4th Week with Sister Alves - Ô RAIVA!

Sister Alves has this thing she likes to do while we're walking down the street. She picks these little green fruit things (I don't know what they are) and will throw them at me while we're walking. I have also picked up this habit, and now it's a bit of a battle as we walk down the street chucking fruit at each other.

Sister Casperson and Dias had a baptism this last week, and they invited our whole district. So Sister Alves and I, and Elder Letherwood and Sanchez joined them for the baptism. But not only did we join them, we sang "When I Am Baptized" while Elder Letherwood played the ukelele. From that moment on, we decided to refer to our district as "Banda Anhanguera" (Anhanguera Band). 

While teaching a lesson to an investigator, Matheus, we asked him if he had done what we asked and prayed about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. He told us he had forgotten, but he had fervently apologized to Joseph about it. Sister Alves and I just sat there like, " No, no, no, no, Matheus. You don't pray to Joseph, my friend. You only pray to God."

He was a little confused, but he's got the right spirit.

We ate waffles with Mariana and her mom, Lourdes, again this week, and it was Sister Alves' first time eating waffles. She approved 100% of this food, and we've decided that we're going to eat waffles every day for breakfast when she comes to live with me while she studies in the United States.

We talk a lot about this because her family wants her to study in the United States. Apparently, if she speaks English and has a degree from a college in the States, she has way more open doors for her in Brazil. I told her when the time comes for her to come out and study, I'll be her ticket in.

It should be a good time, all things considered.

We had interviews with President Card because transfers are next week. That's a little strange to say, but it's true.

I asked him for some advice in our area because nearly every day, the visits Sister Alves and I have planned run out unfortunately early. When I told him this, he asked me when the last time I just stopped in the road and prayed for direction was. It wasn't recently enough, so I, with Sister Alves, decided to try and put it into practice.

Inevitably, a few days later, we ran out of visits again, so we followed President Card's advice and stopped to offer a prayer. We asked that He would light up a door, or a person, or one of the little dots in our Area Book to help us find one more person before we went home. When we finished the prayer, we sat and thought for a moment before Sister Alves got distracted by a cat sitting inside the gate of the house next to us. While she pet the cat, I decided to clap. A woman named Rosana answered, and we introduced ourselves. She actually stopped making dinner to listen to us.

Now, she's part of the Church of the Holy Spirit or something like that, so nothing crazy happened, but that's not the point. We had our prayer answered within seconds of ending it. No, God didn't light up a door or send an angel to point our the direction we should go, but He new exactly how to get Sister Alves' attention, and we found one last person just as we had asked.

Last thing here:

THEY REPRINTED PREACH MY GOSPEL, and they changed a lot. I'm quite excited for this new version.

While reading through it, something caught my attention that quite frankly blew my mind.

Pay attention to the wording of these paragraphs found in chapter 4:

Old version:

Gifts of the Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit are special spiritual blessings that the Lord gives to worthy individuals for their own benefit and for their use in blessing others. For example, missionaries who must learn a new language may receive the gift of tongues to give them divine help in learning a language.

New version:

The Lord gives us gifts of the Spirit to bless us and to use in blessing others. For example, missionaries who learn a new language may receive the gift of tongues to give them divine help to teach others in their native language.

 

Do you see the change???  I'm learning Portuguese to receive divine help and learn how to teach in ENGLISH??