Rio Branco: Week 9

A rope swing behind the houses of some investigators. 

Gabriel´s family

His dad and grandma

with Walter Ribeiro

Yes, I was happy about Maria's baptism too and was glad when I found out that you had been praying for her. She herself admits that it was a miracle because no one had imagined that she would ever be baptized. Yes, the members will definitely take good care of her. She lives alone. This week it was her son's birthday and they invited us over for dinner. It was a coincidence because we spent the day in that area to help the missionaries and they told us that they had a dinner planned.
This week we were happy to help Gabriel to be baptized. Gabriel is a young man who has lots of family who are members of the church. His grandma lives in our ward and has been a member for 31 years. She is one of the most faithful members here. All of her kids were baptized in their youth, but a couple of them went inactive. One of her sons lives in Curitiba and he has been inactive for several years. He lives there with his 14-year-old son who had never been baptized. Once a year he passes a month or two in Natal when he´s out of school. His grandma had always taught him about the church but he had never been too interested in the church as he had gotten older. So a few weeks ago we met him when he went to church here. We went to his house during the week and started to teach him. He quickly accepted baptism but the family wanted to wait a couple of weeks for his dad to arrive from Curitiba. His dad was scheduled to come in on the 10th and it worked out perfectly for us to be able to schedule the baptism for Saturday night. It was really great and all of his family from Natal came to watch it. He was really the only one in his family who hadn´t been baptized yet and his grandma was very happy. She´s even happier to see that this will help her son to get active again. We also found out that Walter Ribeiro, the counselor to the mission president, works with Gabriel´s dad and has known him since he was his bishop years ago in Natal!

Well thanks for all the updates from home and the info about BYU registration.
Have a great week!

Elder Church