Happy thanksgiving! That´s one thing I will for sure miss this year. My companion´s birthday is on Thanksgiving day. Maybe we´ll plan a Thanksgiving dinner or something. Wow, will everyone fit in our house? How are Church gatherings going to continue in the future as the family keeps getting bigger??

Well this week was definitely full of miracles. We have been working hard and talking to lots of people. But we learn that on our own, we can´t accomplish much. The Lord is the one who puts the elects in our path. In these last couple of weeks we have had 2 or 3 people approach us on the street and start to talk to us. We clearly saw that this was the Lord´s hand in our work. When we work hard and pray for help the Lord will send people who are ready. Our baptism yesterday came through one of these people and we have other baptisms marked because of these miracles that happened.

Also, there is a family that are friends with the bishop´s family. Their daughter is dating the bishop´s son and she was recently baptized. For a few Sundays, her parents have been going to church. We have tried several times to meet with them at their house but they are busy because of their restaurant. We have only been able to teach the mom 1 time. But they have been learning a lot in the gospel principles class. The gospel principles class is awesome here! The teacher is great, the class is always full of new members and investigators, and there are a few other members that go in to help out. Everyone has a great experience! We found out yesterday during the class, that Janaina (the mom I was talking about) is really liking the church and even had an answer. She and her husband commented during the class that they want to get baptized! There´s also a temple caravan at the end of this week and when she heard about it she really wanted to go, even if it would just be to walk on the grounds. But the Bishop explained to them that they would be able to enter if they were baptized and confirmed before. They ALMOST ALMOST decided to be baptized yesterday but they decided to mark it for next Sunday. So anyway we will have a family night at the bishop´s home tonight.

The other set of missionaries was able to baptize a really great man yesterday who is married to a less active who had been a member for years. It was really exciting to see his progress after his grandson was baptized last week. But the ward is really excited and the members are helping a lot. We have even been receiving help with making visits from members like the bishop, his counselor, the patriarch and others.

Have a great week, everyone!

Elder Church

Panatis: Week 8

I´m excited to watch family movies when I get home now! Has there been a lot of stuff passing on TV about France? We´ve been hearing a lot about it these past couple of days.

Well, this was another week of hard work. We focus a lot on key indicators (numbers like investigators at church, baptisms, lessons, etc.). Usually these numbers are pretty good indicators of success. We were happy to have lots of people at church on Sunday. We saw this week that the Lord blesses us even when we need to spend time out of our area. We took out a little time to help the sisters in their area and when we went back to ours, we didn't even notice the missing time.

We are finding success in working with recent converts. The work is a lot of fun. I find more joy in it than I did at the beginning of my mission. I am really impressed with the leadership here in the ward. Things are going well here! I´m sad that I´ll have to miss Thanksgiving in a couple of weeks. But the mission Christmas conference is coming up in not too long!

Have a great week!

Elder Church

Panatis: Week 7

the family from Caicó that came to visit last week!

Well we worked really hard again this week! At times I get a little stressed about the work but I don´t ever get discouraged. We try to do all we can during the week so that we can see lots of people in church on Sunday. I´ve been reading a lot in the Book of Mormon about faith- specifically in the last chapters of Alma during the wars. We can learn a lot from the examples of the Nephite armies when they had faith and confidence that they would achieve their goals. Even if the odds were against them they chose not to doubt or to be afraid because they knew that the Lord would help them. I have been applying this to missionary work. Sometimes we have our own goals/plans and we do all that we can to accomplish them during the week. At times it seems like it´s not working or that it won´t be possible, but it´s important to always trust in the Lord instead of doubting or getting discouraged. Because when we show doubt or fear we do not have faith. They are opposites. But then sometimes the results we want don´t come in the time we want, but that´s perfectly okay because we know that if we do our part, the Lord will bless us. Sometimes we just need to have patience, trust, and a good attitude! I also know that the lord blesses us according to our desires.


But this was a good week. I was able to recognize several miracles. There were a couple of days when we were needing to finish a couple of things to reach the weekly standard of excellence (lessons with members, baptisms marked, etc). and the Lord put people in our path so that we could do it. For example, a couple of times we were teaching a short lesson on the streets and a member walked by and participated. This helped us get lessons with member. Also, we were able to make progress on our goals to work with more men/families. We met an older woman named Aurita who works near a members house. We talked to her and set up another visit. She ended up going to church on Sunday and wants to be baptized! It seems like she knows everyone in the neighborhood and so she will be a huge source of references.
We also had a good experience last Monday. November 2nd is a holiday where everyone goes to visit the cemetaries. So we decided to go there in the evening and use it as an opportunity to find people to teach. We went around getting to know people and telling them a little about the plan of salvation. We found about 15 new people to teach!
Well I'm loving it here and I miss you all! I´ll send you a couple of pictures.


Elder Church

Panatis: Week 6

the zone

What? The family room looks quite a bit different. It looks really professionally done. I don´t get how you did it. Did you just order the pieces and put it all together yourselves? It looks really cool. Wow what an awesome party that you guys made for Corinne! That´s good that you have Alyssa and Jillian´s help. Glad that you kept the tradition of soup with bread bowls. Sounds like you have great missionaries there. I can´t imagine being a missionary there though because the work is so different!

