General Conference

Well this week was a little slow, and we had some divisions but GENERAL CONFRENCE WAS AMAZING!!!!

So Saturday was pretty cool.

We went to lunch with a member who lives way far away and rather then have us be late to conference we watched with them. Also they are way rich, like their house is bigger than mine, they have a swimming pool, four cars, and tal. but anyway we watched conference with them, then worked in the neighborhood then watched conference, then came home.

Sunday we went to the stake center and watched there (and since i was watching in Portuguese my. 

Sunday morning was awesome, the spirit was strong, and it was cool to hear about all the temples.)

General conference in a few words: fasting marrage easter Atonement

The Work is Growing Fast!

Well February flew by, and at this rate I feel like I'll be home in another month or two.

This week I literally walked through the entire city, from one end to the other, and out to a farm nearly in Bananal. Nothing to worry about but one of my pairs of shoes already has holes in the bottom of them (as in my socks were destroyed by the pavement) but thankfully it doesn't cost too much to get them repaired, only about twenty dollars. 

Anyway, this week was great, and we are preparing a white Saturday.We have 11 baptisms planed for the 21st. We are mainly working in three areas right now, Sinderlandia, Vila Independencia and Villa Maria. Sinderlandia is where about 8 of our baptismal dates are, so daily someone is there visiting all of them, and somebody else visits Vila Maria or Vila Independencia. (in case you were wondering its really easy to do divisions with ward members in a trio because we only need one member in order to do the divisions so we do them almost daily) Vila Maria is a area that has no members, and records of missionaries working there are non-existent. I have yet to talk to someone who has seen the missionaries in Vila Maria, so we are all but opening there.

On Friday we were working in Vila Maria, and for a while nothing was feeling right. We were talking to everyone but not giving any lessons, and I had a feeling that the next person with whom we should talk would recognize us as ministers. We walked for about 10 minutes, and due to the heat we stopped to eat some açai (its like ice cream, but without cream and açai flavored) and the woman who owns the shop asked us if we were from the church, we responded yes, and she accepted a lesson.

Yesterday I was with a young man in the ward when he said his grandfather had just gotten out of the hospital and I asked him if he would like to visit his grandfather. We went there and briefly shared the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation, and the young man asked if his grandparents would like blessings, so I had the opportunity to give them blessings of comfort. Afterwords they warmed up a lot and we were able to make an appointment to return and visit this week.

Here is his testimony of the gospel in Portuguese :) 

Sei que Jesus vive, sei que ele é o meu Salvador, e que por meio dele podemos ser limpos, e livres. Sei que a Igreja de Jesus Cristo dos Santos dos Últimos Dias é a igreja guiado por Deus, e Seus santos profetas. 

I love you all. 

-Elder Lindsey

Barra Mansa

Well this semana foi ótimo! I am currently in a trio with Elder Conceção and Elder Dias, which is pretty awesome because it makes it easy to do daily divisions. I have worked several times with members in the ward, and other times with one or two Elders. 

Yesterday we were knocking doors in a neighborhood called Villa Coringa, and we started teaching a man who seriously appeared interested, but we weren't able to finish the lesson because his uncle came over (who is a deacon in a nearby church) and talked to us for an hour plus about how our church is wrong. We simply bore testimony at the end, and invited him to humble himself in prayer and ask God which church is His. It was really hard to see a man with such potential have to hear someone talk in such a manner and not be able to hear the message of the Restoration.

This week we spent a lot of time knocking doors, as we have had several investigators tell us that they don't want to get baptized, so we need to start finding a lot more people to make up for the lack that we have right now. It's really interesting to know that you are in the area that God wants you to be and some days you can knock every door on a street and not have anyone accept the messages. and other days you knock four doors and have four lessons with four people who become new investigators.

The other day we had a lot of commitments in different parts of the city, so we went to centro before lunch (not too far) then to Colonia (far away) then to Sinderlandia (really far) then to Villa Coringa (again really far) then to Cutiara (not too far) before returning home (again not too far) and we totaled it at nearly 30 km) 

This week I went on a division with a recent convert, and since he doesn't know too much about the church, during the lessons he only says that he knows the church is true, so I had to give the entire lesson the whole day, and we had lots of lessons that day. It helped me feel more confident that I know enough that I can speak and not have to rely on the other missionaries.

