12-1-14 Passover feast

12-1-14

Family!

We had a baptism! I don't remember if I told you last week (I think I did) but Maria do Socorro was baptized! She was super happy and excited. She's the cousin of our relief society president and she was happy too. I'm happy I had the opportunity to help her come to Jesus Christ through His church. And the best part is that she has so much support already in the church. As long as she stays here in Pinda for a bit, she'll never go inactive :) Elder Bolognini forgot his camera for now so I'll have to send the pictures later.

Hey dad, you remember that one time that we imitated a Passover feast with the seminary in Greenville and you cooked up lamb? I've been reading in the Old Testament and I read about the Passover feast and you're actually supposed to leave the lamb whole without even breaking a bone to represent Jesus Christ who didn't break a bone. Interesting huh? I'm surprised how much symbolism I'm finding in the Old Testament and how many references I'm finding to Jesus Christ

Mom, dad, did you guys ever read All of the Old Testament? I imagine the answer is yes but I'm just curious.

Also dad, I wanted to thank you for being a good example to me with respect to home teaching. Thanks for always giving the example and marking the appointments and taking me with you. In that time, I didn't understand the importance of what we were doing or how important are visits were but today I know how important it was. Thanks dad for your help and example. You're a good dad.

Have you guys seen the thing that the church is doing with Christmas? It's awesome! They're doing it in Brasil too. But I don't know if my branch received materials to do it... :/ but I hope you guys have the opportunity to share this video and invite to your friends and coworkers! Put the link on my Facebook please.  http://www.mormon.org/christmas

I would like to invite you guys (everyone who reads this letter) to put on a music from the church and get a piece of paper and a pencil. While the music is playing, write down the names of everyone who comes to your mind. Then ask in prayer that Heavenly Father shows you which of those people you guys should talk with about the gospel. And then tell the missionaries and mark a night for you and this person and the missionaries to go to your home and share the gospel, I think it's a good idea. We did that with some of the members and together, we received 15 referrals this last week. Cool huh?

This last week, we were at a brother's house and we found out that he sells like beauty products, cosmetic stuff (which is kind of funny in itself because he's like 70) but he said he's already sold like 2000 reais of stuff in a couple months which isn't half bad. He showed us a cream that removes hairs! Like you put it on your leg or arm and leave it for like 10 minutes and then when you take off the cream, you don't have any more hair on that part of your skin! He said it lasts like 3 or 4 months. I put a bit on my arm to try it out and it worked! But only like a square inch of my arm, it’s not that noticeable. But I was amazed, I didn't know that this kind of thing existed! Maybe I'll gift my future wife with this cream :)

Black Friday! I think it was the first time I bought something on black Friday. I bought 3 jars of Nutella and Ferrero rocher all with about a 40 percent discount. Brasil started doing Black Friday just last year so it's a new thing for them.

I gave a talk in church yesterday. Brother Domingos (which in English is Sundays) called me Saturday night to give the talk. The good news is that, as almost any other missionary, I didn't need a lot of time to prepare a good talk. I feel like my talk touched the needs of the branch and helped everyone also to focus a bit more on missionary work. I was going to talk more about missionary work but the president's counselor was already tapping my foot like "It's time to stop now!!" I only talked for 17 minutes :/ I wanted to talk for like 30. I only used like half of the material that I prepared. I started off stating that I would talk about spiritual growth. Then I talked about our potential as human beings to become, one day, as God, using many scriptures to prove that doctrine and I could tell by the looks on the people's faces that they understood, even the investigators. Then I talked about the attributes of Christ from Preach My Gospel and how we develop attributes of Christ. Then I told about the situation of Jesus Christ and His apostles at the last supper when he said that one of them would betray Him and their reaction when they said "Lord, Is it I?” I told it the same way that President Uchtdorf told the story in the last general conference in the priesthood session. Then I closed with some quotes from Preach My Gospel about missionary work that had to do with spiritual growth. I thought it was well done and I was happy when I sat down :) Some people thanked me for my talk after which is always nice.

I was talking with one of the members of the branch yesterday and he said to me "There are some transfers that the branch feels (like feels a difference or that something’s missing or like it hurts)" then he said to me "When you're transferred, it'll probably be one of those times" It's always good to hear that you're making a difference. I'm happy that I've had the opportunity to work in this branch, I've really grown to care about everyone here.

This is a longer letter, I'm sure that'll make mom happy

I love you all! The church is true! There's no way it's all just a lie created by a 14 year old boy. That is physically impossible, I've thought about it many times and many people have tried to convince me that it was a lie but I know that it is not a lie.

Elder Horton