Well this week was a long one. But as always it was full of great experiences, and a lot of hard work. 

The week started off in another city, Sinop. Our district was invited to participate in the Zone meeting on Tuesday. So, we left here Monday night, and got there at 1:00 in the morning. The morning was pretty crazy, with everyone trying to find their way around a city that nobody was familiar with. But, the Zone meeting was great, and afterwards, all the missionaries participated in a "blitz". All the missionaries in the Zone split up to do contacts and find new investigators in one area. It was a neat experience, and we helped out the missionaries in Sinop a ton! 

We got back to Alta Floresta 3:00 in the morning on Wednesday, and we got to work right away. With two sets of missionaries, we're able to work a lot more in Cidade Alta, and we're uncovering a lot of potential there. This week alone we taught a number of families that are super receptive, and six of the people we taught there this week came to church on Sunday!

But, above all, the neatest experience this week was with R and L. R is the mother of L (9 years old) and we've been teaching the two of them for the past 2 months. Both of them have been diligentlly coming to church every Sunday ever since we started teaching them. They both wanted to be baptized, but R has a strong dependancy on cigarretes. L in particular always had a strong desire to be baptized, but due to some new regulations here in Brazil, we needed authorization of the mission president to baptize L. But we explained the situation to President Reber, and he agreed to let L get baptized before R. 

And so, this week we taught L on Friday while R was attending a visit (R has a salon em casa). The lesson with L was great, and she was 100% prepared for baptism. But after the lesson during our day, I felt like we needed to return and invite R once more to be baptised together with her daughter. That night, we returned to her house, entered and sat down. Simply, I asked if she wanted to be baptized this Sunday. She responded, "of course, but I can't." I told her that she knew exactly what was necessary, and that it was completeally possible, and completeally up to her. R turned and looked to look at her daugher. The two of them continued looking into eachother's eyes for what seemed like an eternity. Finally she turned back to us with tears in her eyes and simply asked "do you have confidence in me", we responded emphetacally SIM, and whats more important God has confidence in you. She accepted, and finially agreed with detemination to stop smoking once.

This Sunday was very special for me. Finally I was able to help a mother and daughter enter in the door to the fullness of the Gospel through baptism. It is practically impossible to really describe the happiness that I felt for these daughters of God. R has overcome so much, and she has a lot more to overcome still, but now she's well on her way, with the companionship of the church family, and more importantly with the companionship of the Holy Ghost.