Include Doriedson in Your Prayers...

Hey Mom and Family,                                        7-25-12

So this last week was a great week.  My new companion is super excited to work and to do what the Lord is wanting of us.  This last week we made a ton of new goals and we decided to try out a ton of new stuff that's never been done before.  We also made a goal to increase our faith and power levels.  It's an interesting thing that the more we use the priesthood the more our authority and power that God gives us.  We have goals to baptize many, many people, but the only way to do that is by working miracles here.  I am firmly convinced in the truth that faith without works is dead.  The problem here is that many missionaries are doing the works, they just lack the faith.  I think that that's been a good part of my problem during my mission until now. 

Last week many miracles happened here, our actions were the same, the only difference was our faith.  We started a program called 'Trial of Faith', where we put our faith in God that He will do something that we ask if we do our part.  Last Saturday for example we went to an English class at 10 in the morning.  Nobody showed up so we did some extra planning for our day.  While we were planning we decided to do a Trial of Faith, where we told God that we would wait outside the church and do contacts with everybody walking outside, and we asked Him to show us someone that could be baptized the following day.  10 minutes later we invited a guy to come and take a tour of the church.  He accepted and we went inside, gave him a tour and then brought him to the baptismal font.  We invited him to get baptized and he accepted but wanted to wait.  We taught him the 1st lesson and gave him the Book of Mormon and we marked a lesson for later that day.  Later that day we taught him again the 3rd lesson, the gospel of Jesus Christ and we pushed baptism a ton.  He accepted to go to church the next day and to have a baptismal interview afterwards.  Anyways, everything went great, he went to church, and he had his interview, and passed his interview.  The bishop got mad at us because we told him that we were going to baptize him that day, and our interviewer said that he didn’t accept that day for baptism.  What really happened is that the interviewer didn't speak right, what he meant to say was that he couldn’t get baptized at the marked time that we had planned, but that he probably could have been baptized later that day.  However, we didn’t know this until we had already gone back home at night.  We just thought that he had just straight-up refused to baptize on Sunday, but really he had just refused to baptize at that time that we had marked.  Anyways, I almost beat my record of how long to baptize from 8 days to 1 day.  Anyways, I suppose it's for the better because now the bishop still likes us, and it'll give us some more time to integrate him.  His name is Doriedson, you guys should pray for him.  We're going to take him to the temple tonight and try and finalize a little bit.  We also did another one the next day that God will show us at least 1 person that could get baptized in two more weeks.  The next 20 minutes we invited everyone on the street to be baptized and 5 of them accepted to get baptized.  It's really getting us excited for the work.  The only problem now is that my companion's getting sick, so we have to stop and take a lot more breaks than usual. 

Anyways, everything’s going good.  I hope you guys have a good trip to Africa.  I know you'll be fine mom.  Love you all! 

Elder Williams

Peter was Transferred and is ZL again!

Hey Mom and Family,                 7-17-12

Thanks for the email!  So this week was a crazy last week.  I got transferred yesterday and was put as a zone leader again.  I’m in Progresso now.  It's an area that I’ve practically already passed through.  Remember when I was in Ponte and lived in 4?  It's the area that's attached to Progresso, so imp back in the same house that I had lived in 7 months back serving in an area right above where I served last time.  It's gonna be cool, because I think im gonna have an opportunity to see some people that I baptized there in Ponte.  The bad thing is that I left my greenie there in the ghetto with another elder to finish his training.  Last week was tough cuz Luiz Felipe fell through on the very last day.  He had never been to church but wanted to baptize on the 15th.  So we had settled with him that he could baptize if went to church.  He didn’t go to church.  We stopped by there 3 times on Sunday, once at 8 (when we called) at 8:50, and at 10:20.  Church was starting at 9 and sacrament meeting at 11.  At the last time my companion had found him there at home, and said he'd go.  So he went back inside to 'change clothes', 45 minutes later he still hadn’t showed up so my comp just left.  We had to stop by there later to tell him that he couldn’t get baptized.  It was the weirdest thing.  It was the first time I had to do that, usually I’m the one trying to tell them why they should get baptized.  Anyways, my zone leader burnt me that night, and it made me mad cuz he didn't have any authority to do that.  He said that if it were his area he would've baptized him, even though there's a rule saying that they need to go to church first, and he doesn’t have the keys to say when someone’s ready in my area.  I’m gonna miss my area though.  Even though I didn't baptize we had some really good youth in the ward that imp gonna miss, I want to ask the president to go back there and spend my last transfer there.  Anyways, I don't know how or why they put me as a zone leader again.  I didn’t baptize anyone.  It'll be cool to get the new president though.  Today we went to the temple again.  It was great.  While we were waiting for the bus that went from the temple to the city we started talking to this 83 year old guy that was leaving the temple as well.  He was a funny guy that was making fun of black people.  He really liked me I guess cuz he gave me his watch that he was wearing.  It's a pretty nice analog one too that glows in the dark.  I didn’t even ask for it, he asked me if I have a watch and I said no, so he gave it to me.  Cool huh?  Blessings of being a missionary I guess.  My new companion's great.  He's pretty funny and was laughing the whole time the guy was talking to us.  His names Elder Duffy, and he's from Seattle.  This is going to be a great transfer!  Pray for us that we can baptize!  Love you!

