Elder Hunter Bishop: Another week of MIRACLES: ( and a few pictures FINALLY)

JHey everyone! Elder Brooks and I had a great week! We had a lot of good work this week, and a crazy awesome miracle.

First off, Elder Brooks and I had a district goal of making 140 contacts in a week. Also, there's only two other Elders in our district, so that makes 35 contacts per person for the week. It was pretty hard, but we met our goal! From all this work during the week came our miracle.

On Monday, after P-day and all that, Elder Brooks felt impressed to talk to a specific young man that we saw sitting on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, we had an appointment at that time, so we both passed him by and went on with our day. A few days later Elder Brooks and I went searching specifically for this young man, and sure enough we found him sitting on the same patch of sidewalk (that's actually extremely normal here), and we contacted him on the spot! The lesson was absolutely horrible. This guy didn't understand a word we said (he's from the interior of Ceara, where they speak a little different), so we weren't able to really invite him to do anything. In the end, we just left a pamphlet of the Restoration with him.

A few days later, walking down the same patch of sidewalk, we ran into this young guy again, except he had a friend with him. This guy stood up when he saw us, stretched forth his hand and pointed to the Book of Mormon in Elder Brooks' hand. Then he asked what he needed to do to get a Book of Mormon. Elder Brooks happily replied that he only needed to read it, and we gave him a copy. This man, Raimundo, then explained a wonderful story. He said that ten years ago, a young American boy gave him a Book of Mormon. At this time, Raimundo wasn't very interested in the Book, and he loaned it to a friend before he got the chance to read it. The friend never returned the book. Now, ten years later, he had begun to search for the truth of the Gospel. He struggled to find this same book, until his friend, the guy that we contacted, gave him the pamphlet of the Restoration. On the back Raimundo saw the picture of the Book of Mormon, so he read the whole pamphlet and waited for us to return, so he could ask for one. After three days Raimundo has already read up to Jacob in the Book of Mormon, and he came to Church with us. After Sacrament Meeting, he said to us: "I believe my search for the truth has ended."

So yeah, super cool story.

We also had something hilarious happen to us this week!

While teaching the Plan of Salvation to Eduardo, a 22 year old man, we heard the weirdest noise ever. We heard the sound of some living thing slipping, screeching, and a splash. I'm not so sure, but I don't think any other missionary can say that while they were teaching they had a rat fall from the rafters of the roof into a bucket of water, but mabye I'm wrong. Yes, a rat fell into a bucket of water. WHILE WE WERE TEACHING! Eduardo acted really fast and kicked the bucket, with the rat in it, into the bathroom! He locked the bathroom from the outside and we continued teaching, after a fit of laughter. During the ENTIRE lesson we couldn't help but giggle every once in awhile, because of all the other noises that the rat was making! Scratching around, trying to find a way out, playing in the water... No one in the world would be able to tell what went down in there! And then, at the highlight of the lesson, teaching about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we heard the toilet flush. And after, absolute laughter from everyone in the room. How the rat was able to flush the toilet, I'll never know. But this I do know: One can not simply teach the Plan of Salvation with a rat in the bathroom!

And that was basically my week. Tune in next time for the awaited wedding and baptism of Cleiton! WHOO! Atê o próximo!

Elder Bishop

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