Semana dos milagres/meu primeiro baptismo!

Oi, esta semana foi bom demais!
This week was literally the best! When I say it was a week of miracles I mean it (semana dos milagres) Every. single. day. But for some funny moments to put us in the right mood this week my companion and the other two missionaries bought stuff that tastes and smells exactly like coffee but isn't. They tried to get me to drink it saying it was coffee but that it was ok here. I refused until they told me the truth, and the truth is it was pretty darn good. Another thing is that here in the mission I guess it's a big thing to play Magic: the Gathering which is like a mix of dungeons and dragons and like Pokemon I guess but anyways they taught me how to play it (sort of, it was all in Portuguese so I can't say if I'm playing it right) but now we play it every night before bed to take off the pressure!  Another thing is that apparently when it rains the streets become completely infested with giant toads, like alllll over the place, it's freaking crazy.

Now for the miracles, first off Tuesday:
Tuesday I had splits with my zone leaders which was super awesome, I went with Elder Petty so it was Elder Pettingill and Elder Petty the entire day which was sick, but it was insane how hard it was. Literally it was like the picture missionary day where every person we had to teach we couldn't and then every single person we talked to didn't want to hear more. Except for an espirtismo who I guess is a person who believes in speaking with nature spirits and mad juju and stuff (once again was explained to me in Portuguese) but anyways basically no one. So we tried every contact we had and tried every single door and nothing. So after a very, very long day and after exhausting everything we had, we decided to pray. We prayed for direction and help and then Elder Petty told me to follow the first thought that popped in my head. So I started walking and I knocked on a door and it opened! But they didn't want to talk so we moved on. Until we came to a street and I paused and my companion asked which way we should go. But I didn't know so he told me to just keep walking so I did and we came to a door and we knocked the person came out but he didn't want to hear our message either so we kept walking, and as we were walking there were a few people sitting on the side of the road in what seemed to be their early twenties playing on their phone and we allllmost walked past them, until I had a thought to go talk to them. So I did and they stopped, asked if we would share our message with them, and then we proceeded to have one of the best lessons I have taught. And I know that I was 100% led straight to them and now we are working with them to get them baptized.

Wednesday:
This was just a normal day with normal lessons, until a lot of our lessons started falling through so we had some extra time. And when this happened I remembered a contact we had made and were supposed to teach him but we had switched it for a couple of other people. So I told my companion let's go teach him, he seemed interested but my companion felt it was too far away and we probably should stick in the same area. I told him no and that we would go teach him because he was a lot closer than he thought. So he said fine and we started walking. He ended up living super close to where we already were and then we taught such a good lesson with him and he currently has a super big desire to be baptized and his date for baptism is the 22 of December! It was such a wonderful experience and super cool to see that God will guide everything we do and provide everything we need if we will listen to what He says.

Thursday:
We had splits again but this time we left our area to go to Picos, a neighboring area where we had splits with Elder Rivero and Elder Alves. Let me tell you they are so wonderful! They knew that I was new and they had come down to our area on Tuesday so I had already met them, but when we got there the first thing they did was take my missionary planner and put a cover on it which is something a lot of missionaries do but because I'm new and my pai (my trainer) didn't give me one I had just the normal one so they wanted to make sure I had a cover. Then I went with Elder Alves to teach a lesson in an area suppper far away. It took an hour and a half to walk there and when we got there Elder Alves told me he actually didn't know where the investigator lived and didn't have an address only the general area which as you can imagine makes it very hard to teach them. SO I pulled a trick out of Elder Petty's hat and said let's pray. Then I told him to follow his first instinct and we started walking and we taught another lesson with a wonderful person but nothing super special but afterwards we kept walking and boom! There is the investigator we were looking for. I know that the only way we could have found him was if God was guiding us because we walked to an area we probably wouldn't have gone, it was a backstreet and definitely not where we would have looked but here he was. So we taught him and he was super interested and we were able to set up a baptismal date with him! Then after that super awesome lesson we returned back home with another hour and a half walk where we finished up the day and then Elder Alves and Elder Rivero taught me how to play magic and then as a gift gave me a deck to use so that I could play! The love that they showed me so wonderful and I just want to show others that same kind of love.

Friday:
The miracle that happened today is that not a single one of our lessons fell through. Not a single one. Literally we were able to teach the entire day which is the only time its happened the entire time I've been here. We actually taught so much that we weren't able to contact the 10 people each missionary is supposed to contact each day which I honestly was ok with.

