4-6-15 Easter

4-6-15

Hey family!

This week was a good one with a great ending with general conference and baptism! We were the only elders in the zone to baptize this last week too...it's not a good thing for the zone but it's great for us!

Did you have any favorite talks from conference that you especially enjoyed??  

I really enjoyed the talk about the music and the gospel and also Elder Holland's talk about the atonement was very good to put it all in perspective. I downloaded the talks and will be listening to them again in the coming days and weeks.

Did you watch conference in English or Portuguese?

I watched it in Portuguese, as I always have

What kind of pepper was that?  Is it the hottest thing you’ve ever eaten?

I'm not really sure...    No

It was fun to see you and hear all that Portuguese.   Which family was that you were eating with?

It was actually a church activity where we ate dobradinha, or buxo, or buxada, it's like stomach. yum right!? I didn't like it when I first tried it here in Brasil but now I kinda like it :)

How was your week?  

It was good. It had some interesting moments. Including some pastors from another church which I won't mention the name that came to the house of an investigator when we were there and started to try and burn us. I found it very annoying because they just talked bad in a loud voice and often times in our face and then when we tried to explain, they interrupted us. There were many times that we "got" them, that they contradicted themselves (which I always find funny) like we said that the bible doesn't have all the word of God and they said that it's perfect and has everything we need after we had read the last verse of Luke that says that if everything that Christ said and did was written down, not even the whole world would have enough space to fit all the books that would be written. And we also showed them all the lost scriptures and books that are mentioned in the bible but that we don't have. I may or may not have compared them to the Pharisees indirectly.... :) haha But the family of investigators wasn't lost, they have the book of mormon and they want to know the truth so I believe that they will discover the truth

Did you have any investigators at conference?  

Unfortunately we did not :( It was a bit difficult because it wasn't in our chapel and because it was easter weekend and our investigators were either travelling or going to their other churches :/

What are the Easter traditions there?  

Instead of gaining chocolate bunnies, they do chocolate hollow eggs here with chocolate candies inside. I think thats it...

How’s your companion?

He's doing well! It's a bit hard for him sometimes to go up hills haha but he's getting the hang of it bit by bit.

I don't have a lot of time today :/ because we had to find a new lan-house because the other one was closed :(  and because I had to resolve some other things so this letter is gonna be a bit shorter, sorry.

Love,

Elder Horton

Gabriel

3-30-15

Hey family!

With reference to the housing, see if you can get my like a google map link to the house so I can see where it is more or less. But it's definitely a viable option, where you said.

My letter to the president this week

Hey president

Things are going well, we have had 3 successful baptisms in the last 2 weeks and we have many investigators with great potential in the coming weeks! I'm really happy that I can show Elder Oliveira how to baptize. I remember when I was trained, we...zeroed? zeramos a primeira transferência e na segunda batizamos 3. I believe that Elder Oliveira has a great potential to be a great missionary. I see his desire to serve and his desire to help others and to be obedient. I believe the Lord has used us as instruments in His hands these past weeks in ways that we could never manage to do by ourselves. We were studying 12 semanas and were learning about teaching people and not lessons and we got talking about how much we try to have the gift of discernment. We talked about many ways that we can gain this gift and decided that we should pray in that moment so that the Lord could bless us with this gift so that we could be more effective missionaries. Elder Oliveira did the prayer and explained to the Lord why we wanted this gift, what we would do with it, why He should give it to us, and we used our faith believing that he could really bless us with this gift. When he finished the prayer, I tried saying something to him but he quickly left the room. After a minute or 2 he returned and said "I'm sorry for having left so fast, I just don't like others to see my emotions...I've only really felt the spirit 3 times in my life. And that was one of them." And the other 2 were when he asked if the Book of Mormon was true. So it was a very strong spiritual impression. And I really have perceived a change in him since this prayer. He's become more talkative and the people need to hear what he has to say and are interested and feel the truth of what he's saying.

I could tell more stories but I know there are 193 other letters that you need to read.

Thanks for everything president!
I trust in the Lord
Elder Horton

We baptized yesterday! Gabriel, a young man of 14 years was baptized, and his family was there too but they're not baptized yet, Rose (his grandma) and Meire (his mom) Meire needs to be married and Rose just needs to decide.

This week, the bishop asked us to teach and prepare for baptism an excommunicated member who's been going to church almost every Sunday for many years but now has the all clear to be rebaptized. That'll be a first for me, I've never taught and baptized an excommunicated member.

This weekend was full of activities for us! It was fun, and tiring, and productive. Productive because we had many investigators there and they did a lot of friendship with members!

We're trying to prepare 2 people for baptism this week! Cris (a girl) and Rose (the grandmother of Gabriel that was baptized yesterday) I'm very confident about Cris and I have faith about Rose.

Our Sunday yesterday was one of the busiest Sunday’s I've ever had on the mission. Meetings from 8 until 2 and then lunch at 4 and 2 distant appointments at night. But it was also one of the most rewarding Sundays

I really enjoyed hearing E Olivera’s conversion story.  How old was he when he was converted?

Like 17 or 18, fairly recent

So you’re teaching Meire??  That’s almost my name!! Meri!!  You’ll have to tell her that your mother’s name is like hers.  It’s probably not pronounced like mine, though…  Oh well.

You know, that's funny that you mention that, I hadn't even though of that yet! It's almost the same pronunciation too.

I don't know what else to say... I forgot to look in my journal to get ideas. So I'm just gonna close up my letter, it's a bit shorter today, sorry

Love you all!

Elder Horton