This week was amazing! A great start to the transfer, that’s for sure!
We were super busy this week, dealing with transfers and everything. We have a “son” now. His name is Elder Brown. He is from Utah. He is a really cool kid. I remember that whole first transfer shock. It is a weird feeling being a different country and not being able to understand or speak the language. He is adapting well though. He was able to baptize his first person this week, so that was cool for him.
We baptized 6 people this week! It was an awesome week. I will give you a quick story about each person.
We baptized Cintia this week (she was supposed to get baptized last week). This time, we followed the Spirit a lot better… and did things in the Lord’s way instead of our own. She felt a lot better about things, and we helped to clear up all of her doubts. Her family is super amazing as well! They all really like us. They helped us a lot with Cintia. Unfortunately her brother Célio, will have to wait a little bit before he can be baptized. He really wants to be baptized… but due to some trouble with the law, he will have to finish out his penalty. He will go to see the judge in January or February. So hopefully by then he can get baptized as well. His girlfriend, Jandida, who lives with him also wants to get baptized. We are going to get them married and baptized. Cintia’s mom also wants to get baptized, her only problem is that she works every Sunday. We will have to see what we will do with that situation. But they are an amazing family.
We also baptized a girl named Liliana. We found her last Thursday. We had felt really strong that we needed to talk to someone in a building as we walked by. We knocked some doors in the building, and found Liliana. She kind of knew the missionaries in Cape Verde, but never went to church or anything. She has been going through some difficult times in her life, and it was obvious that she needed some help in her life. When we marked her for baptism last week, it was super powerful. The lesson was super spiritual. When we invited her to be baptized, she paused for a good 30 seconds before she responded… then she just smiled and shook her head yes. It was super cool. She is an amazing girl, with a bright future ahead. She is loving church. She is going to the temple this week as well! How cool is that?! She was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday.
We also baptized 4 children from the most amazing family ever! A few weeks ago a member gave us the reference of an inactive member that he talked to on the street. We tried calling her a couple of times, but she never answered… so we just kind of gave up. But one day I felt super strongly that we needed to call her… so I did, and she answered this time. We set up an appointment. The day of the appointment we plugged her address into the GPS… and came to find out there are about thirty roads with the name of ’25 de Abril’ in that city. We had no clue which one was hers. We went to a few of them, and had no luck. We spent three hours trying to find her place! And we had no luck. We were just about to give up, and as we were driving down the road I noticed a street sign that said: ’25 de Abril’. We hurried and flipped a U-Turn and went to the street, in hopes that it was the one we were looking for. We got there, and found building 11. We rang her doorbell, and Natacha answered! We were pretty happy. She invited us in, and we noticed that she had 5 children (4 with the age of baptism). Natacha was baptized 20 years ago, but kind of fell away from the church. She was considered herself a member, and always told people that her church was the LDS church. Her kids however, had never really known about the church… and had never met the missionaries or anything. We began teaching them, and fell in love with the family. They are super amazing. They are basically our brothers and sisters. They opened up so much to us. They love church. Yesterday they told us that they wished every day was Sunday so they could go to church every week. We taught them all, and marked them all for baptism. Natacha is now back in church, and is feeling great about it as well. We baptized the 4 kids yesterday. They are named Liliana (14), Catia (13), Diogo (13), and Martim (9). She has one more daughter named Inés (6). They are the coolest family ever. We were super blessed by Heavenly Father to get to know them.
That was our week for you. It was amazing. What a huge blessing. The mission is the most amazing thing ever. We get to know some of the coolest people, and be able to experience such an amazing change in their lives as well.
This week we have 2 people marked for baptism so far. Their names are Adélcia, and Ilidio. Pray for them both if you could! They are both excited for their baptisms.
I love you all. I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving. We didn’t do anything for Thanksgiving, but that’s alright. We did eat pizza… exciting, right? haha.
:)
Elder Porter
