A Matter of Faith

Odivelas Lake

Dear family,

This week was pretty good, although I have sad news that Marcelo still is not baptized. He is definitely one of my most difficult investigators, so obviously something failed on my part, but I am learning and we are trying to help him see the truthfulness of the gospel. I am still with Irma Joslin and will be for the next five weeks. I am excited. I am so grateful for her and her example for me to keep me in line for this last transfer. She works super hard and has a great love for the people and a great fire to baptize God's children.

Something that I have learned on the mission is something that Irma de Almeida said once when we were visiting members. These members were asking us how we were baptizing so much. Irma de Almeida responded that it had nothing to do with the area and that it had everything to do with the faith of the missionary. Ever since then I have found how absolutely true that is. Those times in my mission where I did not have success, the only thing I have to blame is the lack of my own faith. But those times that I have seen many miracles and seen many people come into the waters of baptism, it was because of my faith. Oh, I have so much more to learn! So much more faith to gain! When we really understand God's plan for his children, we understand that there are angels around us preparing people to be baptized EVERY DAY! Oh, how that would be great! Just worrying about filling out baptismal forms...haha. But it is so true, so at least we can baptize one person every week if there are people being prepared for everyday. That is the true spirit of missionary work--when we realize we have no limits--only the limits we set on ourselves because, in reality, God has no limits. So it doesn't matter what mission, what country, what area, what ward. It all depends on the faith of the missionary. Everything depends on me...wow...if that's not power, I don't know what is :). So let's just say I am trying to live up to my calling.

Well, we are seeing a great miracle this week. We found Tomé who is a reference from my first area (Oeiras). He has three youth kids that are members there and they gave us his reference and he lives here in Odivelas. We started teaching him. He got way into the Book of Mormon and he knows it is all true. His children have already taught him a lot of things. He basically said he was just waiting to get in contact with the church in Odivelas. Basically, we are so blessed to find the elect :). He loved church and is super excited about his baptism next Sunday :). So are we. After church, our over eager ward mission leader attacked Tomé and asked him who he wanted to baptize him, be the witnesses, give the talks, etc.(we did not go over the program yet with him...) So needless to say that Tomé was a little scared at his overeagerness; I mean, who knows what witnesses are at a baptism??? Yeah, so we need to talk to our ward mission leader about being a little more subtle...but subtlety has never really been the Portuguese way...haha...Oh, how they create awkwardness sometimes. I used to think that I didn't get embarrassed that easily, but, oh, how I am learning now...:)

Other than that, Irma Joslin and I are trying to enjoy our time together by not eating too many cakes, treats, cookie dough, and pizza :) (You have to live up your last). It was a good week, even though we are still trying to love Marcelo and get him to have a softened heart. He just needs to really pray and read the Book of Mormon more than the Bible, but I am trying to figure out a nice, but straight forward way of saying that...
But no worries, family, if he does not get baptized in the near future, other people will... that is the beauty of those angels working on the elect...they are always preparing ever so carefully so that we can come in contact with them when they are truly ready.

Have a great week and thank you for your prayers! I really appreciate it!

Love,

Irma Pérez

p.s. I loved the stories about the choir concerts and banquet. It was too hard to keep the laughter in! :)