Baptism X 2

What a long week!! We both got a pretty bad flu (Sister Wright was worse) and it was a crisp 100 degrees pretty much every day. BUT, with a LOT of help from the Lord, our plans worked out and we had 2 very special baptisms this week. On Saturday it was Cristina's. She is a very special woman because she has some disabilities, but even so she is very friendly and lively and happy. Regiane (Vinicius' mom) has basically adopted her and she was always there when we taught her kids and family. We never invited Cristina to be baptized because we did not know if she needed to be, but she spoke to us after a few weeks of hearing the lessons and said "I want to be baptized because I know that's what Jesus wants me to do." What a sweet moment that was. She goes to church every week and to all the activities, and we talked with her dad and some ward members and with the mission president and she was interviewed and president said that if she really wanted to then she could be baptized. Her baptism was very spiritual. You could feel almost palpably that Heavenly Father was happy with her earnest and sincere desire to follow Christ and do what is right.

On Sunday it was Rosângela´s, a young lady that we met the second week of the transfer. I made contact with her aunt my first day in Parque Bristol at 9:25 p.m. on the way home. She is an incredible girl, has 8 siblings and a ton of nieces an nephews that all live together, but she has very strong faith and is a person truly humble of heart. She even got one of her sisters to come to church with her on Sunday!

The Lord truly has so many people prepared for us to find, people who are just ready and waiting to enter onto the path that leads to eternal life, the path of happiness here and in the world to come. What a privilege it is to be His servant, and instrument in His hands, and to help His children come unto Him now and forever.

Love y'all lots and hope this week is a great one!!!

-Sister Curtis

Golden Eye

Golden Eye,

What a week!! As you all already know, I'm not one to wait to share good news so... MELISSA WAS BAPTIZED!!! WOO HOO!!! Like just about every baptism, everything went super wrong until the very last minute when everything went right (we got locked in the chapel for 2 hours, nobody showed up on time, there weren't any jumpsuits and nobody had keys to the closets, ya know the usual...). But it was such a wonderful spiritual experience, and I know that Melissa is going to continue to be a shining example for her family as she continues to keep the covenants that she's made with our Heavenly Father.

That being said, I've realized that I haven't updated you guys on all the hilarious/ weird stuff that's happened to us in a while so let's take care of that.
-While still in Saúde we received a referral for a man called Jesus (thats not a normal name here either) and he called us and said that he was very anxious to hear the message we had to share with him so we marked to meet with him in the chapel. When he got out of his car with a tiny sniveling half dead dog in his arm and ceremoniously removed his sunglasses in front of us, I already had a good idea of how our meeting was gonna go. He walked in and stopped and looked at us and said "What if I said that my name is Jesus?" and I shrugged my shoulders and said "That's fine, it's your name."
"And what if I said after being baptized they called me Jesus of Nazareth?!"
"...well you can´t help what people call you."
 "...and what if I said that I AM THAT JESUS?!?!"
"Well I'm gonna have to stop you right there" I thought he was gonna get struck down right there in front of me after trying to convince us that he was Jesus for an hour, but finally an irmão showed up and they almost got in a fight and then we left and went to lunch :-)

-This week we were knocking doors in a neighborhood and heard a weird noise and we turned to look snd see what it was and there was a man with a horse in the middle of the street! I went running after him and asked for a photo and as I was petting the horse, the man said "she's beautiful, huh" and I thought he was talking about the horse and I agreed, but when I looked he was looking at Sister Wright ahahahahaha and he said "you have a boyfriend because I'm looking for a girlfriend" and I said "But you already have a horse!" And he replied, "but a little cat would be better ..." (in Brasil calling somebody a cat is like calling them hot) and I died laughing, I could not contain myself kkkkkkkk especially the expression of horror on Sister Wright's face when I explained what he said later.

- A lady talking to us on the street "yeah God is in everything, especially in nature. I like to talk to the trees because of that. The other day I was talking to a tree like usual and the tree talked backed!!!" okay...

- Yesterday we heard somebody calling our names and we looked around but we didn't see anybody, and they said, "Up here!" and there was a man camped out with all of his stuff in a tree, and we had a lesson with him in his tree. Nbd. (Maybe his was the tree that talked back to the other lady...)

- There´s a little girl that lives in our building and always tries to break into our apartment bc she loves us.

Yeah there's never a dull moment here in Brazil, gotta love it (and I do.)

Lots of  love,
Sister Curtis

HOWDY FAM!!!

HOWDY FAM!!!

Well the miracles have continued here in the best area in the world, and our lovely pesquisadora Ingrid was baptized on Saturday!!! Ingrid is 12 years old and looks even younger, but I can not  begin to describe the trials this young woman has faced or the victories that she has won. She's incredible and had been going to church for several months all by herself. She had been anxiously waiting for her grandmother's permission to be baptized but her grandmother wasn't having it. Other sisters had talked to her before and she hadn't budged, but we decided that it was our turn.

We had been trying to meet with Geny (gma) for 3 weeks and let me tell ya she's a tough little granny to find, but we finally went to where she works and we started talking to her. We talked about her family and how she´s raising 10 grandkids right now and doing her best and how Ingrid has been doing so much better after she started going to church. We talked about the blessings of baptism and the importance of it in our lives and she was agreeing with everything that we were saying and we were like, "So we want Ingrid to have these blessings to and we want to have her baptism this Saturday", and she said  "Well okay then."  WHHAATTTT....

Yeah, just that easy... I've said it once and I'll say it again (I'll say it a million times tbh), MILAGRES SÃO REAIS (MIRACLES ARE REAL). When we follow the Lord's commandment to invite all people to come unto Christ and we really do open our mouths in every occasion, the Lord blesses us to be able to say what He would have us to say and do what He would have us to do. This is His work and He is at the head of it. When we do His work His way, we cannot fail!!!

Love y'all lots and hope ya have a great week!!!

-Sister Curtis