Hello! First of all... José da Silva was baptized on Saturday! It was really special. He is 78 years old! He was confirmed on Sunday. He is divorced and very lonely. I could tell that all of the ward members who came to the baptism really meant a lot to him. Our ward is awesome! Sister Dixon and I bought some pop, chips and made brownies as well. It was so cute to see José munching on the goodies while talking to the ward members. These past few weeks I had just been praying that he would be able to remember the things that we taught him. The Spirit had testified for him to be baptized but he would forget fundamental things- like why we had to be baptized again. (He was Catholic, like 98% of the people here) In this ward they like us to teach the Law of Chastity and Tithing with the Bishop. So we had it all scheduled to teach him with Bishop and I was just hoping he wouldn't say something funny and that he would remember what we taught him. We were talking about Baptism and Bishop asked him why he thought we had to be baptized again. And immediately José said ´´adultos´´ which means adults. So the thing that immediately popped into his head was that we needed to be adults to be able to choose to be baptized! I was so happy that he remembered that. It was really sweet during his confirmation he was tearing up a bit. Also, the four missionaries in the ward we sang a little hymn during the Baptismal program and he was tearing up.
We had a little scare the day after on Sunday the day he was going to be confirmed. They had just changed the Sacrament meeting to be the first hour instead of last. Usually José da Silva drives himself to church every week and he is usually there like 20 minutes early. He wasn't there yesterday! I was having a heart attack. He had been baptized the day before and he wasn't there to get confirmed! Our Ward Mission Leader asked me where he was and I said I didn't know. Then the Bishop mouthed to me from the stand ´´Ele não está?´´ which means ´´He isn´t here?´´ and I shrugged and shook my head no. It was really stressful! I was just praying that he accidentally slept in or something. About halfway through Sacrament meeting I saw his brown suit coming up the stairs outside from outside the window. Then he came in and sat in the back! And Bishop did the confirmation after the testimonies. Phew. :)
Transfers were today! Sister Dixon and I are staying together in Leiria. YAY!!! :) We are so excited. They didn't call us until way late last night! Not until like 10:40 p.m. to let us know about transfers. Usually they call at like 8! It was the slowest day of my life.
Love you all! Have a nice week!!
Love,
Sister Anderson
José da Silva and the recent convert, Pedro, who baptized him!
A pizza we had. It was really good with spinach, chicken, pineapple, alfredo and marinara sauce. yum.
José da Silva program for baptism! i figured it all out by myself and we called the people and got it all set up. It's really quite stressful planning a baptism.
José da Silva with the ladies in the ward! haha
Us with sweet Joaquim!
Us with Elder Richins and Elder Michelson. Elder Richins just got transferred and now elder Domingos is here instead. Elder Domingos is an old AP from Angola.
No comments:
Post a Comment