This week was crazy! It flew by so fast! Thanksgiving was awesome, we had one meal but got a ton of leftovers! It was an interesting week, from knocking doors for 2 hours on thanksgiving and no one answering to mistaking a woman for a man (yeah, that was awkward) we saw it all! But we kept on working with faith believing that we would find the elect. We started using the "He is the Gift" pass along cards and using it in members homes and it's been an amazing tool to use! Portuguese is a crazy language, it's like Spanish only a lot harder because of pronunciation. But Elder Mota is doing great at helping me learn it. Even though this week was rough and looked grim at the beginning, we finished strong and saw some miracles!
The best miracle we saw this week was last night. We are teaching a Brazilian named Ingrid and she has been preparing for baptism for a long time. The only thing holding her back was living the law of chastity, because she's been living with her boyfriend. Well last week they broke up and he had to go back to Brazil yesterday, so know Ingrid can fully live the Law of Chastity! We went over last night with a couple of her member friends and had a great lesson, at the beginning she brought up her baptism and was telling us when she wanted it! It was awesome! she is truly converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ! Her dad is a member from Brazil and he is coming up for the holidays so she wants to be baptized on the 19th! As well our other investigator Priscila has been continually reading the Book of Mormon and praying about being baptized this Sunday. We have very few investigators but the ones we've been blessed to work with have been progressing!
As well we've been working with a family of 5 and they were all ready to come to church yesterday and they get in the car and it didn't start....the battery decided to die right before church. Satan does whatever he can to stop the work from progressing, like killing car batteries or having people use their dogs as their excuse not to listen to the gospel because they are barking...
Last week I gave a training on how to combat Satan's tools. I talked about being creative and innovative and making a playbook of different approaches and tools we can use in missionary work. I compared it back to bball and how if the offense keeps running the same play, the defense will adjust and make it so the play is ineffective. just like in missionary work if we keep using the same rote approaches or the same pass along cards or materials the defense, in this case Satan and his followers, adjust and recover and can prepare the hearts of man to reject the gospel. That's why it's so essential to have the Spirit with us, so he can knock down the defense, and to follow every prompting and to "change the game" so that the defense never has time to recover. We applied that this week and caught a lot of people off guard and more people were interested in listening to us.
I finished the Book of Mormon again this past week and Moroni chapters 7 and 10 still blow me away! They are filled with tools and ways to become more like Christ. They talk about how faith, hope and charity are essential to living with God again. You have to have all three or else we are nothing! I was contemplating that this past week and was figuring out ways to have more faith, hope and charity. Moroni exhorts us to pray with all the energy of our heart to be filled with these gifts from God. That is the way to true happiness, by living the gospel and striving to improve each day we can grow in confidence in God's sight and have his Spirit to be with us. When we have the Spirit we are happy:) As I read those chapters I felt the Spirit so strongly testify that the words which I was reading are true! I know the Book of Mormon is true!
Our Bishop gave a great lesson about the BofM yesterday and how it is essential for every day life and he committed the ward to read the BofM 30 minutes every day. I'd like to continue that commitment to everyone who reads this email, to read the BofM 30 minutes everyday! No one is forced to do it. I can promise to those who do this will gain a stronger testimony of the BofM and in return gain a stronger testimony of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith and the message of the Restoration. The reason that I say these things is because last night we had a meal appt with a LA family and the father was a return missionary from Chile and now he wants nothing to do with the Church, his heart is hardened. It made me so sad to see this RM like this. He had obviously lost his testimony in something and thats what caused him to leave the church. half of his family followed him. I don't want to see that happen to anyone, it's tragic! So read the Book of Mormon, it helps with every phase of our everyday life!
I love you guys lots! have a fantastic week!
Love,
Elder Spencer Bailey
another pic of my comp and I, he's super awesome!
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