So this week was a start of a new transfer. I ended up staying here in Horto Florestal and I receive a new comp from the city of Joao Pessoa, which is in Paraiba, which is a state in the north west of Brazil. His name is Elder Barbosa and he has the exact same time on the mission as I do. But for the start of this new transfer it went kinda rough. Generally the start is the hardest part cause your new comp doesn’t know the area and the investigators so you kind of gotta do a lot on your own in terms of planning for the first week. But also a lot of our marked lessons were falling through. We had days where our day would be full of planned lessons but they all would fall through. Also a lot of investigators which we were hoping would progress really well ended up telling us they didn’t want to be taught anymore... However thankfully this week we were able to take part in a miracle. On Friday we were walking to try and find a former investigator and we went a way that was a little out of the normal so I could show my new comp the area. We went down a street and there a man stopped us. He said he was a less active member who was married to a non member and she had a son who was not a member as well, but they had gone to church several times before but never had missionaries over to teach his family. However, they stopped going to church for a bit and because the church building they were going to was in reform and they did not know of the change, so they stopped going to church. But we marked with him to pass by there yesterday and we taught them the 1st lesson, which went well. After the lesson he told us how three days before Friday he was able to get work and he was so happy but he was also sad because he had lost contact with the church. He said that he prayed and prayed that he might be able to come back in contact with the missionaries so that he could again return to church and that we could start teaching him and his family again. He said that on Friday he felt he should go a different way home, which was actually a way that was a lot longer to get home and where, he would have to back track to get home, but there he encountered us. It truly was a great thrill and spiritual experience to be able to see that truly the Lord does answer prayers and that he knows everyone of His children by name. I am just so thankful that I was able to be used as an instrument to be able to help bring this family into the knowledge of the Gospel and I hope that we can soon have them baptized and going to church so that one day they can be sealed in the temple for time and all eternity. The best part is they are also legally married! Which helps a ton cause almost all of our investigators that our families are not married which is kinda rough. But this miracle really did help me feel a lot better and know that the Lord really is working with us as missionaries and that He loves and knows all of his children and He really does answer prayers. It really helped me feel a lot better about the work here, cause also this week despite a lot of our lessons falling through a lot of the people we talked to on the street to try and teach were not interested or gave false addresses. But hopefully now things will pick up. I hope you all have a great week this week and know that I am praying for all of you. Thanks so much for the support y’all give and all the love and prayers.
With love,
Elder William Shelton
So the first picture is of our bishop climbing a tree so that he could pick some fruit for me called Jabuticaba. The next picture shows how the fruit grows on the tree, which is really, really weird cause it grows directly on the trunk or branches and nowhere near the leaves like most fruit. The next picture is a picture of some ripened fruit I ate. The flesh is white and there is a big seed in the middle and you have to pop the purple casing in your mouth followed by sucking out all the flesh. It was a pretty good fruit. But the final picture is of some people doing street art we saw, which was really cool. Oh, and here is a picture of me and my new comp, Elder Barbosa.
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