October 31, 2016 - Ribeirão das Neves

I see a Belo Horizonte.

Theme of the Week: Do all that you can and God will do the rest.

Well, this week was rather busy. To start off, Elder Matamala was transferred and Elder Marques came. Also, as part of my new calling I have to plan the District Meetings. My first one this week went rather well. But I have to stand in front of groups more than I am accustomed to do. 

We also held our second noite de integração this week and we ended up watching the Restoration film, eating popcorn and playing a little game. We had an investigator come to the activity and really liked it. The activity is open to everyone, but it is mostly the youth that come to the activity. We tend to work more with the youth as they are more open to share the gospel with their friends. I think this is one of the ways that we need to become as a child.

This week we were working with two people to be baptized, Luiz and Riquelmi. They are both ready to be baptized, but haven´t made the decision yet. We spent the week working with them and we even passed a time with them avoiding us. As an act of faith we filled up the baptismal font and went to visit them on Saturday. We told them that the font was full and waiting for them to be baptized and if they felt that they should be baptized that they could come at 5 o´clock. 

We were left sitting there at 5 o´clock and didn´t have a baptism. But, I had the impressing that we didn´t fill up the baptismal font for nothing. I had my doubts, but just decided to keep working. We went to their house Sunday morning and walked to church with them. I was just sitting at church wondering why we had filled up the font. They said that they hadn´t receive a response yet. 

During sacrament meeting the missionaries were sitting on the stand, as we were to participate in the Primary presentation, when Luiz called me down to talk with him. He said that he wanted to get baptized and now him and his brother and another one of his friends(Ricardo) are all preparing to be baptized this Saturday.

tema da semana: faz o possível, e entregue o resto na mão do senhor.( do what you can, and put the rest into the lord´s hand)

Elder Quain

October 24, 2016 - Ribeirão das Neves

I see a belo Horizonte

This week went rather well.

To start off we had a lesson with Douglas, Rodrigo and Márcia. They are a family that is super cool. They always read the Book of Mormon and have a bunch of questions. It's helpful that they are teachers and enjoy reading. While we were teaching the lesson it started to rain and we were pushing it really close on the time to get home. Luckily, we were offered a ride home which saved us from getting wet. When we arrived in the apartment the other elders looked at us in wonder and asked how we weren´t wet. Douglas, Rodrigo and Márcia also came to church this Sunday. Some of the youth came up and started talking to them. It turns out that they are their teachers! They seemed to enjoy it and confirmed our next visit.

This week we started up noite de integração again. This activity is always fun and is rather simple. It is an activity were the whole ward is invited and is a great opportunity for them to invite friends. The activity had a good attendance, at about 30 people. There were only two guys, but later on we noticed that they were playing soccer outside. Elder Sabino gave the message and I did the game with a snack of popcorn. Activities here don´t function unless you have a snack.

This was the week that my companion and I were able to bring the most people to church in this area out of the whole time I have been in this area. What we did differently is that we prayed individually for each investigator by name in every prayer. It really show that we need to ask the Lord for specific things and show him our desires.

Random:

* We got transfer calls last night and Elder Sabino & I  will be staying and I will now be the District Leader.

* Also this week Paulo, one of my investigators from Recanto da Serra, was baptized. Like with Màrcia, I would have liked to have been there, but knowing that I was able to help him is enough.​

Elder Quain

 After soccer on p-day

Me,Elder Matamala and Elder Sabino​

                me and Elder Erazo​

Paulo, one of my investigators from Recanto da Serra, was baptized

my work desk

Take-out hamburgers

October 17, 2016 - Ribeirão das Neves

I see a belo horizonte.

Well, first thing this week. Márcia got baptized! I got the notice from Elder Ribeiro and Gonçalves that this week she decided to take this step and be baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was a little bummed to not be able to be there, but it was great to know that I was able to help her in her search.

Also, There was an activity to raise money for the young women to go to camp and we were invited to do a presentation. It turned out rather well and we sang two songs. The first was a us singing 'I Can Be a Missionary Now', and the second was the Primary song"My Heavenly Father Loves Me," but sung to the melody of 'Clocks' by Coldplay. From what we heard the people enjoyed it and we don´t sing to bad. I´ll try to send a video if it downloads fast enough.

