Sunshine From Brazil

March 10, 2014

Oi Mãe!
Bom Dia!! It is my companion’s last P-day, so while we are in the Center, I think maybe we will do some tourist shopping. Ha, any suggestions for souvenirs? 

I’m glad you liked my last email. I try to spill out the good stuff. There are so many little and simple, but great things that happen everyday so sometimes its hard to share stuff with you all.

Speaking of changes, this week the Zone Leaders received the training for this month from the Assistants. This month we will be studying what I think (and I’m sure many others agree) to be the 2nd best chapter in Preach My Gospel (1st best is the 1st chapter that talks and motivates us about our purpose as missionaries.) Ch.6, How can I develop Christ-like attributes? Man it’s good! The Assistants really focused on the technical things in their training like baptismal invites. But as I have been studying and preparing this training I have seen how inspiring this chapter is for us personally as missionaries, but also for our investigators. I decided to give the theme as "Follow Christ’s Example" and we will really focus on the importance of us following Christ’s example (especially through studies in the companionship) And as Dad always taught, the best way to teach... By Example! So what we really need to do is always focus on Christ in our teachings for He is the example that God gave us. We often get caught up in all the technical part of the restoration, like Prophets, Priesthood, Apostasy, Joseph Smith. All these things are so foreign for the people we are teaching. We need to ring a familiar tone, and always focus our teaching in Christ and how we can follow His example.

This week Carnaval ended, and yeah it was a normal week.You asked about Riandra and Randerson’s Mom. So yeah, this week was funny because Luiz Alan, Alanice, and Riandra all had birthdays this week. So we passed by each day and gave each one of them a box of chocolates. I felt kinda bad because I’m not sure if anybody really celebrated it with them, there was no cake. I’m not sure if there were presents or anything out of the ordinary... the Mom really didn’t progress much this week, she still is going to church though. 

Oh my, Sunday was awesome! So I don’t remember if I told you about the random contact that Elder Galvão did a couple weeks ago. Well, after that it was a little tough to follow up on this family, and when we passed by them this last week, almost everyone wasn’t very interested... except one Jorgilane. She promised that she would go last week but her husband drank so she ended up not going. But when we passed by Monday night, we talked to her husband, Geraldo, and turns out that after our lesson with him many weeks ago, he actually prayed and after had a dream about Joseph Smith. So he had already decided to visit the church the next time we passed by. We left a Book of Mormon with them, and Jorgilane said she prayed and also felt that the BoM is very valuable. It was great to hear that they were praying together as well during the week. Anyways, they went to church and they loved it!

During Sacrament Meeting there was a girl who is leaving to serve a mission this week who was giving a talk. During the talk, she (Jorgilane) asked me what they need to do to be missionaries as well. Ha! I told her that she has a different mission, she needs to raise her baby boy. I could see that she was a little sad at first but she soon responded saying, "Well that’s alright, I will raise him to be a missionary then!" I then bore my testimony about the power that Moms have in raising missionaries and how mine really helped me. It was a very special moment and it left us both almost in tears. They are very excited to come back next week.

As for Junior, this week we were trying hard to talk with his Wife, Erbênia. This weekend we finally talked to her and now that her Husband is going she said she will go as well. They went with their family and they loved it. They gave us dinner last night and she said how it really has been a very special day and how she has been already feeling the unity in her family from going to church. We will start the paperwork for their wedding this week! Two awesome families! It’s going good.

Alrighty, there is a little bit about my week. Elder Christiansen is starting his last week. He is doing very well, it’ll be a good last week. I will probably stay for this next transfer and maybe I will even finish my mission here. But yeah it’s going good.
Alrighty, until next week my good family!

-Elder Zac Cetraro