First, do you remember Swing? He was baptized about 4 months ago. Well he is on fire! Elder Clifford and I are now working backing in the branch that I was in before (our area is the same, there was just confusion as to which branch our area belonged to). Anyways, Swing has already received the Melchizedek Priesthood and is currently serving as the Branch Mission Leader. He is so excited about it and is already doing an exceptional job. He walked with us on Friday and it was so special to hear him bear testimony to our current investigators about his spectacular conversion that happened just 4 months ago. He's my hero. He just got a new job and is hoping to be able to have his wife here from South Africa in just a few months.
I'll keep this story short. We have an investigator named Beto that we have been preparing for baptism that last couple of weeks and he has been progressing wonderfully. His baptismal date is this coming Saturday. After church yesterday we went to his house to talk to him and see if we was ready to seal the deal or not and he opened up and said that it's a big step that he's not sure if he's ready to take. It was really cool because he truly realizes the gravity of covenants and how serious the really are. We talked to him about the two paths that he has before him at the moment and where each of them will take him. In the beginning of the lesson he was leaning towards postponing the baptism but by the end we asked him what he was thinking and he said that he's going to give it his all so that he can make it to this Saturday. We told him that it's not the end of the world if it doesn't happen this Saturday, that there are still plenty of Saturdays. But he's determined. Anyways, it was so cool to see the Spirit work inside him and help him decide what he wants to do in his life right now. He has ton of potential to help the church here. We warned him that Satan would be fighting against him big time this week but that it won't be anything that he can't handle. We'll see what happens! I know he'll be baptized, hopefully this week.
So about a month and a half ago we contacted a guy named Guilherme. He has one of the biggest houses in our area and we decided to give it a knock and see if we couldn't get in. Long story short, his guard opened the gate door asked what we wanted, we told him, he called up to Guilherme, I talked to him on the phone and gave him our schpeel, and for some reason felt impressed to tell him that we were Americans, and from there he said he'd give us 5 minutes and that we could come up onto his balcony to talk with him. We got up there and he just so happened to be the biggest America fan I've ever met. He had a US polo shirt on and his iPhone case was an American flag. But that's irrelevant. We talked with him about our message and he told us how important his family is to him. He's about 50 years old and already retired, and has 3 little kids. He told us that he waited so long to have kids cause he wanted to get married first. That was a surprise! I'd never heard that before... Anyways, he asked to come back and that he and his family would really like to hear our message. He told us that they were going to Brazil for the holidays but that we could come by the 13th of January to meet with them. So on the 13th we called and he said that right when they got back his wife's father died and that it wasn't going to work to sit with them for awhile. But we were persistent and called him every week and he just kept saying next week. So this week we were finally able to sit with him and had an incredible lesson with him and his wife. At first it was just him and as I was giving a little into to the message and talking about the importance of families he stopped me mid sentence and called his wife, he said that she had to hear it. She is still going through a really tough time with the loss of her father. We talked to them about families and the Plan of Salvation and they loved it. I loved it. It was so special to find a family that has good Christian standards and that believes in the importance of the family. We are going back this week to keep teaching them and I am so excited. Could this be the family I've been waiting for my whole mission? I hope so! Pray for Guilherme and Isabel!
This week was incredible. We found a lot of new people that have been prepared for our message. I love this work, there is no place that I would rather be. I love the Lord and His church! Thank you for your prayers and support!
Love,
Elder Hyde
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