Hey!!!

Santa Maria is INCREDIBLE!!! I love this place, i want to finish my mission here for sure!! Santa Maria is new just like Maio. There are a lot of things going on here that I learned how to do in Maio, so it should be really good. There have been a lot of missionaries that have passed here since it has opened and many people have been baptized but few have stayed active. We are here to create leaders. We are here to find the Lord’s elect, help them to develop their own testimony that helps them to endure to the end, independent of the missionaries that are here. One of the first priorities I made when I got here was to get know ALL of the members and their homes. That is so essential in missionary work, to gain the trust of the members. Know their kids, their family, their cat their dog, just get to know them and show them that you love them. We passed by and shared a short message with a scripture to help strengthen their faith. The results were instantaneous!! I can already see that the members have a greater trust in us and are more willing to help us in this great cause. Our vision is to help the members be more spiritually mature, to help the branch become, a family! That is what we did in Maio and it gave great results, we will do it again.

Here in Santa Maria I am serving with Elder Welch, he is from Orem, Utah. He is a super awesome and funny Elder. I have loved serving with him, I know we will work in union and have great success here. When I got here in the beginning we were a triple with Elder Otterstrom. Elder Otterstrom was my trainer in Fogo, we served together as zone leaders in Assomada and now we are serving together for the third time here in Santa Maria. I didn’t know that it was possible to serve three times together, but I have loved each time more than the other. Elder Otterstrom is a righteous, just, diligent and obedient missionary, he is a great example. We had a great week together. Yesterday we flew out to Praia, because his mission has ended and he will be heading back home. He had a great mission.

During the last two weeks (the week before I got here and the week I was here) we have found 36 new investigators. We have been talking to everyone and in the process we have found many people that are prepared for the Restored Gospel that are taking the steps of repentance to come unto Christ and preparing to be baptized.

We have been working with a woman named Judith. Judith is a single mom, with four kids living in a small house without lights or water. The only work she has is to sell alcohol and donuts. We taught her about the Word of Wisdom and about how harmful these substances are. She said that she would immediately stop selling the alcohol. What faith!! Not having a husband to provide money or any financial support, just knowing that it is a commandment of God that will bring numerous blessings. She is preparing to be baptized on the 14 of June. One day while we were teaching Judith, her sister, Shinea walked in the room, she was coming to pick up her kid. We offered for Shinea to sit down, even though we were at the end of our lesson. She sat just as we were talking about baptism. We invited her to be baptized when she knew that for herself that this was the only true church on the face of the earth, she agreed but she was a bit shaky. We invited her to church and she said, I know if it’s going work this week I have a lot of things to do. We taught her very simply the Day of the Lord is the day we have to worship God and nothing else. She said she would try. We passed by early on Sunday morning and saw that she was putting some washed clothes on the line to dry. We helped her and she managed to prepare on time to come to church. She came to church and LOVED it. We took Judith and Shinea to a film night yesterday and now they are both preparing to be baptized on the 14th of June.

 Our baptismal goal for this week is Jezidel. Jezidel is 17 years old and she wants to be baptized, just that her mom will not let here. We had a super great lesson about 1 Nephi 3:7, that the Lord will never give us an order without preparing a way that it may be fulfilled. We testified that baptism is a commandment of God. We asked her if she believed that God would prepare a way for her to be baptized, she said ´´yes´´. Without a shadow of a doubt, we will get the moms permission and she will be baptized. As representatives of Jesus Christ, speaking by the power of the Holy Ghost, she will not have power to deny our words. We are going to talk to her mom, be her friend and figure this out.

At church this Sunday we had 43 people!!! What a blessing! We will never drop below 43 people attending church that is our goal. Each week we will bring someone new and continue to increase the frequency. I’m so excited to work here.

Love,

Elder Rice