All is Possible through Him

The beauty of Avaré where we serve

This past week was pretty busy and good. Started it off in Porto Ferriera with Elder Kay and Mitchell. On Monday we played basketball with a member called Rodrigo and Ramon (his brother) and some of their friends. It worked out well we were able to get to know their friends and even got to teach them a few things about the gospel. We were later able to go visit them with members and teach them a little more. It was a great experience for them and us. It definitely had been awhile since I played basketball!

Loved working with these guys the last week !

Wednesday I left Porto Ferreira and went to Avaré in the Botucatu zone. Wow, that was a long trip! Finally got here after 4 hours on the same bus! It definitely is out in the middle of nowhere haha. My companion is Elder Ruiz. We get along great. He is from the Honduras. He is a friendly, awesome missionary and hard worker. He is pretty much always talking and laughing. I am looking forward to continuing working with him throughout this next week. His companion, Elder Azi got here today. When he arrived in the mission he was sick so he stayed in Piracicaba but now he is well again and finally was able to come to his first area. So now we will be in a trio for this week.

The church building here is a renovated house.

Avare Branch has about 25-30 members that attend on Sunday

Church hallway upstairs

Avaré Branch Building

With Elder Frietas, Simmons, Ruiz in the Avaré Building. You got to love the sink mounted on the wall in the room!

Elder Ruiz and I had a good week last week. We worked with several people. We have been teaching Stefanie, Vilma and her family, and last but not least Pedro and Paula. One of the people we are teaching is in her 20s - still young and sometimes still struggles with things. She is all ready to be baptized but she needs to get over one challenge- tattoos. She loves to do tattoos. We have explained to her about how our bodies are temples for our spirits and gifts from God. We have asked her to pray to God about it and see what He says. She said she would do it but has been hesitating about it because I think she is scared of getting an answer. She doesn't want to ask because she does not want to stop. She doesn't want to receive a response from God because she knows what it is going to be. She is awesome in everything else. She goes to church every Sunday and keeps all the commandments. I know the Lord will help her understand this if she will just let Him! We are also teaching a son and mom. He wants to be baptized but the mom now is kind of not so sure. It is a hard situation because he has opened his heart and she has kind of closed hers. He wants to be baptized but he lets himself be influenced by other people. He wants to follow Christ but also does not want to upset his mother or family. We are trying to help him understand that you always put God first and then everything else falls into place. God above all other things. He has set a baptismal date for the 2nd of June. So this week we will continue to work with him. We are also teaching a mother and some of her kids. She is a lady that struggles with some addictions but also has a good heart and wants to learn of Christ. We are working with her in trying to stop her her addictions - smoking and drinking. I believe she wants to stop but she has such a strong addiction it is so difficult for her to fight against years of abusing her body. It has been a wild ride for her entire family. They need Christ in their lives. Her husband hasn't really supported her in the past in trying to change. But this time as we were leaving he came up to us with tears in his eyes and said how he feels hope and feels different when we are there teaching his wife and kids. He feels the spirit speaking to his heart and it makes him want to change. That was the first time I didn't see him drunk and because of that he recognized the spirit. It was a great experience for us all as we saw him feel the spirit and have the true desire to feel it more. This is what I am going to miss the most in the mission. It is the privilege to see the gospel of Jesus Christ take people from the depths of unhappiness, trials or sin and bring them to the light and hope that comes through the gospel. Watching people change 180 degrees from what they were to what they wanted to be and what Christ intended them to be has been one of the greatest blessings of my mission. All is possible through Him. I am really going to miss being able to spend all day every day sharing that message of hope and truth. How thankful I am for the gospel of Jesus Christ and His Plan of Salvation. I love my Savior. He is my Redeemer, Brother, Friend and Counselor. Through Him we gain true happiness and joy.

With Stefany, Elder Simmons, Elder Ruiz and Elder Frietas

With Elder Simmons and Iuri (a member here)

Have a great week. Next Monday I will be back in Piracicaba preparing to go to Sao Paulo temple with our group on Tuesday. Still cannot believe it. #9daysleft

Talking to my Family on Mother's Day!

