Merry Christmas! Feliz Natal!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I can’t believe that it is Christmas week already. I guess you don’t really have a sense of time on the mission. Weird how that works. But cool that Christmas is coming up! I’m not really to sure to as what are plans are this year. There are a few recent converts and members that would like us to come by on Christmas, so I’m sure we will stop by some of their homes. I guess we will just have to see. We are for sure going to be baptizing this weekend as well. Speaking of which, I will share a cool story with you all later on.

This weekend we baptized 4 people. They are an amazing family. There names are Márcia, Luzia, Ana, and David. They have been coming to church for the past few weeks. The only problem is that the dad is not too fond of us. He said we weren’t allowed to teach them in their home or anything. So, we began teaching them in the church. They are like one of the happiest families I have ever met. They are always smiling and happy. They are super cool. We marked them to be baptized early on this week. We were a bit nervous though, thinking that the dad wouldn’t allow them to be baptized. The mom (Maria) also comes to church and accepted them being baptized. After we marked them for baptism, we talked to Maria and told her to talk to her husband about the baptism. We prayed many times that night. We couldn’t wait too long to hear how the husband responded… so we called at like 9:30 in the morning to ask her. She responded by saying, “ele não vai” (he is not going..) all of our hearts kind of sunk for a moment. We then reaffirmed by asking her if he said no… and then she said, that he didn’t want to go to the baptism, but they can get baptized. Right when we hung up the phone we started dancing and screaming. We were super excited. It was a gift from Heavenly Father, that’s for sure. The baptism went really well. They are all happy. They have one more sister named Tatiana, that went to church yesterday. We will try to baptize her soon. The mom, Maria, also wants to get baptized. But she isn’t married to her “husband” so we need to figure that out.

So, about the cool story. Elder Rodrigues and I were walking down the street on Saturday when a lady called us from her window. We went upstairs to see what she wanted. She (Celina) told us that she was a member from Cape Verde, and had just arrived here last week. We found out that her mom (Fátima) and her dad (whose home she was at) are not members of the church. However, they have many family members that are members of the church. The parents had been taught by various missionaries, and have been to church numerous times. However, they had a daughter that died 8 months back and Fátima was going through a really hard time because of it. We talked a little bit about the Plan of Salvation, and invited them to come to church with us the following day. They showed up to church, and they really enjoyed it. We went back to their home later that night. We prayed before we went and felt really strongly that she needs to be baptized on the 24th. We showed up, and watched a segment from a DVD called Together Forever. It talks about a couple that had lost their daughter at a young age. Fátima really related to it, and she was crying through the whole thing. It brought the Spirit super strong. We then taught about the Plan of Salvation. The Spirit was intense throughout the entire lesson. You could just see the hope that it brought her, knowing that she could see her daughter again. She knew she needed to be baptized. And we explained to her that baptism would be her first step to seeing her daughter again. We then prayed with her to ask Heavenly Father about the 24th. She felt it so strongly! She accepted right away. Her daughter, Celina, began crying with joy. She has been wanting her mom to be baptized for so many years now. She then talked about how her dream is for Fátima and her husband to go the temple and to be sealed with all the family that are already members. It was a very touching moment. We still haven’t met Fatima’s husband yet, because he has been gone for work. He will be home tonight though. Fátima told us that she talked to him, and he wants to be baptized with her. So we will be baptizing them both on the 24th. Heavenly Father is amazing. He gives us way too many blessings over here. I don’t think we deserve even half of them.

So things are going well. I love you all. Eu desejo a todos um feliz natal. Merry Christmas to everyone! Let’s all be happy, and remember the true meaning of Christmas. The Savior and His loving sacrifice for each and every one of us.

Elder Porter