Two Weeks Left

Time passes by so fast! Once again I'm sending out an email to everyone from Brazil. We're getting close to the end as well. It's been fun! We've been working extremely hard these days. It's been DIFFICULT let me tell you. We had 15 people promise to go to church and only one went, even though we went to pick up most of those people. We have seen awesome miracles these days, finding super special people who really want to follow Christ and do what's right. We've been trying to help these people choose the right and get on their way to being baptized, but lots of things have been cropping up to stop them. I've been impressed with myself, as normally at this point I would be a little down about the lack of apparent success (AKA baptism!), but I've really been calm and persistent. I don't feel frustrated or anything and I'm going really well! Elder A. Souza and I have been helping each other a lot. I feel great! I'm really loving it, and I'm confident that Heavenly Father will bless us for all our diligent work.

Our one investigator who came to church, Alexandre, had a really cool experience with the Book of Mormon, and he really felt its power as he read. He didn't understand it completely, but he sure felt it! We're going to help him get baptized this week or next. He's pretty special! We've also been having several people stop us in the streets and ask us to stop by. One lady told us we were walking really fast so we slowed down and talked to her. Turns out, she was taught before! She'd been taught everything, had been to church, and still wasn't drinking coffee from when the Elders had helped her stop! We've had 3 or 4 inactive members stop us saying they want to come back to church as well! We've seen los of miracles, and we've been trying to focus on being more thankful for all these blessings. Gratitude opens the doors to more blessings! We've been trying to be more humble and recognize God's hand a little more. We're even fasting with the only purpose being to thank Heavenly Father for all the little miracles he's sent us here! We hope to grow from it and be blessed forever from it.

Two weeks left until I go home! Have fun everyone!

Elder Ashford