Sweater Gang

Hello people!  Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms!

The last couple weeks we’ve been in the grind working as much as we can and it’s been great.  My Comp and I finally feel like we’ve got a hold on the area and we know all the members. So now we’re good to just ball out!

In the last 2 weeks we’ve just been inviting everyone to partake of the blessings of the Gospel and be baptized. We’ve set some goals with some interesting people. We taught one dude, Ronaldo, on his roof overlooking the neighborhood,  It was pretty dope because he can’t read very well and we was very interested in hearing some of the teachings of the Book of Mormon.  So we read 3 Nephi 11 with him and invited him to prepare to be baptized and he said yes!  Another woman, named Maria, we are teaching lives in this neighborhood on the side of a mountain overlooking Rio.  She lives in pretty humble circumstances.  Her house is more like a campsite because she is a little bit of a hoarder and she doesn’t have room to live inside her house.  She also has a bunch of chickens roaming all over the place and a couple ducks and a goat.  She actually hangs her food from a wooden pole so that the ducks and chickens can’t get it.  We taught her about the Restoration and she actually understood really well.  We invited her to Church and challenged her to ask God if this is His true Church and she accepted.

It’s getting super cold here!  It’s like 50 degrees but with the humidity it’s way colder.  We’re also way up high so the clouds just roll right through the city.  When that happens my hair gets soaked and it gets even colder. But don’t worry, me and my comp are rocking sweaters and we’ve even considered getting scarves.  Never would have guessed Rio was this cold.

This week I was studying the part of the Book of Mormon known as the war chapters, a record of the wars between two ancient civilizations known as the Nephites and Lamanites.  It is an interesting change of pace from the rest of the book, but it has some important records of trials of faith.  One of my favorite stories is the Stripling Warriors, 2,000 teenage boys who went to battle to protect the families and fathers who had covenanted with God to never shed blood.  In honor of Mother’s Day I wanted to drop this verse. 

Alma 56: 47-48

“Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea they had been taught by their mothers that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.”

“And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it.”

They fought without fear because their moms taught them if they walked righteously before God He would deliver them.  And they didn’t doubt their mother’s testimonies!  And that’s exactly what happened, they protected their families and not a single one of them died.  Shout out to all the moms (especially mine) who taught me and my friends this stuff while we were young!

Love you guys!