grande potencial

BOM DIA! Espero que vocês tiveram uma semana incrível! 

Thanks for all the updates--always love hearing from you all!

This week, we had some really powerful lessons with some less-active members(one who came to church Sunday!) and some referrals. One referral was a family that lives next-door to Mayara, a member who works with us consistently. This family hasn´t been keeping commitments, especially coming to church; however, they stopped going to their old church(assemblia de Deus) and are looking for a new congregation. Mayara has been passing by and following up with them and they just didn´t seem to be having much of a desire. We went into the lesson with the intention of doing a how to begin teaching and possibly drop them if they really weren´t interested. Turns out, Aiton(the dad) has been reading the Book of Mormon, but still has doubts because one of their daughters is super anti-Mormon and that has influenced their interest in really investigating. Anyway, Aiton started asking us a bunch of questions, and we felt impressed to really expound on the things that he was asking. He asked us if we believed that only our church would be saved. I´ve read of responses to this question in books like Our Search for Happiness, and we tried to answer his question to the best of our ability--we taught the Restoration and a large part of the Plan of Salvation because he had many questions about our beliefs about salvation. It was really powerful when we taught about and testified of these truths. Even more so because Aiton is super smart and has many beliefs that have prepared him to receive our message. At one point, his wife cried and said we bring a different spirit into their home and that we make her feel better than any other religious group/denomination. She said that she likes to keep quiet during the lessons, but she has felt something good and we have answered many questions she had and questions that she didn´t even know she had. I was grateful for the power of the Spirit that really touched their hearts. Aiton asked about our families and how we were raised with these beliefs--he said he admires the family unity that we teach in our church, but he commented that it´s pretty much impossible in the busy world nowadays. I felt impressed to bear my testimony that that is far from the truth; it really is possible to have that unity within families nowadays--it is possible and even more than that, God expects that of us. I talked about my family--things my parents did and sacrificed for our family to get where we are now.  We talked about church attendance and how we decided once that we would go to church every Sunday--how that is easier than making the choice every week; he said, ``I wish I had that kind of determination.`` We testified of the Savior and the power to keep the commandments. I believe that if they have desire and if we help integrate them with other ward members, they can really become converted. Aiton has HUGE potential if he lets the desire work within him and goes to church on Sunday; I think he could be a stake president one day.

Things are going well in general. Lots of work to be done! 

Hope you all have a great week!

--Sister Sadie Bledsoe