Hello family!!!
Birthday shoutouts this week to Tim winters tomorrow! Hope you have a great day! And a big time birthday day shoutout to Claire Holmes, also tomorrow! i hope you have a great day and that Scott treats you like a queen! I’ll be celebrating as well for you so if mom, you could send me money to buy a pizza on Claire’s birthday, that would be great!!
Things here are going so well! Wow we really are seeing the miracles every single day! I can’t believe i have already been here for a month! This transfer really is flying by. fFrst off for our two baptisms this week of Patrick and Syane! Patrick is almost 14, although he looks like he is about 9 - and Syane is 11. We found them the first week that we were here and they have been going to church ever since. Their mom is an inactive member, or at least was. We have been helping her come back to church! Her kids are awesome and are a miracle in the lives of their entire family! Their mom, two aunts and grandma are all members but haven’t been going to church! But because of Patrick and Syane, we are now teaching all of them!! Yesterday at their baptism after church they were all there! Their aunt as well is super receptive and has two kids who we are teaching. She wants them to be baptized because she is wanting to return as well! It was a super awesome baptism and the President of the branch was beyond excited to see everyone there at the church! He wanted to baptize the other 2 cousins on the same day but we told him we still needed to teach them the rest of the lessons. President made the promise with us that if we re-activate, there will always be baptisms that follow! And we sure are seeing the results of that here!!
On top off that we had 10 people at church yesterday! There is a small van that comes and gets our investigators here in Sao Lourenco and needless to say, it was packed full! We had to send the other elders on the local bus!! We are teaching Natan's aunt and uncle, Edilson and Paula, and their two twin girls, Luana and Leticia who are 16.They are super awesome but live suuuuper far away! We have to take a bus to get to Natan’s house and then walk about 40 minutes to get to their house. it is in the middle of the jungle! When natan’s mom isn’t there to take us by car, we have to do the long walk! But they are progressing super well and went to church yesterday! I think they liked it a lot! I know for sure that Paula did! I really hope Edilson continues to progress cause he will be able to help this area a lot! Keep them in your prayers, and me as well so i can continue to make the long hike to their house! haha
This week we also had a super awesome miracle when our district leader did a division with us on Friday. We went to another small neighborhood that we had never visited. There are only 3 roads, so not a ton of people there, but we got a reference from the other elders of a guy that lived there so we went to check it out. The number they gave us was 66. We searched up and down the road but didn’t find a “66”. Then I saw the number 56 and for some reason I thought, 'hey maybe he told me the wrong number and it is really 56'. so we knocked on the door and a lady answered. We asked her if this man lived there and she said no he lives in that house over there. She then started talking about how her cousin served a mission for the church, and how she and her daughter had been baptized in Recife Brazil! Her daughter lived in portugal as well for 4 years and I told her that Lee is going on a mission there and she told me all about it! Portugal sounds sweet bro! Anyways she didn’t even know there was a church in Juquitiba. She has a ton of desire to go back! They weren’t able to go yesterday but they promised us this next week they will be there! Her little daughter as well asked if she could be baptized! We taught them on Saturday and it was super awesome!
So they are thinking about opening a “group", which is smaller than a branch. I don’t know exactly what the structure is like but I know that it will mean that we will be able to have our own meetings here in Sao Lourenço!
So needless to say, I’m happy! I love the mission and I love the church! I know how much it has blessed me and continues to bless me! I don’t know where I would be without it! Hope you all have a great week!
LOVE
Elder Holmes
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