"Ask, and It Shall Be Given You"

With Elder Cifuentes, Soares and Jackson

Hope everyone had a great week. We had a pretty great week and this Sunday we had a new investigator at church so that was a good start to the next week. Her name is Maria and we are excited to start teaching her. Unfortunately her mom recently passed away. The Lord is amazing in how he times things to bless his children when they are in need. We seem to meet people right at the time they are ready and needing the gospel. I honestly don't know how the Lord does it but he puts us and them in each other's paths at just the right time. Like seriously, it's so amazing, He is perfect. He knows all. Truly does. As I said this was the first time Maria had come to church and it just so happened that the gospel principles class was about eternal families and how that is possible through the Lord's plan. And the talks in Sacrament meeting were about how we can accept Gods will in our lives and much more. It all touched Maria's heart and gave her comfort as well as hope. She loved it and happily accepted us to continue visiting her. We also restarted teaching one of our previous investigators, Elaine who we had stopped seeing because when we were teaching her before she was interested but would not take the step further to do the things she needed to do to find out for herself the truthfulness of the gospel. She would not read or pray and really was not ready to make a commitment to change so we stopped teaching her. But last week she came to find us. She had had a dream where Oliviera (my old comp) and I were standing at her door telling her that we were leaving and did not think we would be able to come back again. She started crying in the dream and said she felt the spirit of Jesus Christ leaving her house as we left. She couldn't sleep the rest of the night after the dream so the next day she came to find us. We are working hard to help her gain her own testimony of the gospel and prepare for baptism.We are also teaching a guy named Donizete who compares himself to Tomé (Thomas). He really feels he has to see something before he can believe it. He feels that there are so many bad things happening in the world and even in churches that it makes him doubt. We definitely have some hills to climb with him but he has accepted to pray with faith about what we are teaching and if he should go to church. So that is a start. We have found some other new people to teach too and are excited about getting started with them.

After zone meeting

Overall, everything is great, Elder Cifuentes, my new comp. is awesome. This is his first transfer as a ZL and he is stellar already. He is a little quiet/reserved which is super weird for me because usually I am the quiet one! But I am now noticing that I am the one talking too much! hahahaha. But he is really great. I am learning a lot with him and we are working hard. He is trying to teach me Spanish as well so that will be cool.

A short spiritual thought. As I have witnessed the Lord working in my own life, as well as the people we are teaching this past week, it has really confirmed to me that our Heavenly Father is mindful of us all. He hears our prayers and knows our needs. Praying is such a simple thing but it is so so so important. Our relationship with Heavenly Father changes everything in our lives. It changes how we see life, how we accept His will, how we act and what blessings we receive. This week we all need to prepare for General Conference, we need to pray to have your questions answered through His prophet and the apostles. He has always answered my questions. Always. I know He knows and loves each of us and will guide and direct us in our lives if we but ask and listen.

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." Matt. 7:7-8

Hope you all have a great week!
Elder Davis

I didn't take any pictures this past week but I have one that Elder Cifuentes took and another one after zone meeting from one of the other missionaries. I will take some this week.

Choose the Harder Right over the Easier Wrong

With Maria Eduarda and her parents Ana & Gabriel before Maria's baptism

Hope everyone is doing great. Transfers are today. I am sad that Elder Oliveira is leaving. I have learned a lot from him. But I am excited to have Elder Cifuentes as a new companion. He is from Argentina. Looking forward to working with him.

