Thank you so much for sending the shoes. I hope they get here.
I am sorry but I don~t really understand the two box shoe logic. Wouldn~t it be better to get 0 shoes than 1 shoe...but the Lord works in misterious ways so I will be praying that they get here. Oh to ease your mind your second package got here. I loved the valentines. Mckaye is so funny. Her hannah comics make me laugh everytime. haha
So this week we had a huge miracle here.
Here in Brazil they have a huge problem with unkown people. With the address system and the records system there are a lot of things that get dropped through holes.
So as missionaries we are working with the lists of members to find people and update addresses and things. It is a great way to find people because it shows a more professional side of our work rather than just knocking doors.
Because of this we were trying to find a woman named Mariana. We went to her house but she had moved. So we went to the new address not really knowing where she was but having a rough explanation in a foreign language. Naturally we felt comfortable enough to go looking for her. So we found the street and started walking down it knocking on doors every 100 yards and asking for Mariana. Eventually we found her. She was a little cold but she accepted a visit from us on a different day. She told us that her Dad lived 2 houses down and was also a member. (His name was not on the list) we visited him and walked into his front room (which was layed out like a church....) he told us that he was baptized 30 years ago in another city and moved her 25 years ago. At that time there was not church here and he didn~t have the money to ride the bus to Joinville so he stopped. He went to other churches but was discouraged by embezelment and lack of doctrine. He was frequenting the 4-square church and was having meetings in his house but eventually stopped. His wife told us firmly that they had decided not to go to church anymore just stay home and read the bible and pray. They had been disgusted by religion in general. That was about 2 months before we showed up.
We, being led completely by the spirit found his home. We set up an appointment with him the next tuesday. That tuesday we gave the first lesson. Thinking that it would remind them why THIS church is different. Oh my goodness. The spirit was so strong. It was so easy to talk and the thought pattern just flowed. I usually don~t talk a lot about the priesthood and more about the Gosple of Jesus Christ but this time I felt like we should talk about the priesthood. (We had planned a different focus but it was strange because I completely forgot what it was during the lesson. Like I could n~t remember where the scriptures were and Elder Welling had the same feelings so we just didn~t teach that part) After we finished and invited them back to church the mom started crying and told us how she remembered the blessings here husband used to give her children with the priesthood. It was without doubt the most powerful moment on my mission.
That night during planning Elder Welling and I just sat and talked about it. We just started crying because it was something that we never thought we would have. In the MTC you have all these stories and ideas and philosophies about how the mission is and you arrive in the field to find out that it is way different and that you lose some of that faith that those experiences happen. But we had one. And it wasn~t from us. It was just because the spirit was with us and he told us what to say. It was an experience unforgetable.
He is a melquezedque (sp) holder and has 5 kids that live in the city and are married. Another with 15 years that lives with them. They got to other churches but they have positive contact with the church already. He has 17 grandchildren. He is a response to our prayers. They were never sealed so we are working with them to get to the temple.
Heavenly Father loves us. And he is responding to our prayers. There are alot of people praying in the branch for this and we are working hard for it. He loves us.
Love you lots,
