7/23/18 - Booking It For Baptism

So we grabbed ice cream  at this side of the road shop this week and the lady poured a whole bunch of sticky red sauce on our cones. I didn't think anything of it until we were walking away and my comp starts scraping all of it off and flicking it into a dirt pile. I asked her why and she said it was made of this crushed up bug called Fumiga? Oh Brasil. Turns out that the ice cream had alcohol in it too so we tossed that out real quick.

Awesome Portuguese mistake of the week: I was talking with my comp and told her I need to develop a habit of using a specific grammer principle in Portuguese. I said habito. I found out that means tail, as in the tail of a dog. So really I told her I need to develop a tail in order to speak better Portuguese. The correct word is hábito. Who knew?

No update on Paublo. We're still praying for a miracle

Francisca and Fabio are doing great! When we arrived for Fabio's 2nd lesson he excitedly told us, "I READ THE WHOLE BOOK!" We were astonished and then we found out by "the whole book" he meant the whole Resturação phamplet, not O Livro de Mormón. haha BUT that is still a miracle because he hates reading and usually can't focus for more than a page or so. He's going on day 4 today of not smoking at all and he is so sick because of it but he's staying strong. Francisca came to church yesterday without him and when we asked her where he was she told us he was too sick to come. We knew that being at church would only make him stronger so what did we do? We left to go get him. The chapel is located in Vila Angélica and he lives in Novo Sorocabba. Usually it takes us about 25 minutes on foot to get there but we made it there in 9 minutes. BOOKING IT FOR BAPTISM! We're used to speed walkling everywhere but we got some pretty weird looks as we sprinted across the highway in our skirts and small heels. We found him, he was on a walk to try and distract his mind from his cravings. We brought him to church, he got a blessing and is doing much better.

We thought Francisca and Fabio were married, but we had a prompting to ask. SURPRISE! They're not. They said the only thing keeping them from marriage is the pension Francisca recieves from her late husband. I guess there is a law if you remarry you lose it. Anyway, after a lot of prayer we got more information about this law and turns out it doesn't affect them! Miracle. Guess what that means? WE'RE PLANNING A WEDDING! This is the last week of the transfer so our goal is to get them married and baptized all before Sunday! All things are possible through Christ. 

We had another idea to help us find people this week. We taped paper to pass along cards that had Christ-like attributes and gospel principles written on them like love, patience, peace, health, etc. We presented people with our spiritual deck and asked them what they needed today. We then taught them quickly about the principle they chose and how they could find what they needed though Christ. We tied it into an invitation to hear our message and visit the church. We also wrote Book of Mormon scriptures about that principle on the back of the cards. It was so fun and helped us filter our contact to see who was truly interested and who was just being nice. It helped us understand more fully how the gospel could help them specifically.

A lesson fell through and at night no one is on the streets so contacting is hard but we were led to a man who gave us an iffy address and phone number. We said a prayer after to help us find more people we could talk to, but had the impression to follow this man. So we did. Booking it (yet again) down the street to find where he went and then we followed him from a distance. right as he turned a corner we ran to see where he went and he had vanished. A day later we went to find the address he gave us but it didn't exist. However, while asking for helping finding this address we made a really firm contact named Rafel. Sister A. Ribeiro thinks the man we followed was a resurrected being, (we shook his hand) and this was God's way of leading us to find this awesome contact. Who knows, God works in mysterios ways. :)

Like I said, this is the last week of the transfer so this means you have 1 week left to finish the Book of Mormon as apart of my challenge. Don't forget to pray about it! 

The members here are hoping we stay in Vila Angélica. Irmã Delza is talking to the Bisbo, praying, and doing everything her 80 year old self can to make sure we stay here. It's so cute. We feel so loved. 

Please try to look a little closer for the Lord's hand in your life this week. I promise it's there.

Bejas Amigos

Sister Barlow

MSPN

1) Our card idea

2) Jackfruit tree

3) My beautiful capela

4) Some of my favorite members