Maria strong in Body and especially in Spirit

With Bishop and Maria before the Baptism

With Maria, the newest member of the Limiera ward and her family

Well the highlight of the week was we baptized Maria Eduarda! Woohoo! I am so excited for her! We have been teaching the entire family for awhile now and I am hoping her parents Ana and Gabriel will soon be married so they can also be baptized. They are wonderful people. Maria is young but she is strong in spirit and did not want to wait until her parents were baptized so we went ahead with her baptism. On Sunday when she came to church you could see the difference in her countenance, she had a bright spirit about her. She had a dress on and was looking her best to come and worship the Savior. She has such a desire to change for the better and be the best she can be for the Lord. It makes me so happy to see people change their lives in even the smallest of ways. They want to be the best they can in the presence of the Lord as well as show Him respect as they enter His church. We are going to continue to do our best to help her parents get ready for baptism. I love that family. I am so grateful for the opportunity to meet wonderful people and have these experiences that we can have almost every day in the mission. The Lord is so loving and merciful in giving us these glorious experiences in our life. It changes us immensely as we try to help others change and come unto Him. I am grateful for the opportunity and privilege to serve in His name and have these experiences.

With Elder Oliviera sporting matching ties. 

Spiritual thought today is simple but important. In life we often will have to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong as Pres. Monson said a couple Conferences ago and when that happens, that is when true growth happens and we become more fully converted. It is through consistently making those "harder rights" that we express our love for our Savior and truly obtain a change of heart by seeking His will not ours.

Have a great week! I appreciate all the love and support.
Elder Davis

Read the Book of Mormon, then reread it again and again and again, it will bless your life!

Go Forward in Faith

The Elders of Zona Rio Claro

Hey Everyone-
Hope all is well there in the Carolinas. My heart goes out to all the victims of the hurricanes in Texas and now in Florida. Sounds like a lot of devastation. What a huge reminder to us to be prepared not just physically but spiritually. Hope everyone is doing okay.

The kind and infamous Regina

A picture from Regina - she likes to see us enjoying her food!

It has been a great week. So much stuff to do this past week and it felt like the week was a day. It literally flew by. We have been working with our ward to build our teaching pool. Some of the great things that happened were this past Tuesday we had a FHE with a different member than usual. We have one member who invites us every week to bring our investigators to her home for FHE which is awesome but this week we also went to a different member's home. Her name is Regina. She invited her whole extended family especially those that aren't members and so that was super cool! We were able to make some good contacts there. We also had lunch at her house during the week. Dad, you had asked whether we ever cook, well the answer is almost never. Which is lucky for us! haha We are fed lunch and dinner most days by members. I have to give a shout out to our members they are the best! I am always amazed and grateful for the love and generosity of the members. The people of Brasil are so awesome. As missionaries we are blessed greatly by the wonderful ward members here not only in taking care of us but with their desire to help us share the gospel. We found another new family through another member named Paulo. Our testimonies of faith and working with the members was strengthened through our experiences with him. When we started the visits, he told us he really didn't have anyone to visit. So we asked him to think of a few people he knew that would allow us just to visit them and who he could introduce us to. He first took us to his neighbors and as we talked with them they started talking about some other people and then the list just kept getting longer and longer as we went to each house. At first he was a little bit timid to share with his friends but by the end he had caught the missionary spirit and was doing almost all the talking and bore his testimony at each home. He shared with everyone how he was baptized and had progressed to the point where he is now. He also shared the great joy he felt when he baptized one of the recent converts in Limeira and how the happiness he felt was so great when he helped someone else come unto Christ. We have marked 2 dates for baptism with 2 of his friends, Rosa and Luiz. How great is that? It was marvelous to see him sharing his testimony and see how the Lord blessed him as he went out in faith not knowing where to go in the beginning. By the end we could hardly get him to stop for that night. Haha. It was great! It can be the same for each one of us. Everyone needs to go out with the missionaries and share your own experiences with your friends. We don't know who will accept and we certainly should not judge and cannot guess who will be ready and seeking the truth. The Lord prepares a way for each one of us individually to take part in inviting others to come unto Him and receive the blessings of the gospel. So go out there in faith. Miracles will happen.