Elder Williams

Hey Dad and Family,     7-17-12

Thanks for the email, im getting impressed with your Portuguese, if I didn’t know any better I'd say you put it into Google translator, but I’d like to think it's from you Portuguese studies.  As far as the German goes, it's going good but these past 3 days I’ve had to stop due to all the stuff I’ve had to do.  Unfortunately as ZL you have a lot more time killing responsibilities like calling and fallowing up our missionaries.  I have a feeling it's going to be hard to study with another companionship living with us.  But my premonition was correct, I totally got transferred.  So in answer to your question, usually the standard is that the investigator has to watch 2 sacrament meetings.  And as soon as they stop smoking/drinking they can get baptized. They don't need to pay tithing till after their baptism as well.  They need to have a baptismal interview as well.  The quickest I've seen is a baptism in 2 days of finding someone.  But this person had already gone to church in the past, but had just stopped after a while.  My quickest would have been last week which would've been 7 days, but he fell through.  My current record is 8 days.  This was that week that we went to Minas Gerais, so technically less days, because we were in another state for 4 days, but the Lord did his part there and per day it was 8.  Last transfer I feel like I really learned patience.  My companion was great but he was just a very weird guy.  He likes cats and to crochet if that gives you an idea.  But I also feel like I learned how to love, and I think it's prepared me for this transfer and that it will help me in my leadership needs.  So I don't really know my president at all.  I shook his hand on Tuesday and that's about it.  But I'm pretty sure that I'm gonna have an opportunity to get to know him this transfer.  So things are going good here imp pretty excited to work.  Pray for us to baptize!  We're hoping to baptize a girl named Lene.  Ask everyone to pray for her to receive her answer about the book of Mormon and baptism.  She says that she believes that the church is true but she just can’t make the connection between that and baptizing in it.  She’s a member’s wife.  Anyway, I hope things are going good over and up there.  How’s the fish that you and mom caught?  Anyways, love you dad! 

Elder Williams

PS.  Nice pictures Dad! I'm totally going to slide down Shasta, you'll just have to carry me up; I’ll lose some weight I promise.

(Another letter to Dad from Peter this week...)

Hey dad,     7-12-12

So I promised I'd write you something big so here it is.  I heard you had a crazy Shasta climb.  And that you couldn't even talk or function.  I can honestly say that I have never been that tired, not even on the mission.  You’re crazy man.  So this past week was way good, we're hoping for a baptism this Sunday.  It's truly a blessing that just came out of nowhere.  We also had to fight for one of the areas that I take care of.  They also had a baptism that came out of nowhere but their ward didn’t support it, neither did the baptisms inactive girlfriend.  To be more exact they were actively against it, trying to do all that they could to keep this 15yr old kid from getting baptized.  It's interesting to see who and how Satan tries to prevent things from happening. 

Anyways, they ended up calling the President to go down and talk to the whole ward to tell them that they don't have authority or keys to say when they should and when they shouldn't baptize.  Anyways, the baptism happened, and no one from their ward watched it.  The bishop was there but he just stayed in his office and didn't even come out to watch or support the kid.  It’s pretty prideful in my opinion.  There's still quite a bit of apostasy going on around here that we're trying to do away with.

