Recognize His Hand

It was great to have Mayara at church! She is awesome

How's everybody? We are doing great . My new area is super awesome. My week was good. Our ward is awesome! Ward Amizade. I am also seeing many people here who are from Hortolandia where I served for 6 months. Today, I already saw 7 from Jardin Amanda ward. That was super. They are pretty close in location. Also the Leadership Pday last Monday and the meetings on Tuesday were pretty great. It was good to unite all of the leaders in the mission to discuss how we can become better leaders and disciples of Christ. I learned a lot. We had a Family home evening altogether which was super cool too. We had to do skits and got in some good laughs. I love doing the Lords' work and serving in this mission.

With Eudes Da Mata & his family, members from Jardin Amanda ward in Hortlandia

Teaching is also going well, a lot of great things happening. We have been teaching a person named Isabel who came with a friend to church. She is a youth and is super interested. Her brother is too. We have taught the Restoration lesson to her and she has already started to read the Book of Mormon. She cried when she spoke to us about reading it. She also recognizes the importance of having prophets, apostles and the authority of Jesus Christ (Ephesions 2:20). She felt the spirit really really strongly while we told her about the 1st vision. She recognized the fact that Joseph Smith as a youth was seeking truth then like she is now. She and her brother would like to be baptized but her parents will not give permission right now so we will have to be patient and pray that their hearts will be softened. That they will see the good come into Isabel's life. I know the spirit and love of the Savior can change anyone's heart. She is pretty awesome so we are going to keep inviting and working with the parents. It is a tough thing but we aren't gonna give up! We have also been teaching Yasmin, Maria and Raissa. This past week we taught them about the Word of Wisdom and Chastity. They agreed and don't have any problems with any of them. They too shared that they feel a good spirit as they read the Book of Mormon. They set a date to be ready to be baptized in the next two weeks. Friday we found some new people to teach and made initial contacts. We also got to visit Igor and Eliane which is the couple that has dates marked for the 9th of December. They will marry on this day and also be baptized! It will be awesome. I love them so much! They are a awesome couple. We are trying to do something that we haven't really tried here in Sumare before. I have done it a few times in my other areas and it always worked out, so Elder Araujo and I started to do it here. We ask our investigators to share what they are feeling and learning with our other investigators. Igor has been going to church for about a year now but has never married and so he never was baptized. But he will marry now and will be baptized so we invited him to come along and visit some of his friends to teach. It was awesome. We were able to mark a few appts with his friends and he helped teach and bear his testimony. He was able to strengthen his own testimony as well as help his friend receive the gospel! It was super awesome. We will be visiting his friends again this week.

So on Saturday, the powerful day of confirming with everyone that they will go to church the next day! hahaha. So this day was just great. We got to teach some of the people that we found in the week and invite them to church. Almost everyone said they would go. We then went and visited Yasmin & Maria again. Guess what? Yasmin had a friend with her there waiting for us! We taught them about the importance to church. We always talk about the Sabbath in every single lesson we teach and how important it is to go to worship the Lord each Sunday because that can be a challenge for some people. We also found 3 people just by stopping them in the street to talk to them and they accepted our invitations to visit so we are going to teach them during this next week. The Lord really does bless us when we "talk with everyone" so just do it! You will be blessed!

Leadership activity in Piracicaba

The Mission Leadership activity was great!

Blessed to be serving in a faithful zone.

We have a great zone!

Sunday. We were able to bring 11 people to church! So cool! They are all progressing too. That is something we are trying to focus on. Helping the investigators progress but also not depend on us. Every single investigator has a member or another investigator that is showing them around the church explaining everything. We are there to make sure that its all right but it's super awesome because they are helping each other and themselves! Yasmin brought her friend and her friend's mom too. Yasmin showed the baptismal font to them and bore her testimony to them about how important baptism is and invited them to her baptism.Our investigators are missionaries already! Hahaha! It was awesome.

I want to share with you a scripture from Alma 10:4-6.
"Now these are the words which Amulek preached unto the people who were in the land of Ammonihah, saying: I am Amulek; I am the son of Giddonah, who was the son of Ishmael, who was a descendant of Aminadi; and it was that same Aminadi who interpreted the writing which was upon the wall of the temple, which was written by the finger of God. And Aminadi was a descendant of Nephi, who was the son of Lehi, who came out of the land of Jerusalem, who was a descendant of Manasseh, who was the son of Joseph who was sold into Egypt by the hands of his brethren. And behold, I am also a man of no small reputation among all those who know me; yea, and behold, I have many kindreds and friends, and I have also acquired much riches by the hand of my industry. Nevertheless, after all this, I never have known much of the ways of the Lord, and his mysteries and marvelous power. I said I never had known much of these things; but behold, I mistake, for I have seen much of his mysteries and his marvelous power; yea, even in the preservation of the lives of this people. Nevertheless, I did harden my heart, for I was called many times and I would not hear; therefore I knew concerning these things, yet I would not know;.."

Sometimes we can be as Amulek and think we don't know the ways of the Lord or that He doesn't have a hand in our life. But I want to testify to you that He always does. We just need to take the time to recognize it. As we pay attention to all of the little things we sometimes take for granted we will see we do have a knowledge of Him. Sometimes we just don't know that we do. Harden not your hearts, open them up for Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to enter in and heal you of whatever is inflicting pain, and let him lift the burden weighing down your shoulders. He is the Christ. He is the way. He is the life. He is the living bread and water. He is our Savior and our Brother. Love Him and receive His love. He is always there for us. I testify that He is the only way back to our Heavenly Father and to find joy and peace. I know that with all my heart and see it in every moment in my life as a missionary. Follow Him and focus on Him. The things of the world will pass but that which is of God is eternal. (1 John 2:15-17)

Love,
Elder Davis