Elder Garrett Horton: 6 People at Church!

You can write to Elder Horton at garrett.horton@myldsmail.net Missionaries love letters!!

11-11-13

It's good to hear about how everything is going with all of you and I'm happy to hear that everything seems to be going good!

We did a division...Same thing in English? I went with one brother and Elder Steele went with another. The Danilo and I went to teach a reference from another dupla of missionaries for the first time and so this was the first time that I taught basically all by myself the whole first lesson and it actually went pretty good! I had Danilo talk about the ministry of Jesus Christ on Earth and the Book of Mormon and the man we were teaching, Wagner, accepted all the invitations...unfortunately we visited him again and he basically dropped us but that’s okay because it was a good experience for me and we're teaching people who are a lot more prepared than he is to hear the gospel.

Elder Steele and I had a cool experience. We were going to a members house mainly to ask for their son to work with us and also to leave a small message with them and so it was my turn to leave a message and I like to try and leave messages that can actually help people in their lives and I felt like sharing the story of the people of Alma in Mosiah 24 when they were under the captivity of the Lamanites and how instead of getting angry with the lord when times got tough they prayed and even when they couldn't pray they opened up their hearts to the Lord. And as a result the Lord strengthened them that their burdens were made light. I noted in the mensagemzinho (little message, very cute way of saying it) that the Lord didn't just take away their trials and tribulations. He made it so that they could handle them and made them easier to carry! And then when the time was right, he removed them from captivity. I applied this story to our life here on earth and the sister, Simone, said, almost crying, that the message was an answer to her prayers and I thought. Nossa....que legal! I wouldn't say I'm a full-fledged instrument in the Lord's hands but I would definitely say that I'm trying and that when I am, it fills me with great joy.

One day we were finishing up doing a contact on the street and I looked to the other side of the street and there was a man who was waving at us. He crossed the street and started to talk with us and he told us his name is Jean Carolos and he also said he is an alcoholic and that he's tried lots of different things to try and stop drinking alcohol but nothing works and he said he saw us a couple of times and this time he decided to talk with us because he knew we were men of God and he really needed help. We decided to walk with him to his casa and try to get to know him and his situation a bit better. He told us of all of his problems that have come with drinking alcohol. That he fought with his wife and that it’s really messing his life up in a lot of ways. He was very emotional and crying sometimes when we were talking with him. We gave him a priesthood blessing of health and left the house and returned Saturday to talk with him but he hadn't returned from work yet but we met his son, Marcelo and his son went to church with us and I'll talk more about Marcelo next paragraph

This past Sunday we had 6 people at church! The most yet! It was very cool. Ana (mãe) e Adriele (Filha), Marcelo (15), Vitor (21), Wellington (pai) e Jonaton (filho). The numbers are ages. Marcelo and Vitor both appear elect and they're both very excited about church and have accepted to be baptized this Sunday with our help and preparation. A lot of people accept this commitment but unfortunately not as many follow through. I've been learning this as I've been here. But I think Marcelo and Vitor really have a good chance and I'm happy that we've been able to find them. The really awesome thing that Elder Steele pointed out yesterday that I hadn't thought of yet was that he moved here about 3 months ago. Just a little bit of time before we both got transferred here. How cool is that! Coincidence? I think not. Marcelo is a really cool guy too, he's tall for his age and he likes math, science, reading, and writing. We were talking with him and his father last night. We were mostly talking with Jean Carlos and helping him with his alcoholism. Giving him support. Giving him means to avoid alcohol. Helping him find strength in prayer and in Christ. It was a really good conversation we had with him. He really has a strong desire to be better. A cool thing was that he drank a little bit after the first day we talked with him but since then he hadn't drank anything. We're going to call him every day at least and give him support. After we closed with a prayer we were talking and I mentioned how much I like science and chemistry and stuff and Marcelo mentioned he had a chemistry book and I said "nossa que legal!" very excitedly. He grabbed it for me and I was looking through it and it was wayyy cool seeing science in Portuguese. It was like a fun way of demonstrating science basics with cool pictures and stuff and I thought that was way cool. Then he asked me if I knew Stephen Hawking and I said Heck yes I do! (Or something similar in Portuguese) and he grabbed Another book! By Stephen Hawking! Who is super super super smart! And it was great it was all about astrophysics and stuff like black holes and worm holes and everything I love. And it was in Portuguese :) I think I'll ask to borrow it for next p-day. I'd love to read it. I miss science. Sometimes when I'm feeling a bit unexcited I'll do science to excite myself :)

As some people are baby hungry, I'm baptism hungry. I want to baptize someone but I don't mean just baptism. I want to actually help people to come unto Christ and to actually build their testimony of the Book of Mormon, the Prophet Joseph Smith, and the Church. I'm excited to be here serving this mission even though some days it’s really hard. My goal for the end of my mission is that the Lord will be able to say to me "Well done thou good and faithful servant." That would make my mission perfect.

I love you all,
Elder Horton