Dear Family and Friends,

This was one crazy week. We finally found an awesome house that I think we are going to live in. It has 4 rooms, 2 full bathrooms and a sweet kitchen. I feel so grown up being able to find a house to rent and stuff ha-ha. It’s actually not that hard.

This week we planned on the baptism of Nelida. She has been taught everything many times and knows all the lessons. She and her sister Edna know that this church is true but cannot take the next step of baptism because their mom will not them. Nelida actually just turned 18 this week so technically she can sign the baptismal slip because she is old enough. We went over to her house every day this week and talked to her about it. Even though she has the authority to be baptized she does not want to go against her mom, she wants her mom to support her. Her older sister was baptized in this church and the mother didn’t talk to her for 6 weeks. It is a tough situation to say the least. Finally on Friday, Nelida told us she wants to be baptized this Saturday. Later that night she then changed her mind and said she wanted to wait to see if she could help her mom understand. No matter what happens, it’s going to be tough. We are going to keep hoping and praying.

We have been continuing to visit Samira's family in Boa Entrada. This last time we went down it was like 730 at night so it was quite dark (there are not street lights there). We brought a member with us named Monday, he is from Nigeria and actually knows the family. We taught about using our faith to action and to keep the day of the Lord and come to church this Sunday. It was difficult because Samira has to work, all the kids went to Praia and the father had recently just got in a motorcycle accident and can barely walk. It’s a 35 minute walk from their house to the church. It’s going to be super tough, but we will keep trying to help their family enjoy the blessings of this restored gospel.

However we do have another sweet family we are teaching that lives in Fonta Lima (about 30 minutes from the church). The parents Ze and Nininha and their daughter Erica came to church this last week. They loved church and everyone welcomed them with open arms. We just taught them the restoration yesterday and are going to invite them to be married in our next visit. They are super awesome! We had another ward activity this Saturday. They did a karaoke type thing and they loved it. A lot of inactive and non members showed up to the church. We got to get to know them and mark appointments, it was great! There were probably 40 or more people that showed up!

The work was a little slower this last week, but we are going to kick it in to gear and keep finding and inviting this week. That is our job, to invite others to come unto Christ. I love teaching the gospel to others, it is very satisfying. I’m so glad to be here in this blessed land!

Love,

Elder Rice