Lunch at Madalena with Paulo

Dinner at the House of Mara and Adilson

This week we will have the baptism of Maria Eduarda! The daughter of Ana and Gabriel. She will be baptized this Saturday! Her parents want to be baptized too but have a few things we need to help them work on, so hopefully soon. We are also working with Ronie and Elaine and doing our best to get them ready for baptism by Sunday but it may need to be the next week. It will all work out! Transfers are next week too, time has passed so fast. I appreciate all the prayers and support! Have a great week!

Elder Davis

Brothers in the Work

"I Will Go and Do"

With Elders Oliviera, Soares, Jackson and our great Ward Mission Leader Carlos

It has been a great week. Hope everyone else has had a great week too. So we ending up going to Rio Claro and going to Araras for the district meetings. We are seeing a good change in the people and the missionaries and how they are working. Right now we are trying to focus more on the personal growth of the missionaries in our zone than focusing on changing their work. I think if you focus on teaching style or how they work, things will go up and start to improve, but to continually have improvement and stay where we should be we each have to be consistently experiencing personal progression and change. If a missionary is constantly growing spiritually and developing a deeper understanding of Christ themselves they will in turn have a desire to improve their work and their service. They will be blessed with the spirit in improving their work and their teaching if they are constantly seeking that growth and truth themselves. We are trying to make sure everyone knows and remembers their true purpose for being here and for doing the work. It is also important that everyone knows that they are needed and it takes all of us to build Zion. As we all know Zion is not a physical place it is the people and the spirit that dwells in a place. It refers to the people who are "pure in heart". We are working to make our zone Rio Claro Sião. It is going well! Our zone has 12 baptisms already in this transfer! And we are always working to become better. Of course it is not about the numbers but rather the people who those numbers represent. It is about those people that are gaining an understanding and testimony of their Savior and making a covenant with Him.

With Elder Soares

With Elder Jackson

This week I also did divisions with Elder Soares and Elder Oliveira stayed with E. Jackson. It was good! We did a baptism interview for Rio Claro 2 because their LD, Elder Little, had to go to Piracicaba. The interview could only be on that day because of the schedule of Wesley(the investigator) so we went and did it! I love interviews! I love hearing the conversion stories of those we interview. Interviews are one of the things that I miss most about being a district leader. Elder Oliviera and I are working great together but I do miss being a LD. But I am grateful for the opportunity I have to work with him and appreciate all I am able to learn from him. We have lost a few people from our teaching pool and others are having some significant challenges but we are moving forward. We are teaching a mother and a brother of a missionary who is serving in Northern Brasil. We have had some great lessons with them but have had difficulty getting her to church. Then all of the sudden on Sunday morning she called us up and said, "I am going, lets go!" I was like WHAT ???. Alright then. That's awesome! Made my week!

Yep that pan is empty! We can demolish a whole cake pretty easily!

This past week I was thinking about how sometimes when we ask for help or an answer we are really looking to have Heavenly Father do it or take it away. But Heavenly Father wants us to learn for ourselves so instead he gives us challenges and opportunities. Sometimes he asks of us things that we think are pretty big, things we may feel we do not have the knowledge to do or can do. When we turn to Him for help He does not do the task for us or take the task away, He gives us the tools to do the work. There are so many examples of that in the scriptures. Like Moses with helping the Children of Israel through the wilderness, Noah building the Ark and getting all the animals on board, like Alma the Younger and the Sons of Mosiah being sent to teach the gospel to the Lamanites who hated them at that time, and Nephi who was constantly given tasks to stretch him. Nephi was the man! He went clear back to Jerusalem through the wilderness to get the brass plates after just leaving there, made a new bow when his broke so his family had food and kept the faith when his family was complaining, built a boat to take his family to the promised land without having any knowledge of how to do that, so many things were asked of him that he had no idea how he was going to accomplish them. But he went ahead and trusted in the Lord to help him know what he should do. Didn't start complaining about how he did not know how to do it or someone else might be better to do it. He just went and did it with the Lord's help. I love those passages. I am thankful for the scriptures and all that they teach us. I love my Savior and am so thankful for Him and His gospel.
Have a great week.
Elder Davis