't feel accepted at church because he's different than the other young men. We're hoping to be able to help him out.

But making the week better, we starting finding new families. This week we found 3 families that are open and basically perfect investigators. They have the same questions that Joseph Smith had – Which church is true? How can I know it? And other ones like that.

The first ones we found were Michel and Sueli. We helped them push their car up a hill (it was one of those cars that didn't make it up). Afterwards, we made contact and he told us that they are "looking to be converted to a religion." We taught them the first lesson and the accepted everything. They have two little kids, a boy that's 5, and a girl that's 3. They didn't go to church because they thought it was at 8:30 at night, not in the morning.

After them we found Simone and Michel. She used to be a member of a Pentecostal church. (One of those churches where they speak in tongues and yell and fall on the ground) She started to see that the "spirit" she felt there was actually just energy of the moment and not the spirit of god. So she left the church, feeling like she was cheated of two years. Teaching her the first lesson she asked "How will I ever be able to know which church is right?" She promised to read the whole Book of Mormon. It was funny because we usually tell people that we'll loan them the book to read a chapter. That way we always have at least one follow up visit to "pick up the book." Then, if they liked it, we give it to them as a present. So we told her we'd loan her the book and she got all worried, asking how much time she could keep it, because she wanted to read the whole book and not just one chapter. So we told her it was a present and she could read all she wanted. She's excited to be able to hear the prophet talk next week. Michel and Simone have one son that's 2.

Lastly, Sunday night, we found an entire family. They used to be Jehovah’s Witness but they decided that their church wasn't true because they thought the bible taught other things. Anyway, I knew they were Jehovah’s Witness even before we taught so I was worried we'd have a bible bash! I warned Elder Moreira not to open his bible for anything. But in the end it turned out that they really did want to learn! Maristela and Nelson have 4 children. Douglas is 16, Natasha is 14, Bruna is 9, and William is 1. They are really and truly thirsting for the true word of God like we learn in Amos 8:11.

There's a recent convert family here with a powerful story. They went to different churches and were going to separate because of the difference of religion. Then one day he walked in front of our chapel and felt like he should enter. As time went on he accepted the missionaries and their visits. His wife never sat to listen, but couldn't help but hear what they said as she worked in the kitchen. In the end, they were baptized. They gave us a reference of their friend Leandra. So João will baptize his friend on Saturday in between conference sessions (fingers crossed)

I don't have enough time to tell my last two stories, so here's headlines to explain them:

TWO MISSIONARIES TRAPPED IN A GARAGE WITHOUT LIGHT

WOMAN ASKS MISSIONARIES TO BLESS HER SON'S MOTORCYCLE.

If I remember, I'll tell those stories next week!

Elder Jasperson