Saturday:
This was really cool because it was a follow up on my first miracle of the week. We hadn't gone back to teach the people from Tuesday because my companion didn't know them and we had a bunch of people in the same areas every day that we have been preparing for baptisms as well but I felt like we needed to go back to teach them, so he agreed but only as an alternative to our lesson we had. So I agreed but guess what our plan fell through so I reminded him that we needed to go teach them, even though it was quite the walk. But when we got there only one was there but they had another friend with them, so we started talking with them but the one we had already taught had to take a phone call, so we taught the friend about the Book of Mormon which he was super interested in and after about baptism which as a wonderful miracle once again he said yes that he would start preparing for baptism! Once again I know God guides us and if we have the faith to trust in his plan then he will show us something much better than we had planned.

Sunday:
Today was my first baptism! I baptized Maria Fermina which was such a wonderful experience and I was so happy that she was able to be baptized. She was then confirmed in Church right afterward! (For those who don't know we get baptized in full immersion which is where everything goes completely under the water because that is how Christ was baptized and after we receive the Holy Ghost which is where those with the proper authority lay their hands on your head and give you the gift of the Holy Ghost which means that we can always have the Holy Ghost and his guidance with us which is what being confirmed is) That was awesome and we had another investigator come to church so her baptism is planned for this Sunday!

I know that this work is God's work because I know that we are only having success because He guides us to the people He prepared so that He can teach them through the spirit and all I really have to do is do what He tells me and bring the spirit. I love this work and I know that God is helping me out, I know that this Gospel changes lives and it brings people closer to God. I know that Christ died so that we could live with God again but that He also lives so that he can comfort us when we are in need. I love hearing from you guys and I hope you know that God is looking out for you, and when you look for the miracles, you'll start to see them all over the place.

Elder Pettingill

Oiii this is Brazil

This week was crazy but awesome at the same time. So I lied a little when I said the weird reaction went away after the priesthood blessing. It went away but then came back in primarily my hands which swelled up like balloons and my feet. But I was determined to work regardless so after visiting the Brazilian hospital Tuesday morning (my companion forced me) and I bought some rather expensive drugs and received a rather painful shot in my bottom (for what I have no idea but apparently every time you go to the hospital you'll end up with a shot in the butt) and afterwards we got to work.

The work is going great but also not great. We have several people that we are working towards being baptized but they need to come to church. Our one awesome investigator Irmã Fermina who we had planned to be baptized this Sunday didn't pass her interview because she ended up drinking some coffee the day of. So we are going to reteach that lesson but she loves the gospel and loves learning. We also met with her grand-daughter and are working with her to be baptized as well. Had she come to church her baptism date would be this Sunday but alas it was not to be.

Something funny was we were working with this woman named Sheyla. She is awesome, and she is super accepting of the gospel and was super excited to be baptized. She said she would come to church and was super excited about it but it ended up being her friend's birthday so instead she felt like she needed to spend time with her and when we went to follow up about why she didn't come to church we found her drinking alcohol with her friends so clearly we have a pattern on what we need to focus on with these people.

This other woman we are working with was super funny as well, because she loooves our messages and looooves us as messengers from God. She was super accepting of everything we teach and wants to come to church with us(she couldn't this week because of other commitments) but when we asked to be baptized she said she wouldn't because there are already a lot of different religions in her house and she doesn't want to upset everyone. So we will continue working with her and hopefully after church we can change her mind.

I love this work, its so fun being here, but also so hard. I'm getting a lot better at understanding the people here and I'm working on my Portuguese. The members are super funny because they love saying sentences in English or asking me to tell them what a phrase in Portuguese means in English. The people are so loving and so kind and it kills me when people reject us because all I want to do is help them. There are so many wonderful things here and I'm trying my best. A scripture that really hit me this week was in Ether 1:6 where it says I am a disciple of Christ, the Son of God. That's all we are and that's all we can try to be. It doesn't matter as long as we are trying to be disciples of Christ whether we wear the name tag or not. Our status in life is not reflected in this statement because it doesn't matter whether we are rich or poor, popular or not, having success or having failures, in the midst of trials or on the calm waters. All that matters is that we are a Disciple of Christ.

I love you guys and pray for you, I love your emails and I don't care how often you send them. I just love hearing about how everyone is doing. Eu sei que meu salvador vive. E é o salvador do mundo. Pai dele se ama muito e as todas coisas fez por nós. Eu sei que este evangelho é o evangelho de Jesus Cristo e que ele está direcando

-Elder Pettingill