Lunch with President Costa

A EI Família?! 

Thursday President Claudio R.M. Costa(of the Seventy, Presiding over Brazil) came to town! He is pretty hilarious and has some awesome stories! He is a convert to the church and came to know that the church was true though 14 hours of reading, studying, and praying about Joseph Smith´s story. Some Sisters had been teaching his mom the lessons but he always sat in another room with the door closed while they taught her. But one day, the sisters were a bit more inteligent and listening to the Spirit and left the door opened um pouco while they taught the Restoration to his mom. He said that he remembers that they taught with so much power, something pricked his heart. After the lesson and as they were leaving, they invited him to read and pray about Joseph Smith and his story. Então he did. He stayed up 14 hours diligently studying. At the end, he said that he had a perfect knowledge that Joseph Smith was a prophet...and ran to the sister's home and told them he wanted to be baptized! Imagine! I can't even imagine how surprised and excited they were. So less than a week later, he was baptized. Other than this awesome conversion story, he had some excellent advice for us missionaries. Hopefully with this advice, we will be able to work more efficiently with our wards and in our areas. I have come to learn that the ward plays a HUGE part in missionary work. Without the ward, this work would be even more difficult but as the members help and have trust in us and us in them, we can work together to bring others to the gospel. 

Wednesday was an interesting day. We had another divisão, and I stayed in the area with a sister (from Honduras) who arrived in the field the same day as me. So we had two new missionaries with 3 months in Jorda who don't know Portuguese fluente. Luckily Portuguese is close enough to Spanish so the questions I couldn't answer, she could for the most part. But when it came down to it, we did pretty well if I do say so myself! We didn't leave anyone confused (*phew*) and taught and spoke to the best of our ability. From this I learned that I know a lot more Portuguese than I give myself credit for and can understand more than I think I can. woohoo!

Welp other than that, everything is going pretty fantastic in Jordanópolis! I hope you all have a absolutely out of this world week and enjoy your week off school! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!! 

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

Love, Sister Hilchie :)