hey everyone! sounds like you are all doing great! everything is going great here! did you have a good birthday becca?! i hope it was really good. everything is going great here. i am glad to hear that my friends are doing well back home too. that is crazy to think that they are there already. to bad for them! i am still here baptizing!!! haha. tell them hi for me and figure out what they are going to do for college and stuff.
well i guess i will tell you about my awesome week! it was great! i didnt know how good it was going to be but it turned out great. we had 2 marked baptisms. we didnt baptize one of them but we baptized somewhat that wasnt even planned. so that worked out perfect! our members are really helping us a lot right now. we had 33 lessons with member this last week. i dont think i have ever taught that many with member before. i rarely teach with my companion. it is really great because we are able to teach and help so many other people. mom the only thing you could tell the ward about my mission is that the key to conversion is the members. we are having success right now because of the friendships that the investigators have with the members. there are three things that people need to stay active in the church. they need a testimony first of all. and then to stay strong they need friends, and they need to be nourished by the word of god, then they need a responsibility or a calling. all of us have the calling to be missionaries.
we had the best family night ever on monday. we have a family of five that is progressing really well. they are progressing well because we have had a different couple or member in all of the lessons. on monday, we had family night at their house. the parents are viviane and donazete. they have three sons that are about 20 years old. we had over twenty members at their house. elder castiglioni led the family night. we started with a testimony meeting. every family bore their testimonies to the family about their conversion. all the sisters their were bawling. there were a couple of brotheren that teared up in their testimonies. it was very spiritual. then viviane asked to talk. she bore her testimony of the church and her conversion(we started teaching her a week and a half ago). no one could believe it! it was a great testimony. then her husband also bore testimony. it was the best family night i have ever participated in, and i didnt do anything. we didnt even talk. the members did everything. afterwards all the members were confused and asked how long that they have been members. we said they arent members. they are going to be baptized this week. they were very surprised that they arent members after that.
the family is progressing well but their sons hve a few problems and difficulties that they are working to overcome. it will work out well. THIS WEEK IS GOING TO BE AWESOME! ...stay tuned...
we have some other possibles. we had a kid named kauê that was going to be baptized. he ended up moving to são paulo though. that was sad. we baptized joão. he has been going to church since i got here. he received permission from the first presidency to be baptized, and he is doing great! there really is forgiveness! he has completely changed his life.
we also had a girl that was going to be baptized. she left though and hasnt been here in hortolândia. she came back on saturday. i figured that since she has been gone so long she would be down about the baptism. i was with our ward mission leader. i invited the whole family to go to church. her grandparents are recent converts (crueza and edivaldo). she is a really shy girl and she whisper something about baptism. i couldnt hear her. her grandma told her to tell me that she wanted to be baptized on sunday. of course i told her that would probably be ok...haha i was so happy!!! her name is Luana. she was really happy too. she is a shy girl though and it is hard for her to go make new friends but i am sure that will change soon.
our zone did great this week. it was the best in the mission. but what can you expect....president made life pretty easy putting a bunch of great missionaries here in this zone. i dont have to do anything. they are all very self motivated. all of them already have the desire to have success, and they are just happy to work in the best stake of the mission. so pretty much life is good right now!
well i love you guys! you are all the best! i hope you all have a good week! love you!
love,
elder long
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