Well I love you all

and yall are in my prayers

Remember, the first four principles and ordinances of the gospel are Faith, Repentance, Baptism, and receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Daily strive to increase your faith, repent, and better listen to the Holy Ghost

Weird weather and Zone Conference. Prayers Needed.

Zone Conference! We woke up at 04h00 and got ready, and we all had to shower really fast because there was 8 of us in the house and we had to leave by 05h00. We got into a van, then went and picked up 4 sisters (making 13 in the van (with the driver) and drove to Petropolis. We were supposed to arrive there by 8, but because a truck turned over on a 2 lane mountain highway, we were stopped for over an hour, and the next hour was stop and go. We didn't arrive to conference until 09h30.

We had a little bit of extra time at the end and president talked for about 10 minutes about how awesome the sisters in our mission are (our mission is 1/3 sisters) and about 30 seconds saying that the Elders aren't too bad.

Yesterday I had the misfortune of being on the streets during a rainstorm, and the wind was so powerful, it was almost closing my umbrella. After about 2 min the streets were flooding, and the sun was shining????

 It then dried up then started raining again. The weather here in Brasil is weird.

It's weird thinking that this transfer is already almost over. I feel like I've been here in Barra Mansa for almost two weeks, even though it's been 5. I guess I got lost in the work.

This week we worked a lot in Vista Alegre, because all of our baptismal dates for this last week and this week were there. James and Caroline (names have been changed) did really well, and were baptized this week. After the baptism, their 3 year old son was taking off his shoes and socks because he wanted to get baptized too. 

Oh and the bishop brought cake.

The brother of James was sick this week so we are pushing his baptism forward another week, and we have started talking with basically the entire family of Caroline (several cousins, a brother, her mom)

We also have been working with an elderly lady who is the mother of a member. She got really sick this week, and we were really concerned, because the other Elders in our ward have a similar experience, and for them, they may not be able to baptize her. Anyway we gave our investigator a blessing and the next day she was better!

This week we also had two investigators tell us that they know that the church is true, but that they won't be baptized. It is really hard for us to see them take truth and reject it.

We also had troubles finding new investigators this week, and because we have been baptizing or cutting many of our old investigators, the number of people we are teaching has dropped, so if y'all could pray for us to be able to find people to teach this week that would be great.

I love you all.

Remember that the Lord often has his hands in small things, that we may not understand, but some day they may bring forth great fruits.

Ate mais

Elder Lindsey

God Blesses us Through Our Efforts

It's true! As we do our best, God will help us. 

Last week we had some time where everything fell through. (8 appointments in 1 day) so we resorted to knocking doors. We ended up teaching one lesson to an elderly man who wasn't all that interested.  He did give us a referral, and when we went to go visit that referral we found the elderly mans son who was an extreme alcoholic and smoker, but stopped just a little while ago. His wife (a less active member who was baptized 22 years ago) and their daughter were also there. We went in and taught the Restoration and marked a baptismal date with him, and before we could ask their daughter she said she also wanted to be baptized!

 We should be having 3 baptisms this week, they are referrals from the family we baptized a little over a week ago who are legally married. They have two sons, one of them is 8 months old and is really chubby.  Since we started teaching them they have read a large part of the Book of Mormon, stopped drinking coffee, and are ready to get baptized!!

Our other investigator who has a baptismal date this week is an 85 year old woman who has trouble hearing and can't read, so it has taken a lot of time to help her come to a knowledge of the truth. It got to the point where we were about to stop visiting her, but we invited her to pray and at the end of the prayer she decided she wanted to be baptized.

Right now the vast majority of our investigators live in Vista Alegre we have been grabbing plenty of buses to get there quickly and to get home quickly.

Also this week was the first time I did a division with a member, which was kind of cool! I now feel confident that I could train a new missionary, after having to carry the majority of the lessons and contacts with a member there to be a second witness.

I want to express my thanks for all of the prayers that y'all have been giving on my behalf, and want you to know that the Lord is watching over me.

