Good News!

Dear Everyone,

 

Good news! Both Sister Giberson and I get to stay in Setúbal together for another transfer! It has been a HUGE tender mercy because we have a lot of people marked for baptism this month that we need to take care of. First off, we have María Augusta the drug addict. We are so proud of her this week. We visited or called almost everyday and she almost had a relapse on Wednesday because of her withdrawals, but luckily she has neighbors, friends and family that helped her as well. This week she was completely cockaine and alcohol free! She still has a long way to go, but she has also come a really long way since last weekend thanks to heaven.

 

On the flip side of things Jacinto (the 14 year old son of our gypsy family) through a teenager fit on Friday and refused to be baptized on Sunday. He said that he doesn´t feel ready, but he didn´t say why. We´ll have to bring lots of members with us or go to seminary with him to help him feel the Spirit again. 

 

This week I really learned the importance of obedience. I don´t know the rules in other missions, but here in Portugal we always ask our new investigators to be baptized when they know that the Restoration is true and real in the first lesson. In our second lesson we present a baptismal date for them to work towards and show the importance of gaining a testimony of the message. Lately our investigators weren´t accepting dates for various reasons (family strife, hard hearts, etc) that I was honestly lacking trust in this rule of ours. If you look at it, it really isn´t completely logical to mark a date when the person still hasn´t learned very much, but we kept doing it anyway. On Saturday we were working with a teen recent convert, Tiago, in a second lesson with Leopoldina. We presented the 22nd as a date she could be prepared for baptism, and she accepted without a blink. What was even more... She understood the question! I was honestly shocked to see that she had that much humility and trust in the Lord to accept a baptismal date during our second lesson with her. Wow, the Lord is trying to teach me a lot.

 

Adriano is really turning into a jewel! He walks to Church alone, he talked to the Bishop about preparing for the Priesthood, he signed up for Institute even though he´s 20 years older than everyone in the class, and he´s been working with the Elders! It is amazing to see how much progress he´s made since he received the gift of the Holy Ghost. Seriously, before baptism he was moving about 5 miles an hour spiritually speaking. Now he´s moving at 65 miles per hour, I swear!

 

I just want to say thank you so much, everyone who sent me a package or letter or email or prayer or even a tiny thought. I love you all and I wish that there is more that I could give you all for Christmas!

 

Love,

Sister Derrick