Moore on a Mission in Florianopolis, Brazil: Catching the Fire

Oi Tudo bem,

We taught some really cool families this week, it was a busy week, with some great lessons. Had a meeting with the President and his wife, they are awesome! They both went on missions. I saw Elder Riddle, he is in my zone, he is with Elder Morales. I saw him like the first day he was here, and then again at zone conference. He is about an hours south of me, he is in the furthest southern part of the mission.

We have a bunch more families to teach this week. The only problem we are finding is that families have been together for along time but have not been married. So that is always a work to get them to understand the importance of marriage and to get them married.

The other package is at the mission home, I am going to wait till Christmas to open it, I have decided I wanted it as my Christmas package. Did I tell you the Camera is beast!

I traded some ties with Elder Johnson before he left.

The little pins that you sent are awesome. Now on our map, I put where our investigators are, where there are some less actives, and where there are strong members. It is beautiful and will help us out with our missionary work and make us more productive.

Saturday, we went to lunch with Maria and Juan from Peru, they are awesome. We had a good lunch and taught them about missionary work. It was good. We left a good message with them. We also did contacts today, me and Elder Dos Anos. It was productive, I had asked the Lord to help me and it was productive. If we ask, our prayers are answered. We talked to two guys from Africa, they only spoke English, it was weird but awesome to teach them a lesson in English. At first it felt awkward, but then the spirit was there and it was definitely a great lesson. Saturday we also had a lesson with Maria. She is still going to her evangelist church and the Pastor is always bashing us and telling her bad things about us. However she did say that out of all the church’s she has been to, our church is the one that makes her feel the best and answers all of her questions. Elder Gomes explained to her that its because even though there are other good churches out there they do not have the fullness of the gospel. They have parts, but that there is only one true church of Jesus Christ on the earth. That through the restoration of the gospel and through Joseph Smith, God was able to restore the fullness of the gospel again on the earth. I then explained and talked with her about John 3, and the three things we learn about baptism and the importance of it. It was a good lesson, but she is so scared of what the evangelist pastor will say to her.

Some foods we ate here this week that was really good was Tabau, it is French Fries, Chicken, Chicken Hearts, Onion Rings, pickles, eggs, and meat. It is really good, I am sending you a picture of it. Salads are awesome here, they put mangos in the salad. Very tasty. There were some other super delicious foods, but I can't think of what they are right now.

Sunday, we went to church. On Saturday night at church they did the “Voice”, it was really cool. It was set up just like the show in the states. They also have it here in Brazil. They have some really talented singers in our ward. After the activity, the Bishop asked me to give a talk in church the next day. So I gave a talk about getting out of our comfort zone. There is no growth in a comfort zone, and no comfort in the growth zone. It was a good talk, I gave the four points of growing and lengthening our step. It doesn’t matter where we are in this life or where we are on the path, we just need to keep going and moving forward in the right direction. It went well, my Portuguese is doing good, my Spanish is all messed up now. It is hard to even think what the words are in Spanish.

This week study D&C 19 and the Atonement.

Eu te amo,
Elder JT Moore