Hey look, I'm a Dad!!

 Bom dia!!  

So these last 3 weeks have been full of a lot of cool miracles and I'm so blessed for the time that I have had on the mission.  That being said, it has also been an exhausting last couple weeks! But it's all worth it in the work of the Lord! 

Our biggest miracle during this last week was Carolina! She was a woman who wrote down her information on the site comeