February 19, 2017 "Seeing how God is working" in the life of an individual

Dear family.

   

This week I’ll start off by answering mom’s questions ha-ha. The package has arrived! thanks I’ve already almost eaten all the candy ha-ha I’ve just had a crazy week so the candy kind of helped out. And thanks for the recipes and pictures and sunglasses! I think moms second question was about my companion.

My companion is Elder Richmond and he is from Draper Utah I think. His mom is from Brazil so he has already visited Brazil as a child but he is about American as it gets ha-ha. I have a lot of pictures and I brought my camera here and everything but I forgot the cord unfortunately but I promise I will send pictures next week.

The third question was food I think, Here I basically eat rice beans noodles chicken meat fish clams and a bunch of super good fruits. The weather here has just been hot as usual ha-ha but today it poured on us on the way here to the laun house.

This week we had a baptism of Carlos. He used to be like a gangster or something but when he saw us one day he stopped using drugs and selling and doing all that. Then we helped him quit smoking and drinking coffee and his life has already been feeling way better and he feels way healthier he said. ITs funny though because the other day his mom was telling us that he still gets scared at night and sleeps in her room hahahaha. He is like 6´1 300bls and used to be like a drug dealer ha-ha. It’s really cool because I have really seen how God is working in this young man’s life. To be honest me and my comp were actually worried about baptizing him because of just everything and we thought maybe we should wait another week. so, we decided to pray and after our prayer we both just got the impression to call our zone leaders. We called them and they told us that he passed the interview questions and that we need to now just put our faith in him that he will continue to keep the commandments and so we both got our answer to baptize him. I know it was the right decision because he really is doing so good and so dedicated. We already set a baptism date for his girlfriend who loved church this week and already knows some members and also his mom who is sooo grateful that his life has really changed. Also, this week we should be having two baptisms, actually tomorrow so remember them in your prayers.

Claudette who has been fighting smoking but has gone a week without it and Cristiani who has been going to church for a year but kept pushing the baptismal date back but we finally got her to commit for tomorrow. Carnival is crazy, it has really slowed down our work. And it looks like we will be staying in Maceio indoors for a week straight. But after Carnival I have a feeling baptisms and new investigators and everything will just become way better.

Tell everyone I said hi. I promise I’ll send pics next week.

Love Elder Toma

February 11, 2017 God gives us tender merices

Dear família,

This week has been good but the work here has been getting rough with Carnival coming up. Everybody is working and the iniquity is rising so we aren't teaching very many people. But we are working with a lot of good investigators. Right now we are working with a young man named Carlos. We will be baptizing him tomorrow so we are pretty excited about that.

This week has just been pretty busy though. Lots of meeting out in Maceió. We have to take a bus there every time and it is more or less a 45-minute ride.

This week we had a pretty cool miracle. Last Tuesday we were returning from Maceió and my companion left our phone on the bus and we prayed and prayed because he needs the phone because he is district leader so he is always having to call the missionaries and the zone leaders and stuff. But then the next day we got a call from the sister missionaries because a woman found our phone and kept it and then called one of the contacts which was the sisters. The sisters then wrote the address of the woman and were we could find her. So, Wednesday we took a bus out to the other part of our area called A Alto da Barra. We then knocked on the woman’s door and she gave us our phone! and then we talked to her a little bit about the gospel and she said she really really wants to visit our church. So I think this week she will visit. This was just a little testimony of the miracles that God does for us. It reminded me of the story that you told me Dad, of the little red bike and how God gives us little tender mercies over small things too. It was only a cheap cell phone but God still helped us find a way to receive it.

This next week we will probably baptize Claudette. She had problems with smoking and was very very addicted but our zone leader told us to bring oranges. We brought oranges and told her that when she is feeling tempted to smoke, to suck on an orange and it will take away the drive to smoke. We talked to her the next day and she told us that it completely worked! We have tried everything and we finally found what helped and it is oranges. Interesting, right? I don’t know why oranges help but they do ha-ha.

Anyways everything is going well here after next week we probably won’t have baptisms until after Carnival and we will probably stay in Maceió with the Zone leaders.

Tell everyone that I said hi.

Sounds like everyone is doing good!

Miss you all

Love Elder Toma 

February 6, 2017 "Never give up on anybody"

Dear family, 

This week my trainer left but I will be staying with the other Elder that I have already been working with.

My companions name is Elder Richmond and he is from Utah. He has about 5 months out so one more transfer than I have so it has been interesting to have two newbies working together but we actually have been doing really well. This week we have been working with an investigator that when we met him he was wearing a hat that says 420 (marijuana). He said the moment he met us he decided to give up drugs and all. To be honest I didn’t think he would be able to progress this much and I guess I learned my lesson to never give up on anybody. Now he has given up coffee, drugs, smoking, and he says his prayers every morning and night and already has started ready the Book of Mormon. He has just been such a good investigator to work with. He said he liked church a lot, and that he would go to church every day if he could.

We have a lot of other people just ready to receive the Gospel too so it’s been fun to work with my new companion, it feels good to feel more equal with my comp and I’m leading a lot because he doesn’t know the area or people yet.

Looks like the house is changing a little and looking good dad. Ha ha hunter and McKinzie will email me every once in a while. It would be good to hear from my little brother though, how is Conner doing?

Well I hope everyone has a great week tell everyone that I said hi.

Love,

Elder Toma