 I got the German books the other day.  It's legit!  I actually understand a lot easier than I thought I would.  It's pretty close to English, and I suppose our trip to Germany is helping me remember a little bit of the pronunciation.  But I suppose I’m trying to just take advantage of the gift of tongues that I have, while I have it.  Anyways, these past couple of days I’ve been thinking about how I may want to get into marketing.  I'd imagine that speaking English, German and Portuguese would help quite a bit.  I would like to get into some kind of business that works through other countries like Brazil.  And Brazil has a big German influence in the south so it'd be a good third language I think.  But this is all my past thinking for whenever I have time.  These past weeks have been a little bit easier due to us being sick, and having to move a lot slower.  It's strange how much energy gets drained from you while you're sick.  You go to bed weak and wake up weak.  But now I’m a lot better, nothing of mine got stolen either which was a great blessing.  Well I hope you had a great 4th of July, I sure did!  Love you dad!

Elder Williams

Your Prayers are Working!!

Hey Mom and family,          7-12-12

     Thanks for the email!  This week was actually pretty good.  We got everything under control now.  Our neighbors have a guy reforming the house so we had him put in a new door; the mission paid for it all so it was fine.  We got the locks and the new keys with the spares as well.  Also we finally fixed our washing machine so we can now have clean clothes.  Our neighbor also kicked her druggie son out.  So now we don't have any drugged driven people to steal our stuff anymore.  Apparently they’d also stolen from a supermarket that had been known to have already killed 3 people that have stolen things in the past (they paid off the police in the past to not go to jail for killing these people).  Anyway, her son went missing with his wife the other day so she took their daughter and had the ownership papers moved to her so now she's taken complete custody over the girl, which was good for the girl.  Plus they recently bought a new dog, so we have something to play with when we get home. 

     Tonight we're having an activity in the church.  It was one of the first in a long time.  I think it'll be good to animate our ward here, because we recently bought land to start the construction of a new ward, but we just need more members to be going there.  We're going to have an American food night and make pancakes.  It should be good.  I got my package by the way.  I’m surprised how quickly I’m starting to understand German.  The gift of tongues I suppose.  The only problem I suppose is going to be the grammar and learning it by myself.  I don't need any money or anything; I have a feeling that I’m going to be transferred soon. 

     So this Sunday a miracle happened.  We have been having a pretty difficult transfer as far as  baptisms go, but last Sunday we stopped by this guys house that we had found, and when we got there, he’d already read the pamphlet we left with him and he felt “way good” about it, so we left the first lesson with him, he's seriously one of the spiritually smartest investigators that I’ve taught, anyway he was so excited about being baptized that when I was going to mark his baptism (I figured the 15th, which would mean just one visit at church before his baptism) he accepted without a problem and was super excited.  So I suppose that the Lord is blessing us for our hard work these 6 weeks.  Anyway, yesterday there's a guy in our ward called Moisés, which would be Moses in English, and he decided to give us a random 5 min training.  Anyway, he said something interesting about something in D&C 75, in verse 19.  He said that those blessings can also be priesthood blessings and that every time we enter into someone’s house and they receive us and accept baptism, we need to use our priesthood and specifically ask that the Lord can send two angels to come and stay at their side to protect them, and their house.  He said that if we do this, then Satan won’t have any way to tempt them against the church by having someone come to say bad things to them.  Satan uses anyone and anything to distract and break people down, so it's best to have a couple of angels to protect them.  I think that's what I was lacking with that last guy I was telling you about (Marcos).  Anyway, Moisés was a pioneer in the church in this area and served a mission just 4 months into the church.  He went and opened a part of a mission with 5 other missionaries and in just 3 weeks they baptized 1500 people or so.  Soo, he's kind of a big deal.  Anyways, all is going well here; just keep praying for Marcos and now Luiz Felipe.  I think Marcos has a chance now and Luiz Felipe is going strong.  Thanks for the prayers; I can feel the protection and everything.  I love you!            

Elder Williams

Keep Praying that Peter gets healthy and doesn't get robbed...

