January 6, 2009 Happy New Year and a few thoughts

This past week was still a little slow due to the new year. New Year´s Eve was crazy. We knew that we would not be able to sleep through all the fireworks so we layed in our beds until midnight and then went out on our back porch to observe for about 45 minutes an absurd amount of fireworks being lit off by ever household in São Paulo. The video that I sent this week is only 2 minutes and I think I filmed it at about 12:30, not even when most of the fireworks were being lit. (oops folks, the film didn´t send, sorry) After that we hit the sheets and got back up at 6:30 to work. We are still working with Adriana. She is keeping a few more commitments. She went to church again this week and she stopped drinking coffee, but she´s got a few more steps to make before baptism. We also took Claudia and Jackson to a Family Night at Tati´s house and Jackson got really involved in a game of "War". They liked it so much that we marked another Family Night this week with them and Patricia and Anderson´s family. I love integrating investigators with members and seeing the friendships that these people make all on their own! We also found some wonderful new families this week that we hope will progress these last few weeks of our transfer here! I will be giving a talk again this Sunday about Missionary Work. I found a great thought from the Teachings of the Prophet Spencer W. Kimball. He said the following: "The Lord intrusts all members of the church the responsibility to serve as his messangers." "How it is wonderful, my dear brothers and sisters that we belong to the kingdom of God, that we have received from the Lord the responsibility to serve as mensangers of his word for our brothers and sisters that still are not affiliated with the church. Let´s suppose, for an instant, that the roles were reversed- you are not members of the Church, but your current non-member neighbor is a Latter-Day Saint. Would you like him to share the gospel with you? Would you rejoice with the new things learned? Would your love and respect for your neighbor grow for him having shared these things with you? It´s clear that all of the answers to these questions would be affirmative!" I have also been trying to catch up on my Book of Mormon reading as I have goal to read the Book of Mormon again in Português before April. I read all the books between 2 Nefi and Moroni today and I noticed a pattern with a few things that I wanted to share with you all. First of all in these chapters, especially the book of Enos, these men talk a lot about the repentance process and recognizing their weaknesses and turning them over to the Lord. When they had received forgiveness they wished these same things, this same knowledge for their other Nephite brothers, and they also knew that one day their Lamanite bretheren would know and be more righteous than the Lamanites. Read Enos 1:9-10 and Words of Mormon 1:8 The other thing I noticed was that all of these men talked about their worries and their desires to preserve these records for the future generations. I think sometimes we take for granted the sacred scriptures that we have, not realizing that many men fought and battled and sacrificed many things so that one day we would be able to have the sacred writings of these people and more witnesses that truly Christ is our Lord and Savior. Are we truly appreciative for the words of the Lord that we have to guide and direct us in these latter days? Read Words of Mormon 1:11, Omni 1:25, Jarom 1:11 and Mosiah 1:3-5 Have a great week everyone!! Sister Tittelfitz