January 23, 2017 Two more baptisms

Dear Family,

  

This week has been good, but busy as usually. We had another baptism last Tuesday. His name is Sildavãn and his parents are members. I think he is in his 30's and we helped him quit smoking which is really cool. 

Also tomorrow we will have a baptism of a girl named Stefany, she has 14 years old and is the granddaughter of Allena, a woman that we baptized two weeks ago. Her parents have been going to church too and are really supportive, but lack marriage. 

I heard about our new mission president, he is from Wyoming and he is friends with my companion's grandma haha. 

How has home been? How is Conner, Hunter, and Mckinzie? 

Transfers are coming up soon, I think I have a couple weeks left until tranfers but it looks like I'll stay in the area and my companion will leave. He has been serving here for a little over then 6 months.

But anyways, everything is the same old, super busy and working with lots of people on baptismal dates.

Hope everyone has a great week.

Love,

Elder Toma

January 8, 2017 Three baptisms today

Dear Family,

  

This week has been sooo crazy and just so much has happened and is going on. We have been teaching lots of people and we were going to baptize 3 people yesterday but the pool that we were going to use was being used. The president said we can baptize in the Ocean but he really wants us to find a better place because he doesn’t think the Ocean is clean enough. So, we told him that we would baptize today instead in the pool. So today we have 3 baptisms.

One of the ladies that we will be baptizing is Kiteria she has a ton of faith, when we met her she was crying outside her house and we stop and asked her what was wrong and helped her by sharing a brief message and a prayer. We taught her the next day and shared the restoration, and asked her to pray to know if it was true and the next day she told us about her dream and how she saw a river and thorns but then the thorns went away and she felt peace. That night we taught her about the Book of Mormon and read Moroni 10:3-5 with her. After we had her pray to know that it was true and she started crying and after told us that she knows its true right off the bat. We also have been teaching her mom who is a serious member of the Assembly of God church, (a church that I think only exists in brazil lol) and we have been teaching all the lessons and she has been going to church with us but still lacked a little bit of a testimony. Finally, the very same day that the Zone leaders were interviewing her daughter Kiteria, she was telling us about a dream she had.  In her dream, she said she saw two bodies of water, one warm and one cold. She said that she went in the warm water and then saw two men dressed in white, she told the men that she loved them and then the men told her that they loved her and that was basically all that she said to us.

We also found some other people who will be baptized next week and 3 more the following, so we have lots of baptisms lined up.

This last week has had some laughs too, my companion was standing in the this street looking around and trying to get direction from the spirit, when this little boy was running up and down the street and about the third or fourth time the kid passed us, he tried to punch me in the soft spot, but luckily I caught it and then my companion next to me, still looking around trying to feel guidance from the spirit wasn’t paying attention and the kid nailed him square in family jewels and then ran off. My companion was in pain for like the whole next hour hahaha. Also, this week I saw a really buff guy in a dress wearing make-up and wearing high heels, the weirdest thing and creepiest thing I’ve ever seen haha. But over all a really good week, wish us luck on the baptisms that we will have today, I’ll send pictures next week.

miss you guys!

Love

Elder Toma

January 2, 2017 Happy New Year!

Dear Family,

So for my new years my president made us come to Macieo because it's too dangerous and lots of bad stuff in our area during new years. So we went to a members house and ate with the stake president and it was really good. I'm still here in Maceio but I think we will be allowed to return later today. 

Here they had sooo many fire works everyone was just launching them everywhere haha and it was funny to see drunk people dance on the street lol because here they can't even dance without being drunk let alone being drunk lol. 

This week we experienced a couple miracles.  So this lady we saw a week ago was crying and my companion talked to here and tried to comfort her by saying a prayer and sharing a couple scriptures. We continued to teach her through out the week and challenged her to pray and ask God if what we had taught was true. Then next day she told us she had a dream but she didn't understand it. She said she was sitting there next to a river or body of water and on one side was a bunch of thorns. Then a child gave her a flower and the thorns cleared and she said she has never felt so much peace in a dream before and she said she believes it came from God. I didn't really understand the dream either haha I'm not Joseph but i can testify that it was a form of an answer to her and we were going to baptize her on New Years but the President called us to stay in Maceio so we moved it to next week. We are also teaching her mom who i think will be baptized too, she is slowly gaining a testimony. 

My new companion will be staying in Maceio with other missionaries for a couple of weeks, i don't know why but he just will be. But he is half Brazilian, he didn't know the language the when he arrived haha and he is from Draper Utah and i don't know much about him yet because we only worked one day together haha. His name is Elder Richmond by the way and the dynamics of a three way isn't my preference but we can make it work. I just see two is more easy and easier to teach and just more balanced but it will be alright and only for a couple of weeks because tranfers will be soon after he comes back to our area. But over all a good week we haven't been able to teach to many lessons because of the craziness here but this week we will be able to get back to it.

Hope everyone had a good new year!

Love

ELder TOma