Hey mom and family,              7-4-12

This week was good!  It was a little bit tough due to the fact it's hard to increase our teaching group, but these past couple of days we've had some good opportunities to teach.  The sinus infection went away, I think I have something that feels like a mild version of strep throat though, it only hurts to swallow and to lie down, but it's starting to go away.  I read on the label of that medicine and it said to use it for strep throats and sinus infections.  It got rid of one thing, so it should be right.  I couldn't pull money out cuz we don't have a bank in our area, but it's ok, we didn’t starve.  We always had just enough money.  It's cool to see how much the Lord cares for us by giving us just enough.  The couch is still outside, but we know a guy that can maybe shove it in through a door by removing some things so that it can fit.  Well, by the looks of the pictures, it seems that Alaska was pretty cool.  I don't know what you guys were expecting though, Alaska's known for its cold, dreariness.  Jon Lawson wrote me.  He said that you guys are going to have a huge BBQ soon.  It seems pretty fun.  I hear Vinnys in Florida, but I agree that kid needs to go on a mission.  I've been writing him a little bit and he said that he's still planning on going on one, he just needs to "clear some stuff up", whatever that means.  My head's super busy all the time, the time's passing by so quickly, I can't believe that it's already been 5 weeks in this area training.  Anyways, we have a new president now, President Perrotti.  I hear he's pretty cool; I haven’t really gotten to know him nor see him yet.  President Tanner called me on Saturday to say goodbye, it was a pretty cool thing.  I felt special.  The other day we found a guy named Flávio.  He's just gotten here; he's only been in the city for about 2 weeks now.  Anyways, he moved here with nothing.  He's living above a Pentecostal church, so we've been teaching him inside of another church.  Anyways, we found him a job and he seems to really like us and the church.  Yesterday we challenged him again to get baptized, he said he'll pray and see what God wants of him.  You should pray for him.  We're hoping to have him baptize this Sunday.  The other day we found out that our druggy neighbors stole my companion’s camera.  It seems that they stuck their hands through the window and started digging their hands threw his dirty clothes basket, where he keeps his camera.  Anyways, we haven’t confronted him yet, but his daughter suspiciously has a brand new skateboard to play with.  Yesterday my companion was playing dumb, and broke our house key, so we had to pay 25 bucks to have a key maker come in and break in to our house.  So now we're even more scared that our neighbors will come in and steal some more stuff for drugs.  Anyways, I can feel my testimony of the restoration growing these days.  It just all makes soo much sense.  It’s made it so much easier to explain.  Anyways, I think we're all going to have a BBQ and play soccer to celebrate 4th of July.  Happy 4th of July btw!  Love you!

Elder Williams

Peter Needs Your Prayers...

Hey Mom and Family,         6-26-12

Thanks for finding time in your cold adventure to email!  This week was one of the hardest I've had.  It started out really good but then it just got harder and harder.  Wednesday when Pday had ended we went to Marcos' house to confirm his baptism, but he was in a ton of doubt and stuff about baptisms for the dead.  I think he may have read about it in the pamphlet, and I mentioned it just a little bit before hand.  Anyways, his testimony had been highly damaged by the time we had gotten there and he had forgotten his answer that he had received about the restoration and the book of Mormon.  He was in a lot of doubt over that point in the plan of salvation.  Towards the end of the message he was understanding, but his wife had completely closed her heart to us and what we were saying.  That was when things started getting really complicated.  He had his wife around to always be saying crap about the church to him, all of his friends are from his church, and his pastor is stopping by his house and his store every single day to check up on him.  Everyone was saying bad stuff about the church to him.  The good thing is that he still remembers his answer and knew it came from God, but there was just so much pressure against it.  Anyways we kept trying to keep the visits going, even having some elders show up to interview him, but in the end he fell through. 

Then on Thursday it was raining a ton and I left my umbrella at home on accident.  So it got my pretty sick.  I think I have a sinus infection and a really bad cough, so I’m taking some sinus infection medicine that dad gave me.  This is great, cuz I don’t have any money to buy stuff til Friday.  It's my fault though.  Last Saturday I bought a really cheap couch to put into the house.  The only problem though is that we live behind another house, and we don't have any way to fit it into our house (cuz everything here in Brazil is super tiny).  So we're going to need to do some brainstorming to see how we can get it in. 

However it looks like last week was just a trial of faith, cuz things are starting to come through and God is showing us where to go, and our teaching pool is starting to grow for the first time here.  Thanks for the prayers.  There are a ton of people in the street to talk to.  The members are starting to get pretty excited to do missionary work.  There are some members that are starting to help that have never offered to help with past missionaries.

 My companion's doing good, he could teach the whole first lesson by himself now if he wanted to.  He would just have to talk though.  He doesn’t understand Portuguese too well yet.  Anyways, I hope all is going well up and over there!  Love you!

Elder Williams