Elder Lindquist 7/15/09

So this week was crazy awesome, like some of the coolest stuff has happened. So a few weeks ago we found an African family and were able to teach about the restoration and the other day we went back to talk more about the Book of Mormon. The cousin was there so we had one of the daughters explain the restoration to her cousin; she taught it way better than I could ever do. Then we taught and testified about the power that the Book of Mormon contains, and bore testimony of how we can receive an answer. The daughter and cousin were both like "I want to receive an answer like that"! They were talking to each other like lets read it tonight together and all this stuff it was sick because usually it's like pulling teeth to have people fulfill the invites we extend but they were way excited about it, it was cool. Then the other morning on Saturday we went to teach Maria Regina and her sister/sisters husband and remarked them for baptism. On the way home (we were really close to our house) I saw a Brazilian lady walking with her daughter, both of them was carrying tons of grocery bags so I stopped and asked the mother if we could help them. The daughter saw us and ran away, but the mother looked at me and saw me holding the Book of Mormon, she was like OH! Is this a book of Mormon? My friend gave me one of these books ten years ago! She explained that a colleague from work moved to France but before she left she gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon with her testimony written on the cover. So of course I jumped all over that and we invited her to church, (both her kids are baptized in the Assembly of God church and she's preparing to be baptized there but said she would LOVE to come to church). So we took her bags and walked with her to the bus station and talked about church. She lives in a little village on the way to the chapel so we stopped to get her on the way. Her and her daughter walked out wearing dresses and her son walked out wearing a shirt tie and slacks. My jaw just about dropped, investigators never wear that stuff the first visit at church. Ha so on the way to the chapel she was like I hope you don't mind that we invited a friend from our church to come as well, I was like of course we don't mind. So then in second hour the gospel principles teacher told the story of how the Elders found him and then after that Rosária, (the woman) starts basically bearing her testimony of how we found her and when we talked to her the day before she felt that we were men of God and that she felt like we were lead to her. It was sick! So yesterday we had district meeting and then divisions with the zone leaders and Elder Marriot, (the stud muffin) and I went to visit them. Her daughter sang a gospel song for us then Elder Marriot and I sang "I Need Thee Every Hour" and we taught them about prophets and authority. Near the end of the lesson the Uncle dropped by, (who happens to be the vice president of their church) and we had a great conversation and explained how the mission goes for these two years and everything then we all ate some Brazilian food it was awesome. So that was just a little bit of my week. How are things going for you guys? Sounds like things are pretty busy for it being summer time. Well Elder Wheeler is awesome, he's from Glendora California. We like to quote Nacho libre a lot and I got him hooked on a lot of fattening foods here.. Descula la familia wheeler mas o seu filho vai ser um gordinho quando ele voltar..So yeah basically my message for this week (as you can see in the pattern of my stories) is that the Book of Mormon is awesome. If you aren't reading it every day, do it (I'll try and apply this invite too) but it really does have a huge impact on peoples conversion process, as it was with yours right dad? Didn't a colleague give one to Grandma Lindquist before the missionaries passed by? Well my invite is to talk to someone about the Book of Mormon this week because you don't know if the impact will be made that night, or ten years down the road, but an impact will be made. ~Have a great week, Elder Lindquist