Big Baptism Day!

Last p-day was cool. After doing email and stuff we went to a little museum here in the city. It was pretty cool. There was some interesting stuff there. Then on the 15th was the big baptism day, which means that we had to spend the whole day there; setting up, doing everything, and then cleaning up everything afterward. But it was really good. There were 26 Convert baptisms here in theSanta Maria Stake, and on the whole mission, there were 75. As a mission, we are looking at baptizing the most the mission has baptized in Presidente Ribeiro´s time here.

Victor came to the baptism to watch and then go to Institute. He told me a funny story. Just as us missionaries use the Book of Mormon as a filter to find the lord´s elect, Victor also started using the Book of Mormon as a filter. He tried to give a Book of Mormon to his girlfriend, but she didn´t want it, so he broke up with her! Hahaha.

This week we started teaching a man named Cerezer. Our Bishop gave him a Book of Mormon a few weeks ago, and we were finally able to get a hold of him. He is really good. He owns a restaurant, he is an older guy, but he is really good, and wants to learn. And he knows the Bishop and 1st Counselor already. The only stumbling block I see is that he is in charge of the Tithing funds at his local Catholic Cathedral. But, we´ll take care of that somehow. He is really good, and truly wants to learn more about Christ. He has been liking the Book of Mormon a lot because he feels that it explains and teaches much better than the bible.

This week it seems like we taught a lot of Espiritistas. I´m not sure how to translate that - Spiritualists maybe. But anyway, they are generally good people, and follow a good part of Christ´s teachings, loving your neighbor and stuff, but they are totally off on Christs doctrinal teachings.

They say they believe in the Bible, but the biggest hole I see, is that they do not understand, nor believe in Christ´s Atonement. All of their differing beliefs go back to that. They refuse to believe in the biggest teaching there is in the Bible, in the New and Old Testament - the Sacrifice of Jesus Christ! They instead believe that we will suffer for our own sins as we reincarnate in other lives and other such things. It is truly unfortunate, because they are generally really good people. We even actually found a leader of this religion knocking doors, he invited us in and we talked. I was just shocked. How can they not understand truth when it is taught with such clarity in the scriptures! Quite sad.

Also crazy story - we taught a lady that lives in Manhattan beach, CA this week! She was born here in Santa Maria, then left for the states with 17 years of age. And came back this week to visit family that is a member of the ward. She has an interesting story; truly a modern day example of the American Dream. She went to SoCal with basically no money, and started working as a babysitter, she kept going, studied at UCLA, and now has a big house, a nice car, and travels a lot. It was weird to teach her. The lesson was half English, half Portugues.

Funny story, we did a contact with a guy knocking doors, and he asked us if we knew the Bible, we said yes. He said how many books are there in the bible? How many verses are there? We said we didn´t know, and he just walked off muttering ´´You don't know the bible...´´ haha.

frying potatos on a sandwich maker, pretty good (ps thats not my hand, its elder carlos´s)

us with 2 new americans that just got their visas and came here. Elder Smith and Elder Lyman

Elder Albrechtsen´s birthday, lunch at prez ribeiros house

old and new (just got the new shoes in the mail)

Victor went to the temple to do Baptisms for the Dead and shared this picture.

*Mother's note: It just absolutely cracks me up the words he chooses now when he writes and the order he puts them in. The poor guy is going to be so confused when he gets back and has to write an intelligible paper in English!