February20th 2012

. I think that is the hardest part of the distance. My whole purpose is to help people. Help them develop faith in christ, find a testimony of the restoration, answer questions, or just be there to come by on a bad day. I love the feeling of acceptance and the light that we can see in the eyes of the people we teach. The difference in the feelings in their homes. We had one of our investigators come to church yesterday for the second time and in our elders quorum the teacher asked him: "Valdo, quem é joseph smith para você?" e ele respondeu "Um homem escolhido por Deus para revelar e restaurar a verdade." ...WOW! Our investigator bore his testimony of Joseph Smith in front of everyone! We have to get him and his girlfriend/wife married legally (they do what is called marriage by the blessing but it isn't valid legally or legally binding and ppl say that they are married when in actuality they aren't...) but they are going to get all the papers squared away and they already have a goal for the temple! Can you believe it?! We have another family where dad is tough, but i think he knows the church is true. His wife wants to be baptized but they have to get married too... hmmm. recurring theme right?

All in all this week has been amazing. We are working with conselha do ramo... i cannot remember that in english-the ward counsel? ward mission leader, elders quorum presidency and we did splits last week to go by the menos ativos in our branch. it was excellent. We have service projects set up to help some of them, we are planning an activity, and we have 2-3 family nights marked each week. The church is true and the words of Christ are so true- "unto he who has much, much will be given." You have got to prove you can handle it and then He gives a little more. This isn't easy, but it is so worth it momma.