Nhos sta diret!?!?

It’s been such an incredible week! I love serving here in Maio! I love our recent converts, they are like our best friends. I can’t describe how awesome these people are. They have left everything behind, their old habits, addictions, friends, and family, to serve the Lord. They are so incredible.

We had a super awesome Family Home Evening at the church this week. We talked about the importance of choosing good friends that have the same standards that we have. The problem here in Maio is that EVERYONE talks. Everyone is always talking bad and criticizing the church and trying to take our members off of the path. It’s so important to choose friends that will be good influences and help us to better than who we are. If they don’t help us to be better, they are going to make us lower our standards and become worse, be very careful. Afterward we played Charades and everyone loved it. People walking on the street were looking into the building and were super interested so we invited them in to play with us and eat some cookies. It was a spectacular moment.

 One of our recent converts, Kakaka is on fire. We taught him and his friend Gilson the restoration and at the end asked them if they had anyone that they wanted to have the same happiness they have from the Restored Gospel. Kakaka said, yeah, I know someone, I invited him to church. Kakaka invited his friend Elton to the family night and he came and loved it. Elton has been prepared by the Lord. He has a hunger for the word of God and wants to change his life. Elton came to a few classes during the week, we taught him and now he is preparing to be baptized. Member references are so critical in missionary work. Talking to our non-member friends and family about the gospel is so essential. It doesn’t have to be anything un natural. Just testify of the happiness that has blessed your family from the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no greater blessing in this life than eternal family happiness. Show your friends the happiness that you have and let them know they can have the same thing if they sit down with 2 messengers of God (Elders or Sisters) and hear the Plan of Happiness. 90% of our baptisms here happened solely by the fact of references and member present lessons. We have 15 members here and this works. Search to testify in small and simple ways to your friends, do not fear and open your mouth and the Spirit will take the message to their hearts. I know this true.

We made a street contact the other day and planned to teach a woman named Elsa. As we passed by at the marked hour, Elsa was not there, but we did find her friend Lena. Lena has great interest in the Gospel. She is a single mother, raising 5 kids. She has financial problems and lives in a house (room) the size of a normal sized bathroom. She told us that since the day that we started talking to her, she has started to pray with more sincerity and faith. And since that day, the Lord has not stopped to bless her family. She said that all the stress and weight that was on her just disappeared and she feels great. She really wants to keep learning so her and her family can be blessed. A very humble and sweet lady.

We have been working a lot with Dona Ducha's daughter Elizandra. Elizandra has had a rough past and has been living in sin, completely miserable and sad. Even until now she hasn’t left her sins behind and is suffering because of it. Whenever we talk to her she always seems to be angry. However, yesterday, we had a some members present a lesson with her (not on purpose), we had Ta, her mom, Ducha and also Nino just happened to walk in. They all testified of their process of repentance, how they abandoned all their sins and were born again. I think this really touched her. Elizandra accepted to repent of her sins and be baptized. It was fantastic.

This Saturday we did a service project. Our recent convert Ta, went to the ''City hall'' and asked if there was any service we could do and he got the approval for us to clean small piece of earth. Basically we just sawed down trees, picked up dead plants and weeds, cleaned up the garbage and straightened the place up. It was a great opportunity to create union between the members. The feeling of serving others is something so extraordinary, I love it so much. I just want to help all the people I possibly can, that’s what Christ would do.

At church we had 27 people!! Once again we left all the responsibilities to the members, I just played piano. We are teaching them how to teach classes so that they can start doing that on their own. We still haven’t become a branch, but realistically it should happen any day now, we have been waiting for 3-4 weeks now. Super exciting.

There is nothing better than being a missionary. To study and expound the Words of Christ, proclaiming faith and repentance to this people. I love testifying with the Spirit and watching people transform their lives from miserable to incredible happy. I love the work, i have learned so much and i will not forget it.

Love,

Elder Rice