Oi pessoal!
I'm still out here. We've been working hard, eating good food, talking to lots of people, and having a good time.
Ninguém veio à igreja, de novo
This week we invited a bunch of people to come to church, and there were some of them who were totally firm on coming. We reminded them the day before and the morning of, we offered rides, basically begging them to come. We even talked to them about how "You know, the devil is going to tempt you and tell you that you don't need to come to church. We don't want him to win this victory, now do we?" and they responded "Oh no no, of course not. I'll come for sure, don't worry." One guy even said that he was going to bring his whole family! I was so pumped, I was sure that we would have at least 7 people show up. And guess how many came?? Zeroooo!!!
I know this isn't a unique thing for missionaries, but it was still kinda sad.
Miracle phone call
We had a pretty awesome miracle happen this week. The other day we were inside messaging people when we got this phone call from a random number, (which doesn't ever happen.) A little confused, we answered it, and this guy says:
"Oi! Remember me?"
"Um... no?"
"About two months ago you guys left this book with me at the building where I work, and you gave me your number saying to call once I read it. So I finished it, and I loved it so much! And I have a question - Can I come visit your church?"
When we heard that we died. This guy read the entire Book of Mormon!! Oh his own!!! We were shook.
He went on to talk about how much he loved the book and how he wants to give one to his son too, and how he's already looked into our church online and how he really wants to come. Wow!! It goes to show that this really is Gods work. We can contact people all day, but when there's someone who's ready to hear the gospel, God places them right in our path.
Funeral
Yesterday we both felt like we should go visit Jardim Continential, a cute little town with lots of horses and chickens roaming around. Also lots of trash and lots of drunk people.
We had a list of people to try and visit but literally all of the addresses were wrong, so we ended up wandering around for like an hour. We don't really know how to street contact, and neither of us are assertive enough to knock doors, so it wasn't too productive.
But we did find one member named Maurico, who let us into their house. We waited outside of their little living room for a minute while he went to get something, and when Sister Leal peeked inside, her eyes widened and a look of horror fell across her face. She tried signaling to me what she saw, pointing and crossing her arms across her chest and I thought maybe it was someone without a shirt on?
Mauricio came back and took us into the living room, and then I saw it. Lying there in a coffin, was A LITERAL CORPSE!!
I was standing next to dead body! Apparently one of their family members died and they were holding a mini funeral right then. The coffin was open and I looked into it's face and I almost passed out. There were a bunch of people gathered who were crying and stuff and it was probably the weirdest thing to ever happen to me. It was cool though, they were saying how "God sent you here to comfort us" and we shared a message about the Plan of Salvation and passed around some pamphlets.
Compartilhar o evangelho é sempre uma coisa boa
I shared the gospel with our Uber driver today!! Usually when we ride Uber we stay quiet and don't talk much, because sometimes I feel weird to start talking to them. Today I felt like I should maybe talk to the driver, but I was like "eh", until the last 5 minutes when I finally asked "Você é de Campina Grande?" Then we started talking and he asked us where we're from (he thought I spoke pretty good Portuguese for only being here 2.5 months) and he was saying how we seem different, like there's a light about us. We were like "Yeah, it's the light of Christ!" Then we explained that we're missionaries and he asked us what our purpose is here, and we left our number and a restoration pamphlet an with him, it was great! Sharing the gospel really is a simple thing. God works his miracles through imperfect people, but only when we open up our mouth.
Anyways so I invite you to share the gospel with someone this week! It can be as simple as a text, but it makes all the difference!
Amo vocês! Remember to read your scriptures today!
- Sister Wride
