"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