Small & Simple Things

Oi família e amigos-

First of all I want to thank everyone for their birthday wishes. I opened my birthday package this week and it was fun to see the pictures of you wishing me a Happy Birthday! Even making a cake and eating it for me..thanks Johnston Family! Thanks to all of you! I love you and appreciate the support! The people here were very kind too. I have eaten a lot of cake this week! haha

Birthday Cake x 2

This week can be summed up in one sentence. We worked hard and taught a lot! We have been working with the references we received from members last week and have also found some other people that we are teaching too. We have a pretty big teaching pool now. Everyone is progressing and we are teaching alot.

Rainy Season!

Great things happened! Franciana, a woman we found ​​when I was companions with Elder Vieira, has had a hard time making it to church and that made it hard for her to continue to progress. Well she came to Church yesterday and was very touched by the spirit there. She loved it and wants to come every week. A member came with us when we picked her up and sat with her during the meetings so that was great. It really helped her. I could see the change in her and the spirit working with her. Harreson & Miguel, who were references from a member, are progressing well. We have taught them a lot of lessons and they are doing great. Erika was another reference from a member and she has come to church twice before we have even been able to teach her the first lesson! She is a young mother and really wants the gospel in her life for her child especially. Unfortunately her husband is not interested. We have found a lot of other people that we are teaching - Ana, Patrick, Carlos, Jose & Lucia and some others. We had a great experience finding Patrick. We were actually standing out in the rain trying to figure out where to go and I had this feeling to knock on a certain door but we ended up deciding to go to a different area but on the way back I was prompted again to knock on that door. So we did. We buzzed the intercom, introduced ourselves and asked if we could come in and share a message. He said sure. We taught him the first lesson and when we were leaving he asked if we could teach his sister too. How cool is that! I am grateful for the spirit being persistent. When we get those feelings and promptings we need to recognize them and follow them. It is amazing how many times we experience that. In another lesson I had a prompting to say something to them. The feeling was almost overwhelming and when I shared it, it happened to be something that they needed to hear that helped them. We have to listen and be willing to act on it.

Familia Araujo

We had noite familiar (family night) with the Family Araújo this past week. They are awesome. We had a great time with them. We also visited Ramon's family this week (he is one of the youth here in the ward) and we somehow ended up outside seeing who could catch a chicken the fastest. Needless to say I was the least experienced, never chased a chicken in my life! haha I uploaded some video and pictures for your entertainment. I love the people of Brazil and am thankful I get to serve the Lord here. (Couldn't get the video to work properly on here so only pictures are posted. Sorry. Contact me if you want to see it and I will send you a link to view it on Google drive.)

Finally caught the chicken!

Elder Davis, Elder Sander and Ramon

I wanted to share with you two scriptures that meant a lot to me this week as I was reading. The first is Alma 37:6-7

“..behold I say unto you, that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass; and small means in many instances doth confound the wise.

And the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes; and by very small means the Lord doth confound the wise and bringeth about the salvation of many souls.”

It is through small and simple things that great things are brought to pass. Sometimes we think things have to be hard or complicated to get results but changes begin with one small step/change or one small action like listening to the spirit. I experienced that this week.

The next scripture is Alma 37:37

“Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings, and he will direct thee for good; yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep; and when thou risest in the morning let thy heart be full of thanks unto God; and if ye do these things, ye shall be lifted up at the last day.”

We all need to communicate with our Heavenly Father at least morning and night. The word "counsel" stood out to me, it doesn't say tell the Lord all thy doings. We need His guidance. We need to express our thanks for all He has given us. We need to counsel with Him and listen. It is a small and simple thing with big results.

Love you all. Take care and have a great week!

Elder Davis

P.S. We are having a mission conference with a member of the Seventy on October 27th! That will be cool. Looking forward to that.