No turkey in Brazil.......

This week was SUPER packed! We are starting to really kick up dust in our search for baptisms in this ward, so we are working even more than ever! It's pretty awesome, because now we get to see a whole bunch of miracles and that stuff. I feel in my experience here in Brazil, that the harder you work, the more miracles you will see.

First off, our President set a new Standard of Excellence for our mission, which means that of all the work we do, there is a minimum of work allowed, and then there is the "Excellent" range. Elder Andersen and I have made it a goal to always be in the excellent. One of the numbers, however, is something that I think this mission has never seen. The "Excellent" for contacts is 20 per day, which is proving to be very fun. This week, we were able to meet that standard 5 out of 7 days! I was pretty excited. 

So basically, we had all these weird/funny/great experiences in our contacts. The first thing we thought was really funny was that we actually managed to scare some people off, on accident. In our zeal to complete our goals, we actually had about five or six people this week that literally ran away from us during the contact. Whoops. 

We also contacted some guy that knew a lot about the church, and in the middle of the conversation decided to try and speak Hebrew with us. Then he was all like "What?! You guys don't speak Hebrew?" It was awfully confusing. 

Lastly, while we were with a member named Borges (remind me to tell you all about him later) we contacted a middle-aged man, named Edvalder, that was sitting on the sidewalk, who then began to share that just the other day his sister had gotten into a big fight with him. She kicked him out of the house, called him a bunch of names, and stabbed him a few times for good measure (nothing serious though, just wounds on the arms and back). He had already gotten medical treatment, and he was very grateful that we had stopped to talk to him. We then felt inspired to say that God had sent us to him in his time of need, and then left him with a quick but powerful lesson. He promised that he would go to church the next day, and was very excited to see the results of the prayers and blessings that we left with him. 

The next day, when we got to church, we were very excited to see him there, and he was very excited to tell us that he had found a place to stay temporarally. He then said that he knew that his prayers, and ours, had been answered, and he then stayed to participate with all three hours of church. It's a little funny though how well he understood everything in church, considering that he had shown up to church a little drunk. However, the Atonement is the best thing to get someone back on his feet again!

Also, Lusyleine's husband, Alfredo, came to church yesterday. We were extremely excited to see him! He is a great guy, and we have been a little frustrated with him because he until yesterday he hadn't ever gone to visit the Church. By the way, if some of you don't remember who Lusyleine is, she's our super active recent convert that I'm really proud of. I know that the only reason Alfredo came to church was because he has begun to realize the change of spirit of his wife. This family is about to be very blessed because of the leading example of this great woman. 

And that's really it. See you all later!

Elder Bishop