Bom Dia!!

Last P-Day, we went to Praia so that Elder Reeser could buy a camera. Praia (the main city) is like a 45 minute drive by car. They have this sweet little stand that sells hamburgers. They are not super quality but its a hamburger nonetheless. We were going to have the baptism for Elsa this week, but early in the week she got a call from her mom in Portugal. Her mom wants to see her baptism, so she is going to wait until her mom comes.

However, we do have a baptism for this next coming week named Vera. Man, she is awesome! Every time we give her a section in the Book of Mormon to read, she reads and tells us everything that happened! She had quite a rough past, but she is ready to change her life all the way and dedicate it to the gospel forever. She is 24 and used to live in Holland, but is now here with her mom and stay for some time. She got to watch the baptism that happened yesterday and she couldn’t stop smiling!

Funny thing is there was supposed to be a baptism on Saturday but when we arrived and looked at the font, there were two dead rats just chilling in the font. We had to drain the entire font, clean it with bleach and sanitize it. We filled it up and had the baptism on Sunday instead.

We have two sisters that are investigators named Edna and Nelida. They are super sweet, we actually went over one day and made pizza with them it was sweet! They have a huge desire to follow the church and be baptized, but right now their mom will not give them permission. She didn’t give them permission to go to church this last Sunday, it was kind of sad. We are going to try our best to help the mom realize the desire they have, i really hope that everything works out.

We were shopping in this Chinese little store when this girl named Samira came up to us and said she really liked our church and she wanted to learn about it. We found out that she lived in a section called Boa Entrada, or Good Entrance (i believe). We went down one night to find that Boa Entrada was a HUGE area that was straight downhill. We had no idea where she lived so we just kept asking people if they knew Samira. Strangely enough everyone knew who Samira was. They would point us to a place; we would ask someone else and then keep walking. After about 25 minutes of walking we finally found her house!! We knocked on the door and the father of the family told us to come right in. We ended up sitting down with a family of like 10 people! She gave a short message of our purpose as missionaries and gave them a brief explanation of the restoration. They are a super humble and open family. I hope that we can see some progress with their family.

As we were trying to teach our investigator Jota we ended up running into his sister Tatiyana. She got to sit down with her and do a little lesson. She is super cool, she plays handball and might be going to Angola for a tournament. She has a child and is very open. We taught her the restoration yesterday and she accepted to be baptized. I know good things will happen with her.

This Saturday, we helped the ward leaders plan an activity for the entire ward to help strengthen and unify the youth and adults. We had a movie night at the church and they watched The Other Side of Heaven in Portuguese. They had juice, popcorn, cookies and a projector. It turned out to be a super success! We are going to try to help the ward plan activities every Saturday night!

I have been reading the New Testament and learning so much. A verse that I liked a lot is Romans 1:16-17.

I think I was a little scared to share that I was a member of church at home, but in reality, this is the message of salvation, of happiness, forgiveness. How could I be so selfish to not share that with someone else? Don’t be scared to open your mouth and share, in that moment you will be filled with the words that you should say. I love the gospel so much!

LOVE,

Elder Rice