He desires to bless us, if we just have faith in Him

Feb 2, 2015

Hey, so this week was pretty good. Sounds like everything’s goin good in good ol PA. I can’t believe Dad finally got released. I think he´ll be stake young men’s president... but I don’t really know much about what’s going on in the stake so who knows. Sounds like the missionaries are eating well.... well kind of, haha. (We fed them oysters) I can’t believe dad bought 100 oysters. Sounds like he had a good birthday. Looking at the pictures from the snow storm makes me miss the cold. I remember everyone in PA always complains about the cold.... and everyone here always complains about the hot, haha. I guess it’s better to just be grateful for what you have. 

It’s kinda weird here in Brazil during the Super Bowl because most people here have never even watched football in their lives and definitely no one watches the Super Bowl.. at least not that I’ve heard of. I’m still waiting for the day that the Chargers manage to make it past the first round of the playoffs. 

So this week was pretty good. We had a lot happen. So the marriage ended up working out. Our Ward Mission Leader went with them to the building where you schedule marriages with the Relief Society President, and the marriage and baptism will be here in the church on March 6th.. so in about a month. So everyone’s pretty excited for them. They said if Elder Daniel is transferred they’re going to call the mission president to send him back so he can baptize them with me, haha. 

Also this week we baptized one of the cousins of a returned missionary that came back from the mission the day I got here in this ward. He’s been trying to encourage everyone in his family and extended family to get baptized, but for now it is just been his cousin.. or neice.

So this week we decided to try to seek more inspiration. We decided there has to be a better way to go about finding new investigators that are ready to hear and accept the gospel. So we decided to use that technique, that I think I wrote to you guys about once. It goes like this. We choose 1 or 2 hours (preferably at night when more people are home) to devote to finding investigators. Then we pray, asking for forgiveness of our weaknesses and telling God that we will look for new investigators during these 2 hours, and we tell Him who we want to find (an investigator that will be baptized this month, a family that will be baptized, etc.) and we ask Him for inspiration in finding them. So after the prayer, one companion continues praying (for the other companion, so he can receive needed revelation) while the other looks at the area map and chooses 10 roads under inspiration. Afterwards the missionaries offer a prayer of thanks and ask for more inspiration as they look at these 10 roads and individually choose 5. Remembering to always keep our goal in mind of who we want to find (a family, investigator that will accept baptism, etc...). After both the missionaries choose 5 roads, they compare them, and the roads that are the same are the roads that God revealed and are the roads where we need to go to find the family or investigator. Then we end with another prayer of thanks.

So this week we did this a couple of times and on Monday (2nd time we used this technique) we found a lady that seemed like a normal contact and we marked a visit in her house another day. So when we we able to teach her on Thursday, she accepted everything we said about baptism and the restored gospel, and when we returned the next day she had read the restoration pamphlet and and she said she would be at church on Sunday. So when we got to church on Sunday she was already there... actually she arrived before any of the members did (Mormon time exists in Brazil too. I think only the bishopric was there having their meeting) but she waited for people to get there.... so after we introduced her to the Relief Society President and she loved church. When we went back to her house Sunday afternoon, she said she had loved church, and she had decided that she wanted to be a member of the church and she’ll be baptized in a couple weeks. 

So if we found someone like this, I know it’s because God inspired us to go in that road where she would be. We passed 4 weeks not finding anyone that progressed and then we asked God, looking for inspiration and he led us to someone in just 2 days. He really hears our prayers and He desires to bless us if we just have faith in him. But we need to have faith to ask and act. Like it says in Ether 12:12 God can’t work miracles if we do not have faith, and faith includes asking and acting. 

So we hope that this next week will be even better, finding and inviting more people to learn about the restored gospel and to be baptized. I hope you guys have a good week.  Have a good week and enjoy the snow. Love you guys.  Seu Filho, 

Élder Udy