8 Months

Família!

Oi, tudo bem? Eu acho que eu só vou escever em Portuguese hoje. Nevermind...

Well, reports for the week - it was a good one. We worked (honestly could´ve worked harder this week though I was pretty exhausted) but next week  we´ll work even harder. We´ve got a wedding to restart and interviews with President, not to mention all the training studying everyday, but it should be a fun one.

We had a baptism for a man named Marcos. It was fantastic! Ha after he passed  the baptismal interview I called the rest of his family in to invite them to the baptism. His mom, on hearing he would ´deny´ their family religion, flipped out. The man´s 28 years old though. It was funny. Anyway, I explained to her how no one can get baptized without an answer from God and that they were welcome to come see what the church is like ( a lot of people have weird ideas about the church  because a lot of supernatural things go on here and they ´re fairly normal.) His parents and sister ended up going to church and watching the baptism! It was awesome! The service went really well too! We´re going there tonight to teach the rest of the family.

We´re also teaching an older woman who´s been Catholic her whole life. She has many family members in the church and is now going every week. She is also preparing for baptism. I´m excited for her. She used to hate the church and kicked out her daughter years ago when she decided to serve a mission. It´s amazing to see how the Lord prepares people - and it doesn´t always happen right away. But we can have faith and trust Him because He knows His children and what they need for their happiness. We just need to do everything we can and then leave it up to Him.

  Well, this week I´ve been thinking a lot about the  great men of the world and of God. There is a man here known as President Cabral. 20 years ago he was the stake president here. He´s a legend. The church grew SOOO much when he was serving. At the time he was called he had been a member for 2  years. He´s now on the high counsel and working with our weaker ward. I´m so excited to have him here working with us. Things should start happening now. He´s very practical in his thinking. W e have to act. It´s that simple. Work. I t´s something that I´ve come to realize in my short time in the field. We can change things. We can change the world. We are children of God with so much potential. If we just do it in accordance with His will, anything and everything is possible. We just have to act in faith. I thought about how Napoleon and Alexander the Great must have felt realizing that they could change civilizations and nations. The same power is ours. But we fight for good. We fight for righteousness. It is amazing to see the power and potential we have. I am realizing it as my 19 year old companion and I build up, not our kingdom but God´s here in this part of Brazil. The capacity to work and do is real. We just have to have the desire to do it an then JUST DO IT. So, work hard and accomplish things. Change the world. It´s more possible than you think. That´s why you need to be an influence for good to everyone around you.

Love you all,

Elder Hodson