January 30, 2017 - Ribeirão das Neves

I see a Belo Horizonte

This week was rather busy. The highlight of the week was a baptism. Isabel was baptized this week. Here´s a little bit of her story.

I would call this baptism a miracle from start to finish. To start off Elder Andrade and I were just walking in the street when a lady stopped us and started asking about church and said that she wanted to follow Jesus Christ and do the right thing. We started teaching her and from the start she was super prepared. She is an ex-Gypsy and was worried that people wouldn´t accept her well because of this, but the ward just gave her a big hug and she was adopted quickly into the Relief Society. We did a Family home evening with the Bishops family and she progressed rapidly to baptism. She got baptized on the same day as a RS activity and had many people attending the baptism. We also got free cake. On Sunday she was confirmed as the newest member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in The Sevilha ward.

We had a transmission this week for all of the missionaries of the world which brought about some changes in our schedules, more freedom about when we do certain things and more focused goals. They taught about teaching the Gospel of Christ simple. Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring until the end. But they also told us to remember that all of this is centered in Christ.

This week we were also able to do a family home evening with the Felix family. They are really good and help the missionaries out a bunch.

Hope everyone has a great week
Elder Quain

After Isabel's baptismal interview

 Elder Andrade, Isabel, & Me - preparing for baptism

Everyone at the baptism - Relief Society Power!

 Family Home Evening with the Felix family

 Me & Elder Bishop with marshmallows :)

January 23, 2017 - Ribeirão das Neves

I see a belo horizonte.

Well this week went by rather fast. We walked a lot, but walking is good for your health.

So, we had transfers this past week and Elder Marques was transferred and the new elder in our house is Elder Bishop. We also have a new sister in our district. Fun fact, she is using crutches. Just a warning, don´t get sent to this district :).

Also I received a package and cards. Thank you Mom and Dad for the package and thank you to everyone that sent out cards. It's really fun to read about how everyone is doing and it's a little bit funny to see pictures and realize that people are growing up still. In the package that my parents sent there was a 2 pound bag of jelly bellies. We opened it up and in two days it was gone. I ate all of the sours, as they are my favorite, but the others really liked the Dr. Pepper and mint ice cream flavors.

Elder Quain

January 16, 2017 - Ribeirão das Neves

I see a Belo Horizonte.

Well another week came and went....it was a rather eventful week.

Well the funniest event is that Elder Andrade and I were walking to our next visit when we were stopped by a lady that told us she wanted to go to the Church of Christ. We talked with her rather excitedly and marked a visit. While talking with her we found out that she is a Gypsy. It's the first time that I have taught a Gypsy and it is a little different, but she is progressing really well and even came to church.

I did a split with Elder Marques. It went well and we were able to teach a few lessons, but the highlight of the day was eating açaí. I don´t know what I will do when I go home and can´t find any local açaí stand, haha

Right now we are teaching a group of young men that call us the Normans. Everybody calls us by the nickname of the church, but they still say it wrong. I think the worst was when we were called muggles. I have no idea how they came up with that name.

Elder Quain

January 9, 2017 - Ribeirão das Neves

I see a belo horizonte,

January 3rd, Tuesday: This week started off with weekly planning and doing visits with a member called Claudinei. We started doing missionary minute at the start of priesthood and we are able to mark a lot more visits with adults. Claudinie is the Elders quorum president and we visited some unknown addresses and a family where not everyone is a member with Claudinei. The best part is that we hardly had to walk that day as he gave us a ride in his car.

Wednesday: We had to wake up early to catch a bus and do a split with the Zone leaders. I was paired up with Elder Searle. He was in the MTC at the same time as me, but we were in different districts. It was nice to talk with him and see a different way to do the work. For lunch we went to a member's house. The member works making pizzas for parties. He made 6 pizzas for 4 elders. I was able to eat just a little bit more than one pizza. I was really full, but I decided that I could eat one more slice when he brought out the chocolate pizza.

Thursday:We got to wake up early again and catch another bus to get back to our area. When we were heading out to lunch we passed a man on the road that stopped us and wanted a Book of Mormon. He seemed a little strange, but we marked a visit with him for after lunch. We returned and talked with him a little and we discovered that he was an inactive member that had just been released from a recovery clinic. We marked a return visit to talk with him and his family. We returned and visited his family with a member called Amiro. The visit went well and they even accepted an invitation to come to church.

Friday: We accompanied a lot of our investigators and quite a few people offered us food. My favorite was the natural guava juice.

Saturday:We ran around like crazy people inviting everybody to church. We also spent about an hour trying to find a road. But, at least it gave us a great excuse to talk with  lot of people on the road.

Sunday: We went to church and had quite a few investigators and less-actives show up. Many of the less actives were a complete surprise and I was really happy about a fuller sacrament meeting.

Monday: We went out and played volleyball and we had a lot more people there. We even had some of our investigators there. It was a lot better than last time, but I can still say that Brazilians are not very good at Volleyball. By the end all the YM were asking to play soccer next week.

Elder Quain

January 2, 2017 - Ribeirão das Neves

I see a belo horizonte

Happy New Years!!

This new years we had a member give us food to take home for dinner. She just said, 'this should be a little meat for you all.' We got home, opened it up and found an entire chicken inside. Us four elders got really excited and we all started talking about it being giant. By the time we went to bed I think there was only one wing left.

During the week we had a ward activity (with only youth) and we watched the church film,"Only a Stonecutter." In this film a man brakes his leg and had to have one cut off. He makes a peg leg and during this time he is working as a stone cutter for the Salt Lake Temple and he continued to work. Everyone started to joke around asking me why I was in the video. Afterward, we played a game where the goal was to make the other person laugh first. Everybody was wanting to play against me as  hadn´t broken. Finally, one of the YM was able to last longer than me and was super happy, yelling that he finally beat me.

This Sunday had really good talks about goals and about the importance of making them. The talk afterwords asked a really good question, 'What are You willing to sacrifice to achieve your goals?'

Randoms:

* We are also teaching the guy who gave me a ride when the rock hit my leg.

Elder Quain