We had a really eventful week! Tuesday we had our zone leaders come do a division with us, so we got to talk to them about our areas and get some feedback and advise on how we can help our area grow. On Wednesday we got a call from a member who told us that her non-member friend is sick and would like a blessing. Yes. In Portuguese. No, of course I wasn´t nervous, I don´t know what you´re talking about. The lady´s name is Maria ( which is the name that over 40% of women over the age of 50 have. Everybody is Maria!), and she has an illness that has to do with her skin. It´s supposedly pretty painful, and it´s keeping her from working or being too active so she´s at home all day. She made a visit to the doctors, and they told her that they can´t figure out what it is, but they do know that it isn´t contagious. They kinda just left her to fight it out--whatever it is. I think she said it´s been a while since she contracted it, so she´s pretty discouraged. We gave her a blessing and talked about why we go through trials in this life, and the member who was with us cried the whole visit through. Maria really liked our visit, and told us we were welcome to come back and talk more about the church any time we wanted.
The next day (Thursday), we held a division with the other companionship in our house (our district) so that Elder Johnson could go give a baptismal interview to an investigator, while working our area at the same time. I was with my district leader, Elder Bueno from Curitiba Brasil (I know, his name is Spanish, but he´s Brazilian), and we made it a goal to beat out Elder Johnson and Elder Knudsen in street contacts. Yeah...we smashed them with 20 contacts in one day. Our weekly goal is 35. Needless to say, we definitely hit our goal this week.
Friday was the day we had marked for Geraldo´s baptism. During the week, we got some unexpected results from our lessons and visits with him. His mom, Valdesir, has been taught by missionaries for years, and has always said the same thing that she said to us on my first visit to the house: that she knows the church is true, she´s attending church and doing everything she needs to do, but she wants to wait for the ´right time´. We asked her if she´s ever prayed specifically about baptism, and her answer was no. Our invitation to her was to devote a very specific prayer to God, asking about her baptism. In the following visits with Geraldo, we always ask her each time if she had prayed yet. She always responded with no, and some wishy-washy excuse.
One day, as we were re-visiting Joseph Smith and the first vision with Geraldo, and re-commiting him to be baptised, his mom walked in from the kitchen to listen in for a moment. As Geraldo re-accepted his baptismal date, the spirit spoke to Valdesir, and she said, ´´Okay. If my son can be baptized, I will be baptized, too,´´ and she accepted a date for the 22nd. After this lesson, we began weeding out all of Valdesir´s fears and doubts about baptism. We discovered a lot of things, including a fear of water. As we discussed each of these things with her, we could always feel the spirit working on her--and she could feel it, too! Unfortunately, due to several issues with the Word of Wisdom and a discouraging family member, Geraldo´s baptismal date has been postponed.
However, it was my immense pleasure to escort Valdesir to the font and perform her baptismal ordinance on Friday, November 22, after many long years and tireless efforts from several missionaries. I know we were able to help this woman only with the help of the spirit, and we touched her heart through teaching her son.
Now I have some less-good news. Yesterday was the Conference of the district Colatina. Unfortunately, I woke up yesterday morning with a really nasty illness (yay, Brasil!), that left me out of commision for the whole day, and caused me to miss the conference. Both of the companionships in our district had investigators who would be attending, so Elder Knudsen kindly volunteered to stay with me so Elder Johnson and Elder Bueno could go. My entire system was cleaning itself out with every method in the books, so I spent the first part my morning vomiting and dry heaving, and the rest of my day getting on and off the toilet with severe diarrhea.
...I´ve had better days...
The good news is that it only lasted 24 hours, and I´m much better now. Plus, my system is all cleaned out now, and I probably lost those few extra pounds. ;)
Thanks to the Relief Society back at home for sending me the letter with the Christmas message! I received it yesterday, and I really enjoyed what it said!
I love you all, and I´ll talk to you soon!
Com carinho,
-Elder Crapo
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