Elder Davis

Choose You This Day

Entire Mission with Elder Pinho of the Seventy

Hope everyone is doing great. It was a good week. Elder Pinho from the Seventy came for a mission tour and it was great to have him here. I also gave my last testimony to the entire mission at that meeting. It is weird to think I will be home in a little over two weeks. I will miss the work and the people. It is definitely a bittersweet thing. It is truly hard to leave.

Saying Goodbyes at Last Mission meeting - with Elder Kleinkauff, Sisters Silva & Nascimiento

With Sister Farias and Moura

With Elder Dickson - CTM comp.

With Elder Theodoro - one of the best!

With Sister Davila

With Elder Simmons - going to miss this guy and Sister Michelly

With Sister Pinheiro and Sister Temple

Elder Carvalho - so many good missionaries to say goodbye to.

 

With Elder Waters

Everything is going well here in Porto Ferreira. Sião Porto Ferreira! I will be staying another week with Elder Kay and Elder Mitchell. It is hard to describe the feeling of coming back to an old area, my first area to be exact, and seeing the difference in how I worked before when I first arrived and how my vision of the area and work is now. It has helped me realize the great blessings and growth that have come through the mission. Being here at the beginning and now at the end I really feel like Heavenly Father is giving me another chance to work here in Porto Ferreira, to truly give it my all again with more experience. It has been great to watch Elder Kay. He has a huge desire to do the right and truly be a great missionary. He will be a great leader. He truly loves the members and wants the best for people. He is truly setting the example for everyone. He even got baptized this past week. No kidding - somehow the record of his baptism was lost. He and his family and ward know he was baptized but it was long ago and for some reason the record of it never made it to church headquarters and they just realized that so President Bangerter had to baptize him this week. Kind of crazy right? Never thought I would see one of my companions baptized while on my mission.

Elder Kay with Pres. & Sis. Bangerter before the baptism

Elder Carvalho, Mitchell, Kay, Duarte and Craviero

With Elder Kay

I have to tell you about Palmira - one of the people we taught this week. She was one of the people that we had come to church two Sundays ago. She liked it a lot and felt the spirit. She was excited to start with the lessons so we were able to go to her house this past week and teach her the first lesson. She was super receptive. She understood all that we talked about and agreed to read and pray about the Book of Mormon and our message. She has prayed and told us she received her answer and wants to be baptized. As soon as we talked about it with her she was asking questions about how soon she could be baptized and what time it would be and what should she wear and a ton of other questions. It was great - she was so excited and ready. She had felt in her heart the answer to her prayer and she was ready to go - no hesitation. So we are working on getting her ready in the next week or two. Wow, I will be honest, I did not see that coming. I knew she would be baptized because you could tell she sincerely was seeking truth and answers in her life but I didn't expect it to be that great of a response. It was awesome! She was able to understand the invitation of the Savior and felt the urgency of accepting that invitation and coming unto Him. It was a great experience. She also came to church this past week again! She came by herself without us having to go get her or any of the members either. She got to church at 8:30 to sit and listen to the prelude music. How great is that! She is excited to have the Lord and His gospel in her life.

As we spoke with her I thought we all need to be more like Palmira. When God gives us a chance for us to improve, we need to take advantage of it and not hesitate at all. We sometimes don't understand the urgency of completing what is best for us. We sometimes think "I can do that tomorrow" "I am really tired right now, I will study in the morning, or I will say my prayer after" That is how Satan gets us. He makes it seem like our salvation or our relationship with Heavenly Father or just the simple things we need to do daily can wait and it will have no effect on us. Let us have urgency in our salvation and in our works so that we can take advantage of every opportunity that God gives us without missing one blessing!

At Ingrid Mariano's missionary farewell

"..choose you this day whom ye will serve " Joshua 24:15
"He that seeketh me early shall find me, and shall not be forsaken. D&C 88:83

Hope everyone has a great week.

Elder Davis