June 8, 2009

Folks, sorry I wasn´t able to write last week. We went out with the other Sisters to a really creative and different museum called "Sabina" that is focused on the "Meio Ambiente" or what I think in English is taking care of the earth. There were some really cool physics exhibits, a simulation of what a tornado would be like (it ruined all of the blow drying and flat ironing that the sisters had done that day) and a bunch of stuff about the big bang theory and we got to play with baby sting-rays!! It is a closed museum that only lets organized tours of schools come in, but we used our sisterly charm and the fact that three of us are Americans, and the other three are from far away states of Brasil, the fact that we´re missionaries and POOF, we entered with a tour guide for FREE. Yes, take that Elders !


Gildete and Pedro were married on May 30th in the church!! We got so caught up helping in the kitchen to prepare the food that Gildete thought we hadn´t come at all. They were so happy and thanked us so much for all of our help!! Gildete was lovely (see photo)!! We are now teaching her and she´s loving our visits but is having a hard time accepting that her baptism in her other church wasn´t "valid". She likes the church but has been in her church for so many years that a few hard transitions will be necessary for her to fully convert.



We unfortunately "lost" our investigators Sonia and João. We had some incredible lessons with them and really saw some break-throughs with Sonia. However, her lack of humility in sincerely praying and asking for a response from the LORD and her constant search for everything wrong with the church and persistent searches on the internet finding everything incorrect and completely apostate about the church lead her away from wanting to learn more. She invited us to come back to her house so that she could "teach US the TRUTH". I will keep praying for her, and know that the seed was planted. It just lacks water and a LOT of sunshine.

However, we found another Sonia about two weeks ago and her crazy and hyper-active three grandchildren. They went to church with us last week and are all looking forward to a baptismal goal of June 21st. However, Sonia has to stop smoking first. Her grandchildren- Wesley, Hellen and Izabelle (11, 9, 7) pick up on everything so fast and even the members thought that the kids were members visiting from another ward when they went to Primary because they were already talking about Joseph Smith and knew the books from the Book of Mormon. We are also teaching their mother, Adriane, but she unfortunately works every Sunday in a supermarket. We are going to see what we can do to help her find another job so that she can get to know the church as well, but it may take another few weeks.

We are also teaching "Senhor José" aka "Barba" (Beard). He is a crazy, totally hippy fun-loving man that owns a ice cream shop close to our house. Sister Brito made a contact with him nearly 3 months ago and Sister Zanella and I started to teach him. He was making little progress as he understands EVERYTHING but wants to take baby-steps in everything that we teach him, aka instead of ready the chapter that we give him he was ready verse by verse. He knows a bunch of members and went to the chapel one Wednesday night to talk with the Bishop´s counselor about some questions he had that he didn´t want to ask us (he told us later he has doubts about whether he can sell beer in his ice-cream shop if he were to become a member and how he can pay tithing if the store is part his and part his wife´s). His wife is super not-receptive, but we were able to teach her the first lesson. She told us she doesn´t want to read anything we left for her because she doesn´t want to confuse anything with the Bible. José tells us every day to pray for her because he want´s her to understand the same things he is learning. He has questions about everything and was afraid to go to church because he doesn´t want to have to use a suit and tie. On Sunday he arrived at 9:10 entered into the chapel and saw the Elders Quorom, everyone with tie and suit. He ran back to his car without anyone seeing him and stayed there for the next 50 minutes. He said he battled it out with himself for that time deciding if he should enter or not. When he saw a young woman enter into the chapel with a mini-skirt he decided that he could enter as well. The Bishop caught him in the hall and guided him to the "Gospel Principles" class where we found him. He loved the class, but couldn´t stay for Sacrament Meeting as he promissed his wife he wouldn´t be gone long because they fought that morning about him going to church. He took the Gospel Principles Manuel home, and yesterday when we went to teach he had already read the first 11 chapters and said that he´s loving how everything makes sense, using the Bible, Book of Mormon. He already wants Doctrine and Convenants and Pearl of Great Price so that he can look up all the other references as well. We have found an elect folks. Please pray for him, because it´s going to require a lot of bravery for him to take upon himself the decision to be baptized, to follow the strong answers he is receiving from the Holy Ghost!!

I love this work, I love the people we are teaching and the people we are finding!! I love being a missionary!! I just hope that next 9 weeks of my mission pass by so SLOWELY so that I can absorb every moment of this wonderful work!!

Have a great week everyone!!
Sister Tittelfitz