Members and Missionaries, Unity

What a great week this week. I love this area. We have so many people coming out of the wood works right now and the members are awesome and bringing us investigators and helping us with the work. We had 13 member present lessons this week, which is awesome. The members are building great relationships with the investigators. Sometimes we have stopped by some of our investigators and members are there helping them with fixing things at their house, or just stopping by and visiting them. What I have realized about this work is that when missionaries and members work together in unity, good things happen. The working is going great and we are planning to have some 15 investigators at church this coming week!!!!!!

So this week we had district conference in Videira, which is like stake conference, except we are not a stake yet. Videira is a little over an hour away by car. I was asked to give a talk on missionary work at the conference. There were a lot of members there and I definitely nervo

We had a lot of our investigators go to the conference both days which was awesome. Debora went to both of bot days of district conference and loved it and is super excited to get baptized and made great friends with a ton of the members. Oh another awesome thing that happened this week is Antonio has stopped smoking cold turkey!!! We started a 7 day program on Wednesday and as of yesterday night he is going strong! I know he’s done smoking, it is awesome to watch him have a desire to change!! We have visited every night to see how they are doing with members and its great!

So I also was able to buy this super awesome bible that our branch president uses. It is a huge help and is super awesome with footnotes and everything. One of our investigators, Barbara, makes leather scripture covers, so I am getting another and then there are a bunch of other Elders that want them to, so we will be getting a bunch made.

I stinking love Joaçaba! Truthfully I don’t want to leave, but everyone here has started saying that I am leaving on the 11th because of transfers and because I have been here so long. Honestly I love this area, the people we work with are great. I love doing this work!

It is cold here, which is so weird to think that it is in the 50 and 60’s and we are at the end of June. I know you guys are in the 100s and Justin is probably dying in the heat at football. Work hard Justin and do big things.

Here is the talk that I want you to read this week by President Monson, “Blessings of the Temple”
English and Spanish

Okay I gotta get back to work,
I love you sooo much thank you for the emails and the encouragement you guys give
We are really excited about this week!!
LOVE YOU GUYS, Remember to do the little things!
FAMILIES CAN BE ETERNAL!

Love,
Elder JT Moore

The new bible I bought

It is awesome with footnotes and everything

Yes, I am in Brazil where everything grows big and green

The circus is in town

The Circus

The awesome meal that I made

Dinner at members house

Seek the Spirit In All You Do

Another great week her Joaçaba! One of the great blessings about working here is that we have a lot of members that help in the work, they invite their friends or they come on visits with us. It is awesome to see our investigators getting to know lots of new people in the branch. We have some great investigators that are progressing; they are making changes in their lives and are now living the word of wisdom, and going to church on Sundays. This week we had 8 investigators at church and the other elders I think had like 3 or 4 so it's going good here in Joaçaba. I am sooo grateful for this work, and I know that the Lord's hand is in it without a doubt. The Joaçaba branch is amazing with members that are helping in the work.

We continue to have great results with having FHE with members and investigators. On Sunday night we had an FHE with the Viera family and we watched the restoration video and had Dionatan and Debora there and you could definitely feel the spirit and they recognized it too, it was awesome. One thing that is so true with everyone recently who has accepted baptism is that trails have come to them (2 Nephi 2:11). The elect ones who truly are willing to take upon them the name of Christ can overcome those trails (Helaman 5:12). It is so awesome to see that happen, because you know that this work is real without a doubt and Satan knows that once they are baptized they have the gift of the Holy Ghost and that is a huge help to each one of us to overcome trails!

Even though I have seen the video a ton of times, one thing in the video that hit me hard this time was when Joseph talks about the vision and says I don't blame anyone who doesn't believe it, because it would've been hard for him to believe it if it had happened to someone else. But that is the amazing thing about this gospel we can all know for our own self is these thing are true and it all is in the BOOK OF MORMON. We can all know that these things are true! Also in another lesson we talked about eternal families and with that big conference at the Vatican and all the major religions, all of them, said the family was very important. What is interesting is that only our church has true doctrine that families are beyond this life, that families are eternal, if the Book of Mormon is true, families can be eternal if the Book of Mormon is not true families cannot be eternal.

