Made My Mission Worth It...

Terceiro: story book sky
Primeiro: Alexandre and his family at the baptism. Mom is active member, dad is a recent convert who refuses to stop smoking, brother and sister arent members.
Segundo: The five of us, the three baptizees and Elder Schoen and I

Well, glad to hear that the art workshop in Seattle went well! So the Goeslings are all doing great? Tell Talia that I say hi too. I hope you had a fun and safe drive home! I am completely forgetting that things are starting to get icey up there, as the sun is really starting to bake. Go Brasil!

Super cool that you are getting in touch with some of your old friends.

Anyways, onnnnnnnnnn to the week.

So, this week has been pretty awesome. To start things off, we had an amazing baptism on saturday, of three rapazes. It was a super cool event with lots of people there and lots of good feelings. I am super excited about all three, more priesthood for the ward! Woot! Can you believe that there are some missionaries go their entire missions without baptizing priesthood? It just is tougher, women have more open hearts i guess. Anyways, about them...their names are Lucas, Rodrigo and Alexandre. Lucas and Rodrigo are brothers, they are 12 and 13 years old, and live in pretty poor conditions. Their dad is a recent convert/less active, but they have been getting super excited about the church recently. I really think the main difference with them was leaving The Other Side of Heaven with them to watch. Now they are stoked to be missionaries...already they teach people how to pray whenever we go over there. It was cool. Now we need to get their mom. Also, the other baptism is the one that i am most excited for. His name is Alexandre, is 26 years old, is divorced, and has one son (but is living with his ex wife down in Floripa). So, this guy has changed a ton...when i started teaching him about 6 months ago, he had problems with everything, chastity, word of wisdom, you name it. However, it just goes to chow the miraculous power of Christ. He has stopped all of these things, and is super excited to stay strong in the church. His primary motivation is to be able to be the type of father that his son needs, to be worthy to take care of his son. It has been super cool to see his change. This guy has basically made my mission worth it.

After that, we had an awesome sunday, with tons of people at church. We got some of our other investigators to go, and we had another miracle! Almost forgot. So, remember that family that we took to São Paulo to see the temple? Well, they have all been pretty excited to get into the church. The husband (Antonio) and the son (Felipe) have been coming every week since. However, the wife (Josefa) was working every sunday. So, without 2 sundays at church, people cant be baptized, so she has been working super hard to try to change her schedule, to trade with people, to make stuff happen so that the family could get baptized. Just when it looked like we were going to have to move their baptism date to december, her employer randomly offered her a different schedule! HALLELUJAH! It was awesome. She went to church, loved it, and is going to be able to come every week now. Another family that has basically made my mission worth it.

We found some other cool new people, and we went to sorocaba to play soccer and eat churrasco (brazi bbq) today. Gosh, my neck is pretty burned haha. But, all is well.

Elder Bry

ps. :) i am starving for some home news/gossip, everyone please send me some via my Mom at cbriggsdesigns@yahoo.com and she'll forward it to me.