Monday, July 28, 2014

O campo está branco (The field is white)


Oi família!

I hope you´re all enjoying my subject lines.  It´s fun because everyone gets to learn a little portuguese while they´re at home!  Why?  Because Portuguese is the bee´s knees.  I love it.  Even though I´m still basically stuck with the "missionary vocabulary" right now, I´m working to find more words.  I told my companion that one of my dreams is to come back to Brasil to be a translator for the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team and he said that his dream is to speak english fluently before he returns home.  So, long story short, we´re helping each other learn the native language of the other!  It´s kind of cool.  Não.  É super legal.  O Élder Tamanho está progredindo muito bem com inglês. (No, it´s super cool.  Élder Tamanho is progressing really will with english)  I´m really working lately with my accent, that Élder Tamanho says is slight, but still indicates that I´m an American.

But really, the field here is white.  We´ve got some good baptisms coming up and we´re finding new people every day.  As missionaries we hear a lot of the same phrases.  "If it works out, I´ll do it" and "I don´t want to commit to something I might not be albe to fulfill" seem to be the two predominant ones.  But, when we come across someone that is willing to fulfill our invitations, that´s when we know we´ve struck gold.  Take, for example, Junior, who we met with this week.  Junior was a contact that we did one day and marked to return.  When we returned, he was getting ready to leave, so we explained the Book of Mormon briefly, left the book and a pamphlet, and marked a return appointment.  When Élder Tamanho and I returned for the appointment, he was in his kitchen.  WE entered and on the table was his bible, the Book of Mormon, and the pamphlet we had left.  All open.  He had studied before we even got to his house.  This was awesome.  We began the lesson and he began to be a little confused about the importance of prophets and how they could see God.  The Spirit kicked in and reminded me of a scripture I hadn´t read since January. We showed him some scriptures about Moses that completely removed his doubt.  We continued teaching and he understood completely.  We hit the Restoration and I began teaching.  As I taught I felt as if I wasn´t doing anything, that the words were just pouring out of my mouth.  Then we hit the First Vision.  As I related using the words of the Prophet Joseph, the Spirit filled me until I felt like I would burst.  As I was talking I realized that my accent was completely gone.  I was speaking just like a native Brazilian.  It was an amazing lesson.  We invited him to pray and he said "you know élders, I already have.  I asked God in my prayer if what I read was true, and if it was that He would permit you guys to come back and meet with me.  Today I had a huge to-do list and I had doubts I would be home before 9.  Our appointment was for 5:30 and I managed to get her at 4:00.  I feel that this is true."  It was fantastic.  As we left Élder Tamanho and I both said "That was one of the most spiritual lessons I´ve had in my entire mission."  We saw so many promises fulfilled.  The Holy Ghost bringing scriptures to remembrance.  The gift of tongues.  The gift of testimony.  The gift to believe the testimony of others.  It was amazing.  Because the field is white in Brazil.  I love it here.  I love being a missionary.  I am sooo grateful to our Father that I can stay here.  This is truly the best two years of my life.

Amo vocês.  Tenham uma boa semana.


Élder Evans     


Well, to be honest, Brazil looks nothing like this.  We just have this one part of the area that is full of jungle-looking things and we had our cameras with us this day.  So, we took pictures.


mais uma

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