Birthday & Baptisms (Week 67)

Hi everyone!

This week was great! We began by having the multi-zone conference on Tuesday morning and we received lots of good teachings from President. He taught us how we could avoid having a victim attitude when it comes to things going wrong in missionary work. We always have to recognise where we went wrong and how we can improve. In fact, it's all about repentance and oh how wonderful repentance is! :) The multi-zone ended a bit late and we had planned for Luis and Geane's baptism that same evening. We rushed to the chapel and happily everything worked out well!

The baptism went very well, a lot of members were present and they felt loved and important. To see this young couple join their children as members of the church was lovely, in one year's time they will be entering the temple to be sealed for all eternity. I showed a picture of the Campinas Temple to them and told them in one year they would be getting married all over again and they gave smiles of great joy. This gospel is PERFECT! :)

Last week we were teaching a young man called Marcos. He is 15 years old and moved from a different state here in Brasil and now lives with his uncle and cousins. When we got there to teach him we saw a Book of Mormon on the stand. We were very pleased to hear that the missionaries had passed there before many years ago and that they happened to be looking through the book that same week. We taught the Restoration, left the commitment of reading and praying and he accepted. He was the only one in his family to keep the commitment of reading and on Sunday he turned up by himself in his suit. Everyone thought he was a member already! We struggled to find him in his house the whole week but kept sending him reading assignments in the Book of Mormon. We invited him to pray about baptism and if he should be baptised. When we returned to follow-up with this challenge he said that he prayed and received an answer that the church is true and he should be baptised. We were very happy and so was he buuut... his face changed a bit and he said that unfortunately the decision wasn't just up to him but that his family in the other state had not supported him. He has a testimony already and the desire to do God's will. It's interesting to see that sometimes people who have the freedom to follow God and His commandments choose not to and that those who have the most desire and know for a certainty of the truth are limited by family, friends, government etc. I am sure the family of this elect young man will have their hearts soften and I pray he will not forget his answer despite the few obstacles that seemed to have appeared in his way.

On Saturday it was my twentieth birthday! :D Weird to be out of my teens now but I feel exactly the same actually. Elder King made me realise how many milestones I've reached in this last decade of my life and it's been a lot actually. Thought I hadn't done much with my life so far but when he began listing all the things I began to be reminded of how much God has worked in the life of my family and my own life. It's been an awesome 20 years. :) Two recent convert families made me cake which was really nice! Liliana and Brendon's family made cake, brigadeiro and then, as I was leaving, absolutely pelted me with eggs and flour. That's a birthday tradition here in Brasil, don't ask me why. It was a good thing that our house is close! We ran home, I got changed and we went to the chapel.

That same day, the Zone Leaders had the baptism of Bruno, Geane's younger brother! It was awesome that in this one year, 6 members of the same family have been baptised. Geane's dad was baptised 6 years ago and due to his faithfulness, many of his family have followed in his footsteps. It was great to see the joy in his eyes as he baptised his son. Luis bore an incredible testimony of his conversion to the gospel in the baptismal meeting. Not gonna lie, I shed a tear or two! :') Afterwards, we had another birthday cake! #fatty

You're probably wondering what happened with little Eduardo from last week's blog! Well, needless to say, he stayed firm and was baptised on Sunday! His mother texted during the week saying that Edu was very decided that the 4th of December would be his "big day" and he was reading all the scriptures we had left with him. At his baptism, a lot of the ward stayed behind and Jennifer, the member who had brought Mara back to church many years ago before she fell away again, was there too. The spirit was wonderful and the ward was rejoicing for this lost sheep that had been rescued through the lost camera. :)

After the meeting today we went to the Outback Steakhouse for my birthday lunch with President, it was awesome! I made lots of questions about university and career options and now I am more certain of what I want to do! It'll all work out! :D

LOVE YOU!

Elder Torres