19 Sep 2011 - Jardim América Area (Mom)

[Buttons (our new cat) is awesome.] Cats are no good. They just bite and attack you. You should have got a Scruffy 2.0. Cats will live for like 3 years and then keel over. How big is this cat going to get? In Idaho they had perfect cat breeding tactics. They are all cute and fluffy as kittens but they never make it past that because they die ;)

[Lauren was called as Relief Society instructor. She is nervous, but she will do fine.] That's good for Lauren. I hope I never get called as anything :) She can just read the book, that is what our teacher does here. All the girls will help her too. Imagine an Elders Quorum lesson in college....silence/slumber. [Besides how many teens/20's do you know that are excellent teachers at that age.] Ummmm I know one 21 year old excellent teacher...me!

I got to bless the sacrament yesterday at church. It was cool. It's been 3 years since the last time I did it. Well that's a lie, I did it once in the MTC. It was cool to do it in Portuguese. I didn't have a microphone so that was good, nobody could hear me mess up or anything. I was watching everybody though afterwards since the priests stay up there the whole time here. I like to watch people. I noticed some people were paying attention and others weren't. Someone said something interesting that their old mission president told them. During the sacrament they should think about Jesus and forget about the mission and the investigators for just a little bit and focus more on Jesus. I thought that was cool.

19 Sep 2011 - Jardim América Area (Dad)

[We finally broke the record for 100-degree days at 70.] Yes! Record! Good thing I was here during the record. Missed one more thing while one the mission ;) I'll tell my kids anyway.

 

This week was better. We were able to baptize the father of the family that we have been working with for 5 weeks. It was hard, probably the hardest week in his life. Satan threw everything he had this last week to try and destroy this man's life. The Lord won after all though. We talked to him, pleaded with him, fasted for him, prayed for him constantly. It was a good experience for me. It showed me the power of prayer and fasting and the power that the Holy Ghost has on people. It was probably one of the most spiritual baptisms that I have had so far. I'm glad he was able to overcome a mole hill to see the mountain of blessings that waited on the other side!

 

[We had the missionaries over for dinner and as part of their spiritual thought they asked what blessings we've seen due to having a missionary out. To an extent it is kind of hard to know because you don't know how life would be different without a missionary, but to me one of the blessings is simply receiving email from you each week and reading about your love for the people and your love of doing the Lord's work.] I'll tell you the blessings that you have been receiving while I'm gone: new car, mountain resorts, vacations out the whazoo. Just to name a few ;)