Other than that we went to a chocolate store where we found chocolate tabs of different intensities of cocoa. So, naturally I had to buy one of each and try them all. I´m not sure which one a liked best, so I might have to buy them all again..haha.

Elder Quain

 Acai       Cherry Coke

  Chocolates

Jorge, Marcia, Elder Goncalves, Elder Ribeiro

Elder Ribeiro, Marcia, Jorge, Elder Goncalves

October 10, 2016 - Ribeirão das Neves

I see a Belo Horizonte

This just seemed like a pretty plain week. We worked just like normal.

This week we had interviews with President Fernades, so we had to go to Belo Horizonte. It´s about one and a half hours away by bus and is the closest that I have been to serving in Belo Horizonte. While we were there we decided to look and see what they had in their larger supermarket and we found a can of Cherry Coke. I know that doesn´t seem like much to you, but I haven´t seen one in over a year now. They are doing a special limited edition to see if it sells. Well, they sold two to a happy American missionary. Now I just need to find root beer and ginger ale.

We are teaching quite a few people right now and the work is moving well. We even had a investigator give us dinner. It made me think of something that Elder Ribeiro always said," You can tell that someone likes you when they start giving you food." The phrase is pretty true. My companion and I, being polite missionaries offered to help. This ended with grape juice spilled on my shirt and the investigator telling my companion to stop washing dishes. People here don´t let you wash dishes a whole lot. We always offer anyways.

This week we started using a great message that we call Noah´s ark. Noah was a prophet and was commanded to call repentance to the people and warn them of a coming flood. He was really trying to save them and invited them to enter into the ark. If we were Noah, who would we invite into the ark? As members of the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints we are in the ark and we should invite all to know more about Jesus Christ and His restored gospel. As you do this you will see the blessing that will come and the people that will answer the call.

Elder Quain

October 3, 2016 - Ribeirão das Neves

I see a Belo Horizonte

Well, this week was pretty full. We had three days of conferences. If you thought two days wasn´t enough, think again. The conferences were great and I´ll give a little insight.

The first was Zone Conference with President Fernandes. He talked a lot about working with the members, but the part that stuck out the most for me was how we should teach. This was a good, better, best relation. He talked about the first lesson that we leave with our investigator where we introduce the ideas of living prophets, the Book of Mormon and baptism. He told us that this is what we need to teach so that people can know that the church is true. But, he invites us to teach along with this faith, repentance, and baptims.  The two paths will lead to baptism, but for different reasons. the first for the knowledge that the church is true and the second because of our love for Christ. When these two paths are brought together someone can truly be converted. The other part that stuck out to me was the pizza and açaí.

Second was the General Conference. It was a great opportunity to listen to a prophet, apostles and leaders in the church. I have really come to love conference and it passes very fast. Unfortunately, there are so many good things at once that many times I forget a lot of what was said. Because of this I find it very useful to study these messages individually afterwards. These are scripture for our days and we should treat them as such. One thought that I had that I will share comes from the priesthood session. The Prophet, Thomas S. Monson spoke for only about five minutes and spoke about the word of wisdom. Why with the short time and limited strength that he has would he choose to talk about a health code?

This week we had a really tough day, where we were not being able to teach anyone. At 8 o´clock at night we had ran out of plans and ideas, except for an investigator that we haven´t found at home the entire time I have been here. I was needing to teach and said a silent prayer that they would be at home and let us in. It was the first time that we found them at home and we were able to teach. It is great to know that Our Father in Heaven hears us, answers our prayers and imports with what is important to us.

Random:

*This week we decided to do something new... and we bought a giant tub a creme de açaí. I´m not sure if it was 10 liters or 10 kilos. But, we are getting close to the bottom already (with four elders).

*I arrived at general conference on Saturday and sat down to listen. In about a minute, I noticed that it was in English. One of the members came up to me and told me that the translation audio wasn´t working and asked me to translate. I did the best I could and luckily the translation started to work after doing this for only one speaker, but it was definitely a new experience.

Elder Quain