Well now my companion is Elder W Silva. I´m in the same area. He is great and I lived in the same house as him a couple of transfers ago in Mossoró. We´re working hard here and are starting to find lots of miracles and people to teach. We are finding success in working with the recent converts of the area. Recent converts always have friends and family members that we can work with. We also received a new missionary in our house- Elder Ballaich from Black Forest, Colorado. He is really good too.

Yesterday the sisters called us and told us that a family from Caicó had come to visit a family in their ward and went to church that day. The family invited the sisters and E. W Silva and I to have dinner that night. It was a lot of fun because all four of us had worked in Caicó before and had gotten to know their family.

Well it´s November already! The year went by fast. Hope you all have a great week!!!
Love,
Elder Church

Panatis: Week 5

Dear Family,

How is everybody this week? I wish I could have heard Hayley´s FHE lesson too. Tell her to save that lesson plan so I can see it when I get back. (Mirien: Hayley ended her lesson on faith with this earnest plea to all of us: "I need all of you to work hard to strengthen your faith, because I don't want to get to heaven and look around and wonder where my family is! Don't let me be an orphan in heaven.")
That´s hard to believe that Brent is already home. He sent me an email this week.

Yes, about the christmas music. You can put whatever christmas music you want. I probably won´t have that much time to listen to it anyway. You can go ahead and put a Christmas Mountain folder in there ;).

So yes, most of the pastors/churches here talk bad about the church. Almost all of our investigators at some point will have a neighbor or someone tell false rumors about the church.

Two of the tools that we use a lot here are the list of recent converts in the area, and the list of less actives. Not that our focus is to reactivate, but because we end up finding a lot of new people that haven´t been baptized. Recent converts always have friends and neighbors that have never talked to us, and a lot of times inactive members have people in their house that aren´t members. Or for example, maybe they were baptized 5 years ago and had young children in the house. If so, we can bring the family back to church and baptize the kids. So we can end up accomplishing two things with this work- reactivation/retention, and BAPTISMS.

We like doing divisions sometimes with a couple of recently-returned missionaries in the ward. They both have a lot of vision and had a lot of success on their missions so they help us out quite a bit. We usually go on divisions on sunday mornings to bring investigators to church.
We have been spending a lot of time in these past weeks working in a neighborhood on the banks of the river with lots of receptive people. But we´re not going to work there so much now because they aren´t going to church. Lots of them say during the whole week that they´ll go, but then when we go there on Sunday morning, they end up traveling or not wanting to go because it´s a long walk. We´ll probably focus our efforts in the neighborhoods closer to the church.

But everything is going well here. The climate is nicer than in Mossoró and the other interior cities. We´re excited to keep working hard here. It´s great having Elder Ledesma as a companion. We have a lot of unity and we have fun too.
I will definitely be missing the holiday season. Here the holidays just aren't a really big deal. They don´t do Halloween or Thanksgiving (obviously), and Christmas isn't celebrated as much or in the same way!

Love you all!
Elder Church

Panatis: Week 4

Great to hear the news from home. That´s impressive that Hayley did the ropes course! Sounds like Grant and Alyssa are doing well too.
This week went well but we got disappointed when our baptism fell through. Wellington, a young man had been going to church, had his parents´ permission and was ready for baptism. He was excited but doubted that he was ready so he wanted an answer from god to see if he was. So we had him read a part in the Book of Mormon and pray about it. Then we came back the next day and as soon as he saw us he excitedly told us that he had received his revelation. We felt relieved for a moment but then he told us that he had visited another church the day before (the church of his mom and girlfriend). In front of everyone the pastor closed his eyes and started to prophesy, saying "someone in this congregation is thinking about getting baptized; you are being deceived. Wait and you will be baptized in my time." We didn't know what to say to it because we were expecting another answer! It is pretty frustrating how the enemy works. One of the days when we were at his house there were some other people from that church there. I think the mom told them about the baptism and it ended up getting communicated to the pastor. It´s kind of funny how much people blindly follow the pastors here, haha. But we will still try to baptize him.
We were surprised by a visit from President and Sister Soares at church yesterday. They visit wards throughout the mission quite frequently.
Anyway things are going well here. there are plenty of receptive people here in the area. We have been having some difficulties in taking people to church, but we´re always able to have at least a few.


Have a great week!
Love, Elder Church

Panatis: Week 3

Happy birthday, Hayley!  Wish I could have been there to give her a present and have the birthday dinner. How´s the no sugar month challenge going? I can´t imagine going a whole month without it. Did you seriously sell the sectional? That´s a surprise. The family room looks quite a bit different. But I guess it will give the room some more space.

This week was fun because I did a division during the week with Elder De Oliveira, "meu filho".  I trained him in Pau dos Ferros and then he got transferred to the same zone as me. My companion did a division in the other area and Elder De Oliveira came to work with me! It was great because we worked really hard together and it brought back memories of Pau dos Ferros.

The church is a small world, isn´t it? There´s an awesome member in the ward that helps us out a lot and we always go over to his house. He got off of his mission several months ago. I found out that he knows Kelly Vaughn and that she married one of his best friends who was his companion for 6 months. Cool, right?

Well I guess there aren´t a lot of new updates, just kind of the same stuff. But I´m loving the mission and learning new things every day!  We try our best to improve every day in obedience, faith, diligence, etc. But it´s a lot of fun here for sure. I´ve definitely been more focused and caught up in the work now than at the beginning of the mission. I miss things at home a lot and I'm excited for the future, but I´m loving it so much here that I don´t think about that stuff very often. 

Love you all!

Elder Church