Elder Garrett Horton: The temple was awesome!

1-13-14

Mom,

Starting off, I'll respond to your questions.

How was your week? This week, I think was our best week yet but even so, it wasn't all that awesome from the numbers point of view. We started working a lot in an area that's close to the limits of our area because we, or at least I, want to help the members to have a branch there so that it's easier for everyone to go to church! I know it's possible, we just have to be worthy of the help and blessings of the Lord.

How is Maria Lucia progressing? She's doing okay. She didn't come to church this past week because she had to take care of her bar. She still doesn't feel that she's reserved a response to her prayers with respect to the Book of Mormon. And it’s also hard to teach her when she works so much. The only time we have to talk with her is in her bar, and so she gets distracted a lot with other people. We'll continue to work with her. Elder Cosme is trying to baptize her still without having received any answer. I've been helping him understand why that's bad and usually he just doesn't say anything because he's trying to ignore me or starts singing some song. But we go on.

How was the temple? The temple was awesome! I really loved it! Did you end up doing it in English? And so I ended up asking for headphones because I didn't know how it would be and I used the head phones for about 3 seconds and then took them off and understood everything. It also helps that I've watched it in English like 8 times already. I saw Elder Steele there and that was really awesome to talk with them :) He said they had 12 lessons this last week with members! And 6 of those lessons were with Marcelo, the 15 year old we baptized! Marcelo really is just plain awesome. And he also said that that past Sunday, they baptized an elect couple that was just too excited for them. They were curious about the temple and stuff and Elder Steele had to tell them to wait because they had other appointments haha. I love Elder Steele. Obedient missionaries are awesome, blessed missionaries.

How are things going with E Cosme? Things are always getting better. He hasn't had a complete change of heart or anything like that but I think my example is helping him. He said also lately that he's trying to keep the rules. (From my point of view, it doesn't seem like it but maybe for him, he is) We'll see what happens with this transfer

As you look back on this transfer, what have you learned? Even though this transfer was hard, it's really given me an opportunity to learn some good lessons about mission life and life in general. I've really studied love and charity and other attributes of Christ and with certainty I'm not perfect yet in anything but I'm better. I've also learned more of how someone who is GH or fubeca thinks and that will give me a better chance to attend to these needs in the mission if I'm ever a leader. Even though it's been hard, the Lord knows what He's doing. I just have to try and seek to do His will in all things and then everything will be okay.

What blessings do you see in your life? I see...trees of green, red roses too I see 'em bloom for me and you and I think to myself, what a wonderful world. I started off with I see and then the song came into my head. I know I have blessings in my life. A lot. To name them is another thing. Good parents, raised in the gospel. To have the knowledge of the Christ's church on earth. A good trainer. I have a lot of blessings.

I ate some Tapioca last Monday. The type of tapioca was called sensação and it had chocolate, strawberry, doce de leite, coconut, and maybe one other thing but it was very good :)

We talked with a pastor this past week. That was very interesting. He said that he already studied our religion and read a good part of the Book of Mormon and he said that he found that a good part was made by man and I thought "como assim?" or "how?" basically. He talked about the multiple woman and we explained that to him. He also talked about life after death and heaven and hell and I thought "Ah, great! An opportunity to explain something" And so I grabbed my bible where it talks about the 3 kingdoms plainly and he explained it away is if it were nothing and his explanation didn't even make sense. He changed the subject a lot too whenever he didn’t know the answer. It was an interesting experience but it's amazing how hard his heart is. When I find people like him, I think, "Man, Satan really works really well. He uses the very own doctrines of Christ and scriptures to shut the hearts of the people". There are a Lot of people here that don't believe in religion in the sense that there's only one church that will save you. This is probably one of the biggest challenges in Brazil.

Also, there's a Kimberly Clark plant here in the city next to mine! I've found some people that work there and that's been cool because I've been able to talk about Dad and how he worked there. They make diapers here too!

Elder Horton