Hey Everyone!
I hope you all had a great 4th of July. Much
like Christmas, it was very hard to imagine that the 4th was happening there in
the states. The atmosphere is completely different here, and it's cooler than
ever!
We had a great week! We had a conference to meet our new
mission president, President Cabral from Forteleza! He's incredibly funny and
very animated. He has brought an entirely new vision to the mission and has
made some awesome changes in the teaching format here.
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| An actual photo of Itaborai from Cooper. |
His whole theme is to not only focus on the baptism, but
bringing the converts to the temple. He has made an emphasis on
teaching ALL the lessons before the investigators are baptized, we have to
bring the teaching records to every baptismal font to make sure everything was
taught, (which will also help missionaries maintain the area books) and then we
MUST teach them all the lessons again after baptism. These are all things that
should be done but because our focus had been different many times, those
important things fell through the cracks. I'm excited for more teaching before
the baptism, more people truly prepared to make a sacred covenents and to live
it, and not just to stop at the baptism but to continue on, helping them go to
the temple! Exciting stuff!
We had two amazing highlights this week. One was with
A. I dont think I've quite explained her story yet. Her husband J was
baptized a little over a year ago, and since that time the missioanaries have
been working with her. She has had a date for baptism before but they always fell through. When me and my comp came here together to
open this area she was passed to us from the other Elders. I was a bit anxious
at first, because the trade in a missionary can be difficult, you have to
rebuild that trust, and in this case both were switching out. We had to start
from scratch, but maybe that's just what she needed. We focused on building trust
and getting to know her, showing her that we are here only to help, not pushing
the word baptism too much and helping her be ready. She goes to church every Sunday, and after a year she's pretty much a member, just without baptism. She
knows she wants to be baptized and that's why we didn't want to push it too much.
Well this week we brought the heavy artillery. My comp testified about his family and how
his father and mother both drank and smoked and how they overcame it. We let the Spirit work with her. I love silence, it's one of the best
techniques in teaching. We let her think. After some time I asked how she was
feeling. She said "normal", trying to
hold back the tears. We let it sit for another few minutes. I then asked,
"what are you thinking about?" She responded "a lot of
things". She's a person that doesn't like to express how she is feeling,
likes to keep it all inside, but it was clear that she was having a very strong
spiritual moment. J was a but uncomfortable with the silence and kept making
whistle sounds but not even that could break the intensity of the moment. He
closed the message and invited her to pray. She hasnt prayed once with the
missionaries and she did this time! PROGRESS. After the prayer she said, "It won't take long for my baptism" INTENSE.
We also taught a new family this week. We contacted J with her son B in the street a few weeks ago She started telling us about
her son that past away a year ago and told he a bit about the Plan of Salvation. We had a great lesson with her and her husband J. We taught a bit of the Restoration, everything about
the Plan of Salvation and also about the Gospel of Christ. They agreed to come
to Church and on Sunday morning we went, picked them up and brought them to
church. In Elders Quorum they disputed about watching television on Sundays and I was kinda afraid about what J would think. Gospel Principles [Sunday School class] went well and
we talked about service. After the class, J wasn't feeling well, she
doesn't sleep well anymore, hardly eats and is just suffering to put it best, because of her son. She wanted to leave but she managed to stay for the best
part- Testimony meeting. She said she was immediately feeling better once the
meeting got started. The testimonies went well. I think what struck them the
most was a testimony from a 12 year old girl from the ward. She spoke about
faith, better than I can, and talked about how she has faith that her father
(a nonmember) will stop drinking and smoking, become a member of the church
someday and she she will finally hear from him that he loves her. She was
emotional and it was fantastic. What this girl goes through
must have struck them deep. They are excited to come to church next week!
Fantastic Week. There were even more wonderful things that
happened, but that's all I have time for for now. I thank you all for the prayers
this week for our investigators, they truly were answered!
I love you all!
Elder Siebers
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