The Lord is in Command

May 4, 2015

This week was another great one, it passed by soooo fast, I cannot believe it! OK, so There's a part in Preach My Gospel in that talks about how to find new investigators and there's a section that in entitled, "Talk to Everyone!" Pres. M has really been stressing thes the last couple of conferencias and our Zone too lately. So Sister R. and I have really been putting it into practice this week, and it has been soo cool! Our leaders were asking everyone to keep track of the numbers of contacts made per day, one day we talked to 70 people! I was remembering how at the beginning of my mission that this was one of the hardest, if not the hardest thing for me, talking to strangers on the road, the onibus, the store-everywhere! But now, it's just like second nature! I have such a testimony of Ether 12:27, Only the Savior Jesus Christ can turn our weakest points into our strongest-it's incredicle what He does with us when we let Him mold us, even a little bit:)

The other day for almoço, we had "breakfast for lunch!" But it was really legit! This familiy lived in the U.S for a quite a while and they speak English really, really well. She made pancakes and bacon and eggs and maple syrup and orange juice, and I didn't realize how much I missed eating brekfast like that! It was pretty fun:) Remember our little family?? Yes, Mom, they have made a lot of progress haha:) Vitoria was getting so excited about everything and asked us last Sunday after church " how does this whole baptism thing work?" We felt to invite her to be baptized and she accepted jumping for joy:) This week helping her prepare and seeing her excitment and that of her parents has been such a blessing! One day when we visited them Macian ( the mom) had bought Vitoria a brand new dress for the bapstims and church, it was so beautiful! I will try to send pics of all of this:) On Friday morning apparently she woke up talking in her sleep asking her mom when they were going to leave to go to the church haha:) We took the President of the Primary to visit the family with us on Saturday and it was great:) We gave Vitoria a bunch of invites and she remembered every single member that she had already and wanted to invited all of them so we visited some members with her delivering invites, so was sooo excited and it was so beautiful to see! During all of these the parents are learning to pray, reading the book of Mormon togethere and asking us when we can visit the Temple together and how they can do FHE. .. . Yay! Please keep praying for this family, we love them so, so much!

Friday was another feriado (holiday) O Dia do trabalhador, so NO ONE was working, and everyone was in their houses with their famillies so Pres. M told everyone to leave at 8:00am. . . woo, that day was quite a doozy! No one worked except us who worked more than normal  haha :) We met some interesting folks, for example, there was this old man who told us he didn't want anything to do with crentes (or super religious people) or people talking about Jesus and then just sat in the doorway and stuck he feet out so we could only see his feet. .. hahah antoher older lady told us she was busy watching her soap opera when we knocked, when we asked if we could just enter for a few minutes to say a prayer for her she kind of thought for a mintue and then said, " no I don't think so, I have to watch my soap opera." And then just walked away, so that was classic haha. Another lady who is the mom of a less-active that we taught asked why I talked so funny and they asked sister R., "You left everything in Rio do Janeiro to come here and walk around with her??" Hahah. Yup.

Yesterday was Vitoria's baptism!! Everyone that she invited was there including 2 families that aren't members that want to learn more! What a little missionary! We didn't even mean to but we both did french braids in our hair yesterday and everyone kept saying that we looked like sisters! I'll send pics, my little Brasilian sister:) Boo-bear, I thought that it was cool that her baptism was yesterdy on your birthday because she reminds me a lot of you:) A little smarty pants, super excited about all of the details and wanting everyting and everyone to go just right, and it did, sounds like your birthday was the same! When Vitoria entered the water I was there watching and felt so darn happy that I thought that I was going to burst! I had a strong impression that there were many people on the other side rejoicing with us, Vitoria's ancestors and future family-I know they they were just happy as can be too:) 

Yesterday in Fast and Testimony meeting someone quoted the general authority that was here last week for Stake Conference and he said, The Lord is in command, He just expects us to do our small part and He does all of the rest." I really loved that and am so grateful to have a captain that is so perfect and patient and wise.

I love this Gospel and am so grateful for the opportunity that I have to share it with people every single day:)

I love you people! Talk to you soon!

Loooove,

Sister Ventura :)