So L got baptized yesterday! It was awesome! Unfortunately, the only person that was able to come to support him was his younger brother, W. He said that he might be interested in being baptized also! So we're going to work with him on that starting today. Man, it would be soooo nice to have the whole day off for P-day instead of a few hours! But whatever, the schedule was inspired by God and everything.
I was thinking about as a missionary we have the opportunity to see the power of God manifest through our authority - God likes to keep us humble and faithful, so unfortunately we aren't able to see this power 24/7, but still sometimes we have cool experiences to see Him work through us. Like one time this past week, we were teaching this one family - husband, wife and one of their daughters that was 14 or so anos [years old]. We were doing the 1st lesson (the Restoration) and everything was going pretty smoothly. It was my turn and I explained about José Smith and his predicament, when I began to introduce the First Vision I could immediately feel a warmth envelope me and the Spirit continued super strong all the way through when I was reciting the First Vision. It was so strong I almost messed up the words of the Vision. When I finished, I asked something that I usually hesitate to ask, but I said "Esses sentimentos que todo mundo está sentindo agora, eles vêm de quem?" [These feelings that everyone is feeling right now, they come from whom?] I could see even the dad, who seemed the least spiritually in-tune, nod his head in agreement that he had felt something. The mom without hesitation replied "Jesus". Unfortunately, even after feeling something they didn't completely accept our message, but it was still cool to see that God helped me out there. I have a testimony that the Spirit testifies of truth.
I've heard a little about the hurricane disaster lá nos Estados Unidos [there in the United States]. Sometimes we meet random people and upon finding out that we're Americans they ask us about it. I didn't know it was up in the North East! Sign of the times, isn't it?
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| Typical Brazilian churrasco: flank steak, top sirloin, chicken heart, sausages, bread with garlic sauce, sliced top sirloin with garlic, and chicken legs |
Speaking of the churrasco, so what we did to make a barbecue was get this metal barrel, fill it part way with coals and put a sort of iron grate on top - classic churrasco Brasileiro.
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| Here's me cutting up some meat on the churrasco |
Even though I was the closest one to the explosion I wasn't hurt a bit - all the Elders were like "are you OK?" - it must have looked pretty bad for me but really not much happened. So thank you for your prayers and everything...you've saved me from an exploding barbecue :-)
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| You can see to the left that the explosion actually broke up the concrete under the churrasco |
Elder Bradford
