We´ve been teaching this young man named Paulo for a week or so, and he was our only investigator to go to church on Sunday. We´re pretty excited for him. He´s so ready for the peace that the gospel can bring. He´s progressing so well. It´s all pretty exciting. We´ve been noticing a lot this week that we don´t have a ton of people to teach, but the people we do have are super solid. We´ve been working really hard to improve our teaching skills and teach more according to the needs of the investigators and more with the spirit. It's been amazing to see the difference. We have all these special people to teach and as we teach with the spirit and allow him to guide the lesson it becomes a spiritual experience for everyone. Funny how it takes me half of my mission to figure out how to apply better the things I learned in the MTC.
And in other news, I made a pie the other week. It was an apple pie and it was positively delicious. I found a recipe and decided to make it. It's funny to see how I'm becoming so domestic. Some days I make dinner for us and I've made bread. It's fun. I've become very good at making rice too. Here it´s hard to see a meal pass without eating rice, I´m practically a professional. I´m still waiting to learn how to make beans though. We always have rice and beans with everything, but I haven´t figured out how to do the beans yet. But I will. I´m determined to learn how to cook all of this brazilian food, so I can make it for myself at home.
Well, this week was pretty normal. The time is just passing super fast. Sunday Sister Farias and I came down with a bug and were stuck inside all day. There´s nothing more frustrating than having a million things to do, people to visit, and your body telling you to go back to bed. But by the next day we were all better, back to work. But it was funny, the mission doctor called us to see how we were doing, and it was a pretty normal conversation. Only that he´s American so he spoke in english with me and I found it super hard to respond. I was understanding everything, no problems, but to answer his questions everything came out wrong. It was like caveman speech. I haven´t had any real problems writing emails in english or writing in english in my journal, so I´m not sure why speaking was such a struggle. It makes me a little worried to see where my english is in 7 months when I come home. But I´m sure it´ll all work out.
Anyway, the work just continues to move forward. Like I said last week, we have such special people we´re teaching. We´re trying so hard to have one more baptism together, but the transfer is passing quickly and it looks like no one will be ready in time. But we just have to remember that everything´s in the Lord´s timing. If we push too much for our own timetable we´ll just mess everything up. We have to just Trust that everything will work out in it´s own time. It´s hard to be patient at times, but it´s worth it. Vale a pena :)
So this week we had a miracle. For serious, up to this point in my mission it´s my most special experience. So the other week I mentioned Paulo who we´ve been working with. Our lessons with him have been almost sacred the spirit is so strong, mostly because his desire to learn and to change is so sincere. So this past week or so I´ve been praying a lot to see Paulo´s baptism. I think I´ll be leaving Novo Hamburgo this next transfer in the beginning of November, so I´d been praying to see his baptism. Sister Farias and I had already been talking about Nov 5th as a possibility for his baptism, the last Saturday of the transfer. Anyway, so we met with him on Saturday and the lesson went super well. We saw again just how much he´s changing and felt again like he´s ready to be baptized. So I invited him again to be baptized and he shied away. He doesn´t feel ready. But I talked with him about making a goal, setting a date to work towards, but nothing solidified.And as much as we wanted to see him baptized Nov 5th we felt impressed to let it be. He´s ready, but we let it be. I didn´t want to push for something just because I wanted it. I wanted to see his baptism, but we felt like it just wasn´t the Lord´s timing.
Then on Sunday we were all sitting in church in Sacrament meeting and during someone´s talk about the blessings of the temple in relation to our family, Paulo got up quickly and left the room. A few minutes later, he called us into the hallway to talk. And through his tears, he asked us when could he be baptized. Sis. Farias and I looked at each other and she said November 5th and he accepted. I asked what happened, what had changed, and from what I understood through the tears was that he wants to bring his family to the church, he wants his family united in the gospel. So we all cried together for a few minutes and then returned to the meeting where I paid almost no attention to what was said I was in such a shock. The spirit had taught Paulo and gave him a sense of urgency that Sister Farias and I couldn´t.
But my God is a God of miracles. I can´t express how much this gift that he´s giving me to see Paulo´s baptism means to me. But he only gave it, after I gave up my will for his. Heavenly Father loves me, He loves Sister Farias, but most of all he loves Paulo. I´m so excited for him. There isn´t anything more beautiful than seeing someone repent and change. Than seeing the Atonement literally working in someone´s life.
That´s what it means to be a missionary, to be an instrument in the Lord´s hands. But really all we do is live worthy of the spirit, bring it with us to the lessons, and listen to the person we´re teaching. Listen to what they have to say and then the spirit gives us the words we need and then more importantly, he teaches the investigator. The spirit is the real teacher in a good lesson. And it´s when as a teacher we learn to hand off the lesson to him, that things actually happen. That the students actually feel that desire, that need to change and apply the things learned.
Anyway, I love the gospel, I love being a missionary.
com muito amor e carinho,
Sister Hughes
