Elder Quain in Brazil: March 21, 2016

Eu vejo um belo horizonte

(I think you can guess what that says in English)

This week was an exciting and tiring week to say the least.

Monday: P-day, the only relaxing day that I had this week, but I still had to exercise a great amount of faith as I let my companion cut my hair. It tuned out well and he didn´t give me any bald spots.

Tuesday: We had what we call a mission tour. It´s where a leader in the church comes and visits us and gives talks with our president. The leader that came was Elder Zwick. He is a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, was a mission president in two Hispanic countries and the area authority of Brasil. It was really inspiring and you could just feel the spirit. He also gave us a promise. It is, "Esta Missão, Missão Brasil Belo Horizonte, será a nº1 no MUNDO, se tivermos fé suficiente para mudar um pouco só." And, for all of you that can´t read Português it says, this mission, Brasil Belo Horizonte, will be the number one mission in the WORLD, if we have faith sufficient to change just a little bit. He also promised that if this happens we will have a temple here in Minas Gerais.

Wednesday: Went well, had weekly planning, did some visits and came back to Elder Buchanan with a twisted ankle. He´s not my companion. So, you probably wouldn’t think that this affected my week much, but it did. We can´t just let their investigators fall through. So, we have been doing splits with them at the end of every day. Working two areas is a little tiring.

Thursday: We went to lunch and they made pizza!!! One for each person. It was really good and way better than what you can buy here. After that, we tried to visit a referral, but it didn´t work out. L. Silva said that he didn´t feel too good and had to return to the house. He had a 24 hour bug. So W. Santos and I went out to visit people in both areas.

Friday: We had a reference from a member and went to visit him. He is a 38 year old guy and really wants to change his life. We were giving him the lesson about the restoration and he accepted everything. He even accepted a baptismal date. It turns out that his mom had been listening behind us and started asking questions too. She also accepted a baptismal date. After that we had to run back to the house to do a split with the other companionship. I went out with W. Santos and we had a good and productive evening.

Saturday: Elder Buchanan and I worked at Fisk (the English school) in the morning. Was interesting and they had us help a class with younger kids. They have a lot of energy. We ended up playing hangman in English and I had to be careful not to use any words too difficult.

Sunday: We had Stake conference. It went really well and we had a seventy there, but my favorite talks were by President and Sister Fernandes. I might be a little biased as they talked about missionaries and the work that we can all do to help it proceed. A Sister gave a great testimony and called all the missionaries bonitinho. President bore a powerful testimony and a story I want to share.

When he was serving his mission in Portugal he was placed as a group leader, this is where you act almost like a bishop, and he always tried to be the first person there to set everything up; but, there was an elderly lady that was always there first. He, as a missionary wanted to know how she came to know the gospel. He found out that she was not baptized. He asked her why and she responded that God was her friend and would save her any way. President tried to help her see the need to get baptized, but he heard some time later that she had passed away and was never baptized. President then turned to the congregation. Brothers and Sisters, Jesus Christ was God´s best friend, and even he had to be baptized.

I would also like to leave my personal testimony that God is our father and Loves us in such a way that he gave us his Son to be a Savoir and a REDEEMER. Our sins have already been payed for. The price was precious. We cannot return to live with God without accepting the Son. For no one can know the Son without knowing the Father, or the Father without the Son. And none can return to the Father unless they accept the sacrifice of his Son through baptism by authority. Christ is the way, the truth, and the light.

Elder Quain