QUE SORTE!! (What Luck!!!)

Well another week in Itu went by well. We started working in a completely different part of our area and we've seen some great progress already. 

Such thing as luck?

One of the families that we started teaching this week is a single mom with three kids. They understood very well and want to come to church. When we went to our second appointment that week they weren't home and we went on to another house. As we were in another appointment the young man's phone rang and it was her. She had called him because she heard we were teaching him as well and asked him to tell us she'd be home later and that we should still go over. In that visit she accepted a baptismal date and we had a really good lesson with her. It was cool to see how the Lord prepared everything just right so that we could still teach them even though we'd missed thrm earlier in the day.

Lucky again

So we had lunch this week at a neighborhood a little ways out of the city so the member was going to pick us up to bring us there. He ended up taking for ever and a half and a 10 minute wait turned into a half hour then an hour and then nearly two hours waiting for him. We got a call while we were there from an investigator that we'd lost contact with for two weeks because she travelled to see her mom who is sick. A few minutes after we talked to her she got off the bus right at the stop where we were waiting and we were able to converse with her better and hear how she was and invite her back to church and everything. It was really cool. 

One of my growing experiences this week was when I started to apply something that I read in the Message from the First Presidency about Preparing for our prayers. Elder Eyering talked about how we should ponder what questions we want to ask, what we're thankful for and who we want to include in our prayers as we go to pray and that we should have something with us to write down the inspiration that comes. I've seen a huge difference in my prayers as I've started using this approach, check out his message:

https://www.lds.org/liahona/2014/10/the-prayer-of-faith?lang=eng

Well, I don't believe in luck, God is always preparing the details of our lives to work out the way it needs to be. 

Have a great week everyone!

Elder DP

Water Shortage

Well as always, a week in the service of the Lord is a week well spent. A companionship of Elders in our Zone had to move in with us for a few days because of the lack of water which was pretty fun. We had three Americans and one Brazilian in the same house which was fun because it's the first time in my mission that I've lived with four in one house. 

More funny excuses

So as some may have heard there is a major shortage of water in certain parts of São Paulo. There is one neighborhood in our city that we are working in that has nearly no water and the people have to buy water just to drink. We went to that neighborhood and knocked a door where we could see the empty bathroom from where we were standing with the shower turned off and the little kid still wasn't creative enough to come up with anything better than "She can't come right now, she's taking a shower." 

The Work

So we went to a new part of town this week to try working there and we have had a ton of success there so far. It is a fairly humble part of town and so the people are very receptive. We got a referral from one lady who said to visit her neighbor who is going through a rough time. We went there and she was very receptive. The second visit was Sunday afternoon and she expressed how the prayer we had done with her had made a great difference and she felt we were truly sent by God and believed she would be able to stop smoking so that she could be baptized. It was sure gratifying to hear that.

Miracle Family

There was a mom and daughter that just showed up at church on their own last week and Bishop came and let us know they had come. Come to find out the mom's sisters are members of the Church and they had had a strong desire to come to church for nearly a year but they only just now got around to doing so and came not only to church but to another activity that there had this week. The daughter loves to read and not only read the chapter we marked for her but when we invited her to start from the beginning of the Book of Mormon she showed us all that she had marked because she already had started!

Well unfortunately we had many more people that promissed to come to church Sunday than that actually came but we had the privelage several times this week of having people thank us for our visits because they had felt a different peace since we had started visiting them. It sure is a pleasure to be on the Lord's errand.

Have a good week,

Elder DP

Campinas Temple

Elder DP & Berrios at the Campinas Temple

Well with Elder Berrios there is never a dull moment. It's been really funny because as we talk it is funny to see how we're both very alike and complete opposites at the same time. He was born in Honduras but is from New York City. He speaks spanish, french, italian, English and now portuguese fluently because his grandma is italian, his other grandparents spanish and he was raised for a while in a french speaking carribean country. Everyone thinks he's brazilian because his accent is so good and because he looks brazilian. It's been fun though, we get along well.

Funny excuses of the week

- trying to get a reference we asked a guy if there were any big families in his street that we could try to visit. He responded, "There's a ton of big families in this street go ahead and try to find one." When we asked him to indicate which houses had big families he responded "Nobody in this street has many kids, only like one or two."

- We knocked a door and two kids came out. - "Hey can we talk to your mom?" - "No, she's not home" - "Do you know when she'll get back?" - They simultaniously responded, one saying "She just left the house" And the other "she still hasn't gotten home from work."

