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