Dear Family,

This week Carnival started. I believe it started on Thursday. It is still going on right now though and so the Lan House (internet cafe) that we usually do email at is closed. So I am using the laptop of a member and this email will probably be relatively short because Elder Heiner is waiting to do email as well. Carnival is really the Devil´s party. It gave us a really hard week because people usually like to travel for the holiday´s. We had three baptisms set up this week but all the three of them fell through because they all travelled. This week we worked really hard and did everything we good but our numbers just didn´t show it. However we did find a lot of new people and are excited for this coming week. Carnival is kind of a weird party and we have seen a couple strange things on the streets but for the most part the biggest effect that Carnival has had on us is just that all of our investigators traveled. At church on Sunday we usually have about 120 members there and this week I think we had about 40. It was pretty crazy. However we still got to teach some good lessons. One of my favorite lessons this week was a lesson that we taught to Senhor João (John). We found him by contacting him on the street. He looks like he is in about his high 60s and we talked to him a little bit on the street and found out that his wife who he had been happily married to for 40 years died about a year ago. We asked him if we could come by his house some time and share a message about what we believe about life after death. He accepted and the next day we went by his house to teach him. We started asking him about his beliefs in God and what he thinks happens after death. He told us that he says his prayers every night and ever morning but at this point he just doesn´t know if God exists and he is begginning to think that death is the end. We asked him how he was feeling and he said he misses his wife a lot but thinks that death is the end. We testified to him that death is not the end. We told him that God is his Father and knows that pain that he is going through, for this reason he sent us his house. We testified that his wife is still alive and is in a better place waiting for him. That through the Gospel of Jesus Christ he can be with him wife forever. Tears filled his eyes and he asked us if this was really true. I testified with everything that I had that it was true. I was really happy after this lesson and know that we taught Senhor João that lesson for a reason. I don´t know if he will get baptized or not but I at hope that we brought a little more peace to his life through the Gospel.

That´s all I´ve got time for this week!

 

Love,

Elder Caleb Anderson