January 2, 2012

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!


Does it feel like a new year to any of you?! And we are already on the second day! This past week was very very good! I had my interview with President on friday that went really well. I didn´t have any questions and I am junior so I didn´t know what we were going to talk about. When it was my turn and right before I went in, I said that this probably wasn´t going to take very long. Usually he speaks English to all the Americans, regardless of time, but he spoke in Portuguese the whole time until the last question. The interview was literally only like 3 minutes though. When I came out, the Elders thought I had forgotten something. I just didn´t have anything that needed to be addressed with him and I knew that there was other missionaries that had things to bring up.

The the experience I would like to share this week is about one of our investigators named Silvana. I haven´t ever talked about her because we weren´t sure how solid she was going to be. But here it goes. It was Elder Santos´s last Saturday and we went to go visit one of our best investigators (Rosana) we got there a little early hoping that it would be ok. She was actually with her friend from work (Silvana) and they were going to watch a movie, but Rosana was cool with it that we wanted to talk with them, and they would watch the movie after. As we were talking, Silvana realized that Rosana believes what we are teaching (has a testimony but she doesn´t think its strong, yeah, she´ll be baptized one day as well) and was speachless with Rosana. She couldn´t believe what she was doing. Then probably the most amazing experience that I had with Elder Santos... We started talking with Silvana and came to find out that she had met with the missionaries 15 YEARS AGO!!! Then stuff happened in her life... She lost her faith and she wasn´t baptized and stopped going to church. When Elder Santos was talking, it was like being with the sons of Mosiah. After everything he said, Silvana said, ´´It´s like you are reading my mind right now.`` Long story short, she has been at church every week sinse, but we haven´t been able to teach her at all because she works 3 jobs. The night of Christmas Eve, Elder Souza and I get a call from her. She said that she will be working all night long and won´t get off till 7. She´ll have about an 1hr and a half to sleep, but asked if we would call her to wake her up! After the call, we just looked at each other! The next day, she was one of the first people to church! Sooo... We still weren´t able to meet with her this week, so in church right after a class, we explained to her that we need to teach her, but she said, no I´ll just keep coming to church cuz I don´t have time during the week. We then explained that in order to be with her Heavenly Father again she needs to follow His Son and be baptized, but we can´t do that if we can´t teach her. Story short, she wants to be baptized THIS SATURDAY!!! A lot of things will need to happen this week and I´m not even sure if it will happen, but the miracle is that she understands/comprehends and has the desire to do what ever it takes!!!

THE CHURCH IS TRUE!!!! I love you family!!! Thank you for all that you do and for the testimonies that you all have. Have a wonderful week!

Elder Bowman
omhiwdMb