The lesson this week in Elders Quorum, Chapter 12: Seek the Spirit in All You Do, in Ezra Taft Benson manual was awesome! It was something that helped me out a lot. I loved it! Honestly we always need to be tuned in to the spirit just like a radio and a radio station because if you lose it is hard to fully understand. So we always need to live in a way that we can constantly have the spirit be our companion at all times!

Here are the videos of the week that I want you to watch;
The Eternal Perspective
La perspectiva eterna del Evangelio

Love YOU GUYS! HAVE A GREAT WEEK!

Elder JT Moore

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District Meeting

Always raining here in Brazil

No comment

Cool looking fly I saw on the wall

Zone Conference

The stairs to Heaven!

Jesus Loves You!

Happy Birthday and Fathers Day Dad!

Awesome family we get to visit

I didn't know Brazilians were so short

Well deserved Ice Cream Break

Week of Lessons and Miracles

So this week was a good week, although I had a stomach ache on Saturday, but thank you mom because the Moore’s pharmacy you have sent me solved it hahah. I am out of shape because at times we have to run to get to another appointment and let just say I am not in football or basketball shape haha. The members here help out a ton, we have had 8 member present lessons this week and 9 last week. Having members helping out teaching is paying off! Our investigators now have friends in the branch that come by and help them, so it is not just us doing the work. So we have a lot of investigators marked for baptism, there are just various things that have to happen so they can get baptised.

So this week we had some good lessons. The first one I want to share about we had with Debora and Donatan, they are two young people in their 20s that went to church last week. This week we were going to have a lesson with them on Saturday, but they called to change the date, at first I thought they were going to cancel it, but instead we got a nice surprise and they asked if it could be earlier. So on Thursday we had a lesson with them and with President Araujos family. It was awesome, before we even started they came prepared with 25 questions!! Then on Saturday we came back and taught them the restoration. On our visit on Thursday we had given them the pamphlet, they read it and they took notes in it and underlined parts in it and did the extra study stuff it was awesome! They are amazing. They said they were tired to get up to go to church, but they came, and at the end of church they didn’t want to leave because of how great it feels! How awesome is that? We also taught another awesome family that are ready to be baptized we just have to get them married first. Then later that week we had another amazing lesson with member present with Luciane and Jessine a reference of Daniel and Judite (reference of investigators! How neat is that to get a reference from investigators that you are teaching. So we had a lesson with them, Luciane is in her 30s and Jessine is 8. During the lesson we were talking about a lot of different things at first, but last week on Saturdays baptism of Renan we gave Luciane a blessing because she was having pain near her heart. Then after that she went to the hospital to take some test and came out that she had a nerve muscle strain and the doctor sent her to get some meds. She ended up not buying them and by Tuesday she had no pain whatsoever! And then she was like yeah this week went great after going to the baptism and then church on Sunday, everything went well, work went well, and at the end of the week I had a little extra money in my pocket that never happens, I always make it but with barely just enough. It was awesome to see! We have a FHE with her at Helton's house tonight! She also read Ether 12 in one night and loved it and loved how much it talked about faith. We also had a lesson with Hobson and his family which was awesome. You could see them light up when he was like oh so there are apostle and prophets on the earth living today! This week was filled with great lessons and miracles. On Sunday we had lunch at Helton and Concei hous,e and then after that we ate lunch at the house of Urlick he is from Haiti and he is super awesome! He made us a bunch of great food! He is going to the FHE that we have planned also. Then Sunday we had a great lesson with Antonio and Girley marked them for baptism, it was awesome. She said she sees satan trying to tempt the family and knows she needs to set the example. We also taught them about tithing and fast offerings and she loved that our church shows where the money goes and was super impressed and excited. She was like I gotta start paying tithing. Then we had a lesson with Judite and Daniel with members Helton and Concei, and we talked about the commandments and specifically about the Word of Wisdom and Daniel said they finished drinking coffee and are going to buy this other thing that members drink here. He also asked Helton about tithing and how it works and was really impressed. I love Joacaba!!!

Here are the talks I want you to read or listen to this week
Bearing our Burdens with Hope
Finding Joy in the Journey

I love you all! Remember to do the little things for one another!

Love,
Elder JT Moore

Add caption

Churros filled with chocolate

Yes its June and its cold in Joacaba

Everybody from our apartment

District meeting

Birthday party for this cute little girl

Dinner at members house, kind of like paella without the seafood

No caption needed, FLAN!!

The leather scripture case Barbara made for me

Eating ice cream again