Modi que nhos sta?
This has been a week that Elder Christensen and I have waited for, for a LONG time!! Such an incredible week. We started off our week getting on the boat on Sunday to go to Praia for zone conference. On Monday we played soccer with the entire Praia zone, which was super fun, I made 3 goals, I was pretty impressed haha. We hung out in Praia and did a division with some of the companionships there. I went to a family night with an Elder, named Elder Amado (he is from the island of Fogo). After the family night I went and switched with another Elder, named Elder Dorf (my grandson on the mission haha). Like 10 minutes later we recieved a call that Elder Amado (who I was with like 10 minutes prior) and Elder Conduanhe had just gotten ''Cash or Bodied", which is basically a mugging where they have a knife and ask for all the things you have or they cut you up. The Elders got robbed, it was a miracle it wasn't me because I literally had all of my mission pictures with me, my camera, some wedding papers for the assistants and my scriptures (which honestly at this point is the most valuable thing I have, I have put some many hours into marking them). Yeah it was pretty close, but everything is fine now!
On the brighter side, we had the MOST incredible zone conference I have ever gone to on the mission. Everything that was said just inspired me to be a more effective and harder working missionary. There was a training on doing inspired questions to help investigators think, open up and apply gospel principles. Everything that comes out of President Oliveira’s mouth inspires me. He taught us how there is no goal more worthy than that of coming unto Christ, for our investigators and for ourselves. As members of the church, we must purify our hearts, repent of our bad habits and sins and never return to do them. If it is a bad thought, or frustration or anger, we must abandon them and develop Christ like attributes. That hit me. I learned so much, and I just want to be so much better now.
We woke up at 3:00am to get on the boat on Wednesday to return to Maio. To our wonderful return we still had tons of water problems in our house. I don’t think I have ever lived in a house that has good water and electricity, but thats all right I’m in Africa (kind of). However we got a guy to fix it and now it’s a bit better, it just required that he opened a pipe in our bathroom that destroyed everything and got water EVERYWHERE, but its fixed now (kind of, haha).
After coming back from Praia we talked to Ider and Julio who are preparing for baptism on the 15th of February. They have TRANSFORMED, they are so incredible. They are reading in the Book of Mormon and they say they just feel light, and pure and clean. They love reading in the Book of Mormon. Its incredible how the Spirit can change a person in such a drastic way. Julio even came with us yesterday to walk, teach and testify with us, it was incredible. I love em.
On Friday we had the WEDDING of Maruca. YES, it finally happened. After waiting for 3 months for the documents and marking the marriage date and everything, it has finally happened. It was a beautiful ceremony, Maruca and Fatinha both looked super good. They had a little party afterwards at their house with some food and desserts, it was super cool. But the best part was the baptism on Saturday. Maruca has been freaking out to get baptized and finally the day has come. When he came out of the water he couldn’t stop laughing and smiling, we gave him the biggest hug in the water, it was such a beautiful moment that I will never forget! Maruca is going to be a great leader of the church.
Church was a giant success, we had 20 people. Our next 5 planned and marked baptisms all showed up to church and they all loved it. It is amazing, absolutely amazing that no matter how big the church is, even until 10 or 15 or 20 people, when we testify of the Restored Gospel the Spirit comes to our hearts. We don't need a giant chapel, cathedral, fancy clothes, money or anything else. We just need to testify of truth and the Spirit will teach and transform us. What a huge blessing it is to open up the church here on Maio.
Love,
Elder Rice