Week 76 Carnival

One really cool family that we found this week was a reference from a
random less active that we ran into in the Street.  She has been
inactive for a really long time, even though she loves the church and
the Elders and all that jazz, because she still struggles with
Smoking.   Really sad that she is not willing to humble herself enough
to go to church where she could get help and get rid of her shame and
pain and move on with her life.  (her husband was baptized by someone
that is currently living in Burley idaho she showed us a Christmas
card, small world and even smaller in the church)  But anyways she did
have a family in mind that she wanted to have us help out.  It was the
family of one of her close friends.  The grandma smokes like a chimney
and drinks like crazy, but she is responsible for a bunch of her grand
kids. one of the families had their mother die in a car accident and
then their dad just basically abandoned them and started a new life in
Angola, and the other had basically the same thing happen but the
parents are not together and they are both not willing to take care of
him.  so all in all there are 4 kids, Stellia (17), Fuller (15),
Ivanildo (11), and Stefawl (11) that are really awesome but have had
to pass through some really difficult times in their lives up to this
point already.  They are really cool and were all ready all by
themselves to walk for over a half an hour to get to the church with
us this Sunday.  Hopefully they will be able to keep progressing and
they will be able to get the protection and Guidance and direction in
life that they can have from being a member of the church.

We found another lady that was really special as well.  Her name is
Lucia, she is a single mother that is a member of the universal Church
one of those Brazilian churches.  But she accepted the gospel pretty
quickly.  We found her in the street, she brought us to her house and
we have taught her twice.  She came to church and she has plans to be
baptized now.  The big challenge for her in being baptized is that she
will have a lot of pressure from her old church not to leave, but her
plan right now is to not really deal with them about it until after
she has made the decsion and gone for the baptism. then she will deal
with them.  Not sure how I feel about that still, but it is better
then asking permission from her pastor to get baptized in the Mormon
church.  She is a really happy lady that is always laughing and just
seems really happy.  She will make a great member.

Tive uma divisão com Elder Cabral esta semana e eu pensei que correu
tudo bem.  Ele estava a trabalhar e participar bem.  Ele não quis sair
para fazer exercícios de manha mas conseguimos no fim.  Espero que ele
vai voltar para a área dele com a mesmo atitude.

Tivemos sucesso com referencias esta semana.  Pegamos a referencia
duma menos activa duma família e conseguimos ter eles na igreja esta
semana.  Eles são preparados e vamos trabalhar para marca-los logo.  E
estamos a ver o valor de referencias e vamos continuar a procurar
nesta maneira para que possamos ser mais eficaz em atingir maiores
resultados.  Faremos tudo para passar este visão para a zona também.

Experimentei com os quatro tipos de perguntas que aprendemos na
conferencia de zona e percebi que preciso melhorar os perguntas que
estou a fazer para deixar a pesquisador a ensinar-se mesmo por meio do
espírito em vez de ouvir minha pregação.  Vou continuar a praticar
isto nos estudos para melhorar meu ensino.

This next week we are going to have a lot of meetings with Elder
Dyches a 70 here as he is doing a mission tour and we are going to get
several trainings which should be nice. We are going to have a lot of
work to do as well and we are in the last week in the transfer, but
hopefully not too much will change with the transfers because I am
really enjoying what we have going here right now and I would be sad
if I had to leave before seeing these people that we are finding get
baptized. One of the areas in our zone has to stay at home because of
the crazy carnival parties that happen in their area this week so we
are going to be busy bringing them to our area and working with them
this week which will be tiring but good.

As far a Rogerio and the Silva family, the dad is still nuts and wont
let us pass by anymore.  We are going to talk to a lawyer in the stake
that we have and see if we cannot get this all sorted out.  Alexandre
is really close to getting everything ready to get remarried to
Guilhermina and be Baptized! He is really amazing me how much he has
humbled himself and what he is willing to do to get himself ready for
baptism.

Family is soo important and it is sad to see all of the broken and
partial families that there are out there in the world. I realize what
a blessing it is to have the gospel in our family to help us stay
together and be able to be an eternal family.  It is such a blessing
and I am so grateful to have such a solid family.  Hopefully we will
be able to have the Gospel mend some of these broken families that are
so dear to us now.

FELIZ CARNIVAL!!
Love Elder Hobson