Baptism!

Week #86 

I took pictures I promise, but I left my camera locked up in the chapel, so I don't have it with me today.

Kevin was baptized this week. We wanted to baptize his brother and the rest of his family too, but they haven't decided to come to church yet. We're still working with them. Kevin is 10 and is probably the most excited person I've seen here. When we talked about baptism, he excitedly shouted "Eu vou me batizar!?" Obviously we said yes and invited the rest of the family too. They're spending a lot of time in the hospital taking care of a member of the family. It's complicated.

We also met a lot more people this week. I think we're getting over the hump here. It's been difficult, but we finally got the wheel turning. We should be baptizing for a few more weeks with the people we met.

More and more I have learned how important the simple principle of work is. We can plan, think of new ways to find people, pray, fast and a lot of other things, but none of that really yields fruit until we just start with everybody. It is very possible and very easy to teach ten lessons in a day, but it doesn't always happen because we relax mentally. 

One of the Seventies from Brazil, Elder Marcos Aidukaitis, gave a training in Canoas in 2004 that I've been studying lately. He said that the success of a missionary doesn't depend so much on physical effort as it does on mental effort. Always looking for opportunities to teach is very tiring and making the lesson important for that person is even more tiring. The funny thing is that when we work that way, we don't walk very much and we find many more people that are interested in the Gospel.

We worked like that this week and we saw what happens. There is something incredible about working with all your heart, might, mind and strength. We should be bold and not overbearing and we avoid being overzealous, but every once in a while, you need to do something crazy.

Extraordinary events only happen because somebody did something out of the ordinary. 

I also spoke in Church this week. It's the first time I've over prepared. The bishop kicked me when I hit the ten minute mark and I had to cut a lot of stuff, but I learned a lot and I think it still turned out well. Obviously I talked about member missionary work. We usually don't get assigned a lot of other topics.

Lots to do this week.

Elder Dickson