Conference

So last week for General Conference I had a cool experience that was continued this week. As Conference started I wrote down three questions that I had that I wanted answered. Having to do with how I could help more people become truly converted, how I could help the members with missionary work and how I could personally be a better leader as I help other missionaries. As we went through conference I felt inspired with certain things that speakers said and also with thoughts that came to mind as my mind wandered. The cool thing was that this week I went back with colored scripture markers to mark the answers that I had found as I took notes, each color according to the questions I had asked. As I went through it was amazing to see how much I had learned and see how the Lord had truly answered my question through conference. 

As usual I'm exhausted but I love doing missionary work. It takes so much out of me emotionally, spiritually and physically but as far as I can see it's worth every ounce.

Here's a picture of Me and Elder Berrios in front of the Campinas Temple.

Until next week,

Elder DP

WE GOT TO GO TO THE TEMPLE TODAY!!! WOOHOOO!!!

So this week marked one year since the last time I got to go to the temple and I was really missing it. Then last week in the middle of the week we found out that today was going to be P-Day and we would use it to go to the TEMPLE!!! Which was AMAZING but it means that I have about 30 seconds to write this email.

There was also a leadership counsel with president and other leaders in the mission that was really cool to participate in. I attached the picture that we took there. 

So we're starting a new study of the Book of Mormon this week as a mission to lead up to conference so that we can gain a greater appreciation of Christ and his sacrifice for us. I attached it and challenge anyone that wants to to study with me as we go into Christmas.

Have a great week y'all,

Elder DP

Short video of Elder DP and his comp!

[We got a short video from a mother picking up her daughter from her mission in Sao Paulo.]

Transfers Yet Again!

Some day I'll have a companion in Brazil for more than one transfer but it looks like it's not this go around. It's kind of funny though because the transfer is going to be a trade. Elder Marciano is headed to take the place of Elder Berrios and Berrios is coming to ITU tomorrow to be my companion. It was a great transfer with Elder Marciano, always good to have a companion that's also a good friend.

Conferência Multi-Zona

OUR ZONE. The license plate reads "Desejo" which means "Desire" in English. Mission President's first license plate  home from the mission. His mother in law didn't like it,  she thought it was the name of his ex-girlfriend. President talked about how we will reap our rewards according to the desire of our hears. If we desire a united family we'll have it because if we have REAL desire we'll change our behaviors to do what we need to. If we Desire to teach lots of people we will because we will do what's necessary.

We went to Sorocaba for a multi-zone conference this week. One of the cool things that we've talked about lately is consacration, giving up every bit of disobedience, laziness, fear or distraction and going to work. One of the best parts of the conference was a quote that said, "If you want to baptize a few people, talk to a few people. If you want to baptize a lot of people, talk to a bunch of people. If you want to baptize everyone possible, talk to every person you possibly can." One of the hardest things as a missionary is giving up fear but when we can see every one in the street as our brother or sister, there is no fear that can keep us from declaring the gospel to them. 

Spreading the word of God is so worth every ounce of energy. We're excited here for General Conference. This time around our president is letting us watch priesthood session which he wasn't going to let us watch before. 

Have a great week everybody!
Elder DP

"Work, work, work. There is no satisfactory substitute!"

What a week!! One of the things I've learned in my mission is that as we work, lots of times the fruits of our labors don't come directly from the actions we do but from the blessings that the Lord starts to trust us with.

Finding, Finding, Finding

This week we were blessed to find a ton of new investigators. We've been taking advantage of every chance we get. One man we found when we were running to get to the bus stop to make it to an appointment in another part of our area and we saw two guys walking down the street trying to carry two sofas with one on top of the other and basically putting on a hard-core balancing act. We ran up to them and asked to help and got their address. When we passed by another day the man talked about how he knew that God sent us to help him with his life and he even came to church on Sunday and was talking about how he wanted our help to prepare to be baptized. 

There was another man that we met when we were trying to contact a reference that someone gave us and they described where the person lived but didn't know the number, just that it was close to a certain bar. After the drunks there didn't help at all we finally asked someone else for some instructions and he chased everyone down in the street for us to find where this person was and after we found the person we went to his house. He told us that that morning he was thinking about how badly he needed to find a church and moments before we passed by he got up and went into the street just because he suddenly had the urge to go outside. I don't believe in coincedence.

Sacrifice

So our mission president has been talking a lot lately about consagrating our lives and the pattern of sacrifice in the old testament. The first sacrifice was for sin, the next was the burnt and then the peace sacrifice. He talks a lot about how the burnt is when we give up ALL that we have to the Lord without holding back anything, truly consagrating our lives. I studied a little more about this sacrifice this week and found that they did this sacrifice twice daily, one in the morning and one at night, because the need to surrender our will to God is CONSTANT. What a great thing to remember as we pray daily to start and end our days.

Have a great week everybody!

Tchau!

Elder DP