ANOTHER GREAT WEEK

Good morning USA! Our week was awesome. We've got a very solid group of progressing investigators now, and we're really exciting to reap the results of our work.

Tereza, an older woman that we started teaching about three weeks ago, made it to church and is now super excited to be baptized in the church. However, she is going to have to resolve some problems with her spouse who is now working outside of the state of Ceara. Unfortunately, their relationship isn't going so swell. They are probably going to go their separate ways, even though they've been together about 20 years or so. So if you guys could all pray for them, that'd be great.

Carol, a young woman of 18 from a family that we started to teach two weeks ago, has committed to be baptized this week. We are really excited to follow up with her to make this happen! Hopefully she can be an example to her family, as no other member in her family has gone to church yet. However, the first week we taught the family, Carol was firm with her decision to visit church. She kept her promise. She also accepted our challenge to follow any impressions that she had in the church or felt through prayer, or gained through study of the Book of Mormon by being baptized. The ward has supported her very well, even though she has only been going to church two weeks. 

Sérgio and Luciane continue to progress, and they are very exited for their baptism. Yeah, they´re perfect. ´Nuff said.

Also, we are now in a missiony trio. Elder Toby is the third member of the Dias Macedo area. He´s a dog. I mean, he is literally a dog. There are a ton of stray dogs here in Fortaleza, and one random day Toby (that´s what Elder Castanho named him) just randomly decided that we would be his masters. He follows us around in our area everywhere. We don´t even feed the poor guy, because we don´t have any money (plus we´re missionaries, we can´t have pets). A few times he has tried to enter the houses of our investigators to teach lessons and stuff, although he´s kind of really dirty, so he doesn´t ever enter. Plus kids are scared of him. Not very good traits for a missionary dog, but he´s still a boss. His favorite part of the missionary work is contacting. His technique is a little strange, but effective. He usually just jumps on people. Then the people that he jumps on usually fall in love with him, and we´ll show up and be all like "Hey! You met our dog!" And then we contact the person. It's pretty awesome.

Anyway, the work presses on! Go team!

Elder Bispo

NEWS OF PACKAGE

I received this text today

I have been so excited thinking Elder Bishop might get the package BEFORE Easter, but who can predict what this means!!

TRANSFERS and Elder Bishop stays put!!

Today is transfers anypeople! Basically everyone in the District will stay, except two of the Sisters (one finished her mission, and the other was just transferred). Which means... I´ll be able to see Sérgio and Luciane´s wedding and baptism!!! WHOO!!!! This family is absolutely amazing!

This week also yielded amazing results in our area. We had a wonderful amount of our investigators who went to church! The record was broken for our area in the number of investigators that went to church. So that´s cool. It´s been extremely hard to get people to church from our area, but things are really starting to look swell.

Now our biggest problem is getting all these families married so they can keep the Law of Chastity in preparation to be baptized! MARRY LIKE THE WIND!!!

 

Thursday rained like crazy. From 3 ´o clock until 8 it rained super hard, nonstop. And I forgot my umbrella. Also Elder Castanho lost his in his last area. HOWEVER, one of our investigators that went to church, Luciano, randomly gave us an umbrella the size of a minivan, so we didn´t get too wet. Although my bible was absolutely destroyed. 

Another cool story about Sérgio and Luciane. Apparently, a lot of their past friends from the last church that they were going to have started to mock and persecute them about their decision to be baptized and confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. However, instead of shrinking and losing faith in their decision, Sérgio and Luciane have bourne their testimonies to all these people, and have even defended the Church in the front of the Pastor´s debilitating comments. I have a firm testimony that this strong conviction that they have of Christ´s True Church comes from their strong grasp on the iron rod, or the word of God. This family diligently reads the Book of Mormon and the Bible every single day. I also know that any person, man or woman, child or elderly, can gain this same testimony of Christ and His marvelous work by reading diligently the Book of Mormon, pondering about it´s message, and praying to ask God if it is true. Just like Moroni says.

That´s it! Tchau!

Elder Bispo

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.

Protests in BRAZIL over president!!!!!!!!

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/15/brazil-protesters-rouseff-impeachment-petrobas

PROTESTS IN BRAZIL SUNDAY MARCH 16

A WARD KAROKE party

Hello peoples of all species! This week was a pretty great week. Sérgio and Luciane are firm and strong. Everyday they continue to surprise us with their humble and ready willingness to keep the commandments. They are super excited for their marraige and their baptism! 

We are also super excited to witness the baptism of such a strong family here in Dias Macedo. As I´ve mentioned in the past, our area is really in need of faithful members that can contribute their time and talents to the effort. Sérgio and Luciane surely are a blessing.

