December 1, 2014

So I guess my fellow missionárias got confused when they told me that Thanksgiving was last week.  I guess it was this week.  We had rice and beans and noodles for lunch and ate pizza for dinner.  Sound good? :)  How was the peru (turkey)?

This week, Sister Francis and I got a new companion.  Sister Porter is from Morgan, UT and has been in the field for 5 months now.  She is really funny.  As you know, I have loved trios from the beginning, but seeing that we only have 1 more week this transfer, I'm thinking that our trio won't last for long.  I have a feeling that I will be transferred this coming week after spending 7 months in good old Mossoró, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens.  

This month our mission beat our monthly baptismal record when we baptized 243 people (our last record was 208 in March).  We also beat our weekly baptismal record this week baptizing 76 people. (Now that's what I'm talking about).  Sadly Sister Francis and Sister Porter and I did not baptize this month.  It was hard opening an area and most of our investigators had problems with the Word of Wisdom or could not be baptized right now due to legal issues.  Our ward mission leader told us that we were feeling a little bit of what our Savior felt when He did all He could for us and was still rejected.  

This week we had two marked baptisms, one of which was L’s.  L is the old man who proposed to his wife the first time he saw her and married her eight days later.  He still has depression after her death seven years ago and always listens to really sad, romantic music on his loudspeakers, which leads him to drink a bunch. 

On the day of his first marked baptismal interview, we found him lying on the floor in front of his house drunk.  However, this week we and the Elders had a service project and cleaned his house (I spent two hours scraping "yuck" off of his old stove). We threw away all of his CDs as well.  Afterwards, L completely changed.  He stopped drinking and was really ready to be interviewed and baptized this week.  However, the day of his interview we found him drunk again and listening to a CD of romantic, sad music that he had somehow managed to find. 

Sunday was the same.  When we went to his house to bring him to church, we found sad music and a sad drunkard. We told him to turn off the music and give us all of the sad CDs, which he finally did.  As we passed by his house again later, we heard the MoTab [Mormon Tabernacle Choir] singing (Sister Francis gave him a CD).

While we were sitting at church in joint Relief Society and Priesthood meeting, L suddenly walked in (fairly sober).  He told us that as he listened to the music that Sister Francis had given him, he was touched in the heart by Jesus to go to church.  He arrived sober.  It was a miracle.  Although L was not able to be baptized yesterday, he is preparing for his baptism this coming Saturday.  Yay!

Love y’all,

Sister Dyer