Week 32

Boa tarde!

This week flew! We had a baptism of Arthur! This young man is so smart! We had his baptism at 10 in the morning. It was a little crazy. The night before we were sleeping in a different area. So we woke up early, caught the first van, and then a bus, and returned to our area. The chapel is way long from where our area is (this is where we have baptisms). Long story short, we were able to call an Uber for our investigators so they could arrive to be baptized. Yayy!

Business trip!!!

So this week we also traveled to Codó. It's three hours away. We worked with Elder Lusk from California and Elder Campos from São Paulo. We left at seven in the morning and returned home the next day around four in the afternoon.  We were able to help them change some of their weaknesses into strengths, which was awesome to see happen.

Last night we had a cool experience. At this one appointment, there was a lady that wanted to learn more about the church. But really she just wanted to debate about religion. Her son later came to join the discussion. He was super interested. We taught about the Restoration of Christ's Gospel upon the earth and about the Book of Mormon. About every two minutes, he would say, “Wait wait, so this leads to this, and because of this we have this....” I have never had an investigator that understood everything like him. BUT, in the end, they wouldn't accept a Book of Mormon or an invite to pray to know if these things were true. Why? I mean he understood all of the doctrine, all of the principles as truths. But what he didn't have was the spirit--he wasn't ready or open to listening to the Holy Ghost. His heart was locked shut. We don't need to have complete knowledge to know if these things are true; we just need the spirit to testify to us that these things are true. It's not the doctrine that converts us--It's the Spirit. All of the people that we've helped to be baptized didn't even understand the doctrine as he did. But they were converted by the Spirit.

Thank you all so much for your e-mails and prayers. They are awesome!

Have an awesome week!

Love,

Elder Hillam

 Exchanges with the Elder Lusk and Elder Campos

Trip to Codó!

 Arthur's Baptism

 My Road Trip Friend!!

Trip to Codó!