I love you all.

I testify that this is the true church, guided by prophets. I know that we may be saved by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that by living his commandments we might have peace in this life and joy in the world to come.

Work hard my friends for salvation is not easy, and there are many needing to know the truth!

The Work is Moving Forward!

Well it is hot here. 
I have only been slightly impeded by the extreme heat, but hey its not like I died. (although I'm pretty sure that Elder Calvacante was thinking that i was dying) but I got a blessing and after a blessing I headed back to work.

This week we worked hard. I love the members here, we had very few lessons without members this week because we always had members saying stuff like "yall are going to visit this person this week, call me and I'll go with you" or "hey could I go with y'all today" or "hey I have a friend I want to visit with y'all" 

The members here are member missionaries, of all of the people i have taught here, 3 have not been referrals

. 

We are teaching a woman and her children, we want to baptize them together, but seeing how the mother is still having problems with the word of wisdom, and the children have gone to church upwards of six times, we are planing on holding the baptism this week. The mother is working hard to stop smoking and using drugs, but it's slow going because she is constantly surrounded by other people using them. We have encouraged her to get away, but she is really poor and so its hard for her to move.

We are also teaching a couple whose children are grown up, and the youngest (20) is the only one at home. They are doing really well, they have worked out all of their problems and are ready to be baptized this week.

We are also teaching their sons, the younger one we just started teaching this week, and he is doing well! He has yet to have any problems with any of the commandments we have talked about with him, and he is liking church.

the other son is legally married! He has two children, he is doing well, but isn't yet as firm as his parents, even though he is starting to have a testimony, and his wife has a firm testimony of the Book of Mormon.

The Lord is reaching to lift us up, if we will but take his hand we can become more then we ever could on our own.

I love you all

Elder Lindsey

1st Transfer! Elder Lindsey Headed for Volto Redondo, and it will be HOT!

Well transfers have arrived. This morning at about 8 Presidente Cascardi called and said Elder Lindsey you are being transferred to Volto Redondo your new companion is Elder Spears.

So I am leaving the Royal City to head to the hottest zone in our mission (and its during summer!!!) 

This week was pretty slow. There were few people on the streets so it was hard to do contacts, and since everyone was partying all week knocking doors wasn't all that fruitful either. 

So on Tuesday at night  we went to Amazonas to talk with some investigators there, and since we had spent the day in Independencia we grabbed an onibus so we could get there without wasting an hour and a half walking, and crossing the highway in the dark is always sketchy. As the bus pulled up to the first stop in Amazonas I noticed that it had started sprinkling, and by the time the onibus arrived at our stop (the second) it was raining pretty hard. We got out of the bus and ran to the covering there at the bus stop, and waited there for about thirty minutes for the rain to pass.

I will start with the wind. 

Even standing up on the benches, the wind drove the rain into us and we still got pretty wet. It was raining so hard that the street next to us looked like a river, and the current went about 2/3 of the way up the wheel of a car.

And I can't forget the lightning.

The wind was bad the rain was awful, and  the lightning made me feel like I was in a castle under siege. Looking out, there was two directions I could see the sky. and there was always lightning visible in them. The thunder didn't stop for about 15 minutes, and there were several blasts that made me feel like I had been shot. Then they echoed in the valley like a machine gun for about a minute.

It also rained every other day, but nothing like Tuesday.

We had several investigators at church, and we had more contact with an investigator that lives in Cremerie. He is a professor in Rio, and he is a spiritual. Generally missionaries don't get into the house of spirituals and less often in the houses of professors, but he invited us in (even though he had several guests over and was having a churrasco. We had previously talked to him on the street, so he recognized us and invited us in, and we talked a little about religion and he invited us to eat some barbecue with him. It is really interesting  many of the views he has about God and religion, and I often learn more about my own as I talk to him.

It's amazing to see the perfection of the plan of salvation, there are no holes, nor fallacies,  It is designed to bring as many of us back to the Father  as possible.

Remember that the Lord is forgiving, that He wants us to repent, even if it takes several tries, or several hundred. And He will help you.

I love you all,

Elder Lindsey