Also, our recent convert Lukas is doing great! He´s starting to prepare to serve a mission now, and I can´t wait to hear the news of his call! It won´t be for another year or so (as he needs to complete at least a year as a member to recieve his endowments in the temple), however I´m extremely excited to see him progress to this point. What´s more is that the rest of Lukas´ family is finally starting to accept the gospel. I absolutely love asking families such as this what changes they have seen in the life of the family member who was recently baptized. This question always brings forth a number of joyous remarks. This is just another testament to the truthfulness of the gospel, and its power to change the lives of everyone who offers up a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

We have also been challenging Solange (the sister of a member) to be baptized. She is progressing very well, however she absolutely refuses to accept a baptismal date. Her daughter, Mayara, was baptized quite awhile ago, and is now inactive. We are reactivating Mayara, and helping her mother along the path of Christ. 

Lastly, our ward had a karaoke party on Friday. Luciane brought a friend along to meet the members of the ward and feel comfortable to go to church. Unfortunately, Sérgio was not able to go, because he had work. However, the turnout was really great, and we are very excited to begin teaching this new referral family.

And that was our great week.

Elder Bispo

LOTS OF PICTURES of our handsome missionary

Yesterday was stake conference, everyone. I love stake conference. However it was a really crazy day. Our week was also super great.

This week we have been following up with Sérgio and Luciane. They are AMAZING. We taught them about the Word of Wisdom, and immediately when we mentioned coffee, they started laughing. They had just bought four packets of coffee before we got there. The Bishop was with us, and he loves to joke around, so we had a few good laughs. Afterwards, though, they just handed over the coffee and promised that they would always seek to obey this commandment. Then we walked home with four packets of coffee. I have some pretty great pics of that. 

Anyway, I was quite surprised with their reaction! Normally people will ask "Why coffee?" and we´ll have to explain stuff and such. However, this family is so prepared to follow the commandments of God, without question. I feel they showed a great humbleness in that lesson. They reminded me of the Prophet Alma´s words to the lower-class among the Zoramites, in Alma 32: 15. I would love to quote that part, but it´d be better if all of you could search it up yourselves. Also I´m really pressed for time right now. GOOD LUCK FAITHFUL AMERICAN! Or one from another country.

Also, we had a TON of people that we invited to go to Stake Conference, and there were about 10 people that said that they would go. Unfortunately, in the state of Ceará, it seems to be that if 12 people say they will go, you get 2 that actually go. However, we had three of these people that made it to conference, so the turnout was alright. 

However, the day of conference, I woke up and passed almost the whole morning in the bathroom. I got super sick! Also, I had no idea that my body contained so much water. I´m pretty sure that with everything that my body put out, and with the amazing force that it seemed to leave, I could´ve powered the Hoover Dam for a week. You don´t have to picture that if you don´t want to.

Despite all this, in the very hour that Stake Conference would be, my sypmtoms completely fled away. What a miracle! Afterwards we went to Stake Conference, got a referral, and we watched the Zone Leader´s baptism that I interviewed on Saturday.

THAT WAS MY AWESOME WEEK!

Tchau!

Elder Bispo

TRACKING MY PACKAGE TO BRAZIL

ZONE Conference and a Mission Musical

Hello to every man, women, child, or dog that may or may not be reading this! Our week was AWESOME! First off, we had our zone conference on thursday. Then on saturday we had our Mission Musical. I´ll explain later in the email.

Thursday was great! Zone conference went extremely well. We were able to hear many spiritual experiences from varios Elders and Sisters, plus their testimonies. Also, our mission now has an official and inspiring song. It kind of reminds me of marching band, which is weird. However it is quite a catchy song. We also have a war shout. Our mission just became the coolest in the world.

Also, Sérgio and Luciane are progressing very well! They are a couple that we are going to baptize here in the ward. They´ve both been from different churches, but the two of them lost trust in all the other congregations that they went to. However, they felt the spirit very strong when they went to church a week ago, and also everytime the read the Book of Mormon. Plus, we marked their wedding today. Whoo! I´m super excited.

Saturday was our super-special-spiritblast-secretweapon-mission-musical. It worked out super well. Sister Evans, my sort-of cousin and the wife of our mission financial advisor, organized everything. It was quite a feat considering that she doesn´t speak Portuguese. However, we all sang spiritual songs and stuff to an audience of more than 400 or so. About half of the people were investigators of certain wards in the mission, mixed in with less-active members. Ninety people from my area and the area of the Zone Leaders went to the activity. Our ward organized super awesomely and rented a charter bus to take everyone there and back again. Also, I conducted the opening hymn. That was very interesting.

That was my super awesome week. The work presses onward!

Elder Bispo

I´m very excited to be recieving my last mission package! I understand that it must be frustrating to ship things with Brazilian customs. However life on the mission is great!

I have realized here on the mission that I am a big fan of snow. I miss it a tons! It´s great to hear that the weather in Kansas is still just as crazy as serving a mission in Brazil!

Testimony meetings are wonderful here! It also gives us great opportunities to bear our testimonies about the missionary effort, and I love taking a little time to challenge the members. Our ward is really wonderful, and is really deserving a better chapel with it´s frequency of members. We are fighting to meet my original goal! Although it´s quite difficult.

I LOVE YOU MOM!

Elder Bispo