Quase Natal!!!

Well, I started writing this email in Portuguese and then I had to go back and delete it because I realized y'all weren't going to understand to well.

Well as always it was a good week to be in the service of the Lord. I spent a lot of time out of my area on exchanges with some Elders in our Zone as well as going to a conference in another city. It was good though, we had some great experiences there.

I think the sweetest visit this week was when we went to visit a member's referral. The member had brought his friend to church this last week and his friend really enjoyed it. We met him Sunday and marked to visit him during the week. We had some complications that afternoon and didn't know which bus to catch to make it to his house and we got lucky and found the right bus to not have to walk and show up super late. When we got there he was already at the end of his street waiting for us. He walked us to his humble home where he had set up two chairs for us to teach him and his daughter. During the lesson he talked about how badly he wanted to change his life and how he recently was able to get rid of some strong addictions very quickly and is feeling a huge change in his life. After talking about the Gospel we marked his and his daughter's baptismal dates. It was cool because when his daughter accepted the date she got super excited and ran out to tell her friends, "I'm gunna get baptized!!" It was a really special experience to see someone who had truly humbled himself and desired to be baptized (D&C 20:37)

We had another fun week bringing everybody to church. We went with a member to go pick up a family and on the way we called to confirm and they said they would come. When we got there and they didn't answer we were not only baffled but also a bit frustrated. Then we called them and found out that they had caught a ride with another investigator that was going to church. Fortunately we were able to give their places to a few other investigators that were going to catch the bus to go to church and we gave them our seats so thei could go catch the meetings and we walked back to the church so that we could invite a few more people to come to church with us. It was a great time. 

Have a great week!
Elder DP

PS one photo is me and my companion suited up to chase down investigators to go to church and the other is a friend of ours at a local Acaí place called O Bocão.