Ola Familia e Amigos

Ola Familia e Amigos!

Como vai?! Tudo bem! Entao... Donºt worry i wont write in portuguese... that would take to long and no one would understand except the people who speak portuguese and maybe the spanish speakers could pick up on a few things. I had a humbling experience with the language this week.. Haha.. you know how last week or two weeks ago i was all feeling good about it? Yeah well this week I was called to humility. haha Well kinda. But I know all my ability to do anything here on the mission is because of my Savior Jesus Christ and the enabling power of his atonement! All i have are gifts from god. I have been very blessed and i need to be better at recognizing him in every way. Being grateful. Like mom said a few weeks ago in her letter. Thanks mom!

Ok so about that experience. So i was feeling good about the language right? Well yesterday in church the bishop asks me two seconds before Sacrament meeting to give a talk :) hahaha i mean i knew these types of things happened on the mission but i didnt think they would really happen. It wasnt that bad though. it was on the Day of the Lord. Or the Sabbath day. So i focused on the Sacrament and my testimony of the Sabbath day and as missionaries do i invited us to think of the people who arent there and invite them to come next week. But really our number in sacrament meeting has been really down these past few weeks because of carnival. People party all night saturday and just dont wake up on sunday. But that really is no excuse! That is not conversion either. So we are trying to work on that. Church attendance is vital!

So this week we met a new investigator. He is the son of one of our investigators and he is awesome! This family we have been teaching is a mom and her son, Elvin. So we met her other son this week and his name is ... wait for it... ElviS.. haha funny they are so close in names and so close in personality too! It is great. So elvis studies in Sao Vicente. He is super smart. He is 18 and already almost done with his first year at the university! That never happens in cabo verde. haha people here and lucky to graduate when they are 18 or 19. It is like a HUGE accomplishment if a person isnt held back... but anyway so elvis is super smart. He came her for holidays and we taught him the first 3 lessons. He is so solid! He just sat there sooo into it. he asked all the right questions... Where did we come from, why are we here, where are we going after this life. When we taught the plan of salvation he was so into it and so excited to pray to know if it was true! He was a ray of sunshine to our kind of stormy week. The only thing with elvis is he doensnºt live in our area so we had to give him as a reference to the elders! So they have a baptism coming up pretty soon with him. he is solid. It was funny, when we left we said "Bye Elvis, See you in the Celestial Kingdom" haha he laughed really hard... but honestly that will probably be the next time we see him. He wont be back to santo antao until august. Hey, who knows, maybe i will be here too :) haha

So yes this week was kind of a downer! We have so many people who have this great potential but things keep happening. For example, Elvisºs mom got a new job in interior so she wont be back for 2 months... ugh. And then another solid person got a new job and she is working on sundays now instead of having work only on monday through friday! ugh. And then all the people who seem great dont come to church!

Church... We ask people to do three things. Pray, Read the Book of mormon, and COME TO CHURCH. If they only read and pray they are doing 2/3rds of what they need to do and therefore they fail! Church is so important and people cannot get baptized until they come to church. They cannot open the door to the celestial kingdom unless they are baptized. All we teach them is to get people to that point. Yes it sounds a little weird, maybe selfish... but we cant have eternal life if we are not baptized by the proper authority like christ was baptized. 2 Nephi 31: 10-11 i think. Baptism. It is the way by which we NEED to enter. And so that is our purpose. To invite others to come unto christ and they cant do that if they are not baptized. Anyway i know that it is a process. But i was feeling a little awkward at times inviting people to be baptized or to keep reminding people about the date they have. but i cant have fear inviting them to make one of the best decisions of their life.

I love this work and this gospel! The gospel is simple people. Faith, repentance, BATISMO, receive the gift of the holy ghost, and endure to the end. Endure to the temple and then to the end. I also have realized that baptism is the door, but there is a path that leads to the temple that is so sweet :) The temple should be the goal as well. Not just the baptism... but the temple :) I love you all! Keep being great missionaries.

Love Sister Johnson