The Power of Fasting

This week was great. We had the baptism of Brandon. Everything was so inspired and prompted by the Lord. He is the son of a member from Bolivia who moved back to Brazil a couple of weeks ago. The Saturday before he went to church with his mom all the people we had confirmed to go to church with us cancelled the last minute and when we told our LD he told us that we should pray for an elect to be at church the next day, and that we did and Heavenly Father truly sent a true eleito. The first time we went to visit him after we saw him at church he didn´t even want to listen to us. He seemed very closed off and said he was leaving so he couldn´t talk to us. Later his mom told us to back off a little bit because he told her that it seemed like we were exorcists and that we wanted to remove the evil spirits from him hahahahahaa. But this week I felt a strong prompting to go back and talk to him and when we got there it seemed like a completely different person, very open to everything. Brandon is a very intelligent young man, who knows a little bit about everything. The first time we truly taught him I felt the spirit so strongly, and decided to fast the very same day, and everything that happened afterwards with him was truly inspired from Heavenly Father. Sister Moura our sister leader felt like she needed to do splits with us, and teach him about the plan of salvation, the next day a member called  and told us that he felt like he needed to help the missionaries and he went and visited Brandon with us. The baptism of Brandon was so spiritual too. Bishop Marcelo said that he saw in the eyes of Brandon that he was going to be a great leader one day!!!! I´m so happy to have helped the Lord bring another sheep into his flock. We are also helping a single mom, Luciene, stop smoking to be baptized. She went to church this Sunday and loved it, and can´t wait to be baptized. It´s been really cool to work with her too. I know that through faith she can stop smoking soon!!!!!! Tomorrow is mission conference, and I`M SOOOOO STOKED because a general authority, Elder Antunes from the seventies is coming to speak. President Ferrin asked us all to start a fast right now so that we could be prepared to feel the spirit and learn things that will help us with our missions. I know it´s going to be an awesome experience Next week is also transfers, but I´m hoping that me and sister Lima get to both stay because we have been getting a long so great and she works hard!!!!!! I know that Heavenly Father blesses us when we are obedient and truly trying to serve others. Love you all, sorry for being so whinny last week. Hope everyone is doing good and trying to share the gospel!!!!!

Loving Sao Paulo CTM

Hey Everyone!!! I made it safely to BRAZIL! It's so awesome here. I left the Provo MTC on a last week on a Tuesday. I traveled with about 10 other missionaries going to the CTM here in Brazil. Some from the Provo MTC and some new! I loved it. I finally felt like a real missionary because I talked with a lot of people about the church and about their lives and I gave out 6 pass along cards. I gave out my 3 and my companion's 3. And when I got the the Sao Paulo MTC I had a conversation with actual Brazilians and I was able to understand almost everything they were saying. The one thing I couldn't understand is when they were saying LADY GAGA. hahahahah it was funny. Everyone here is SO nice!!!! It really is their culture. I've already made so many friends here in the CTM. I have Brazilian roommates and they are so awesome and hilarious. Sis. S. Santos and Sis. Lima dos Santos. Here in Brazil if you have a really common name they make you put your first name abbreviated or other things like that. I don't know if you got the letter I wrote, but Bruno here is a really really common Male first name. I've already had 2 elders come up to me and tell me that my last name is their first name, and I get a lot of laughs when I introduce myself. It's always pretty funny. But, they might make me change my name to either sister D. Bruno or sister Deseret. Which one do you think is better? Anyways I have now had a total of 5 companions in the last 8 weeks. I got a new companion last week, Sister Campbell who is one week behind me, but they put us in the same district until my district leaves and then shes going to be in a Brazilian district, and today another sister, sister villaroman joined our companionship because her companion left today! They are both really really nice sisters and both hard workers. Yesterday, we all went together out into the streets around the CTM to do some proselyting for the first time. We had no clue what we were doing but it was a really good experience we got to talk with a lot of Brazilian people in Portuguese. Didn't know everything they were saying but I knew enough to give them Book of Mormons and teach them a little about the church. It was scary but exciting and awesome all at the same time. Today we went to the temple. It's soooo beautiful. It has really unique features inside which I love!!!! The food here... big surprise SCARES me. The only thing I enjoy eating is the beans and rice hahaha. Everything else is really strange. A lot of meat. and the desserts are scary to. A lot of questionable jello. haha. Anyways I hope everything back home is going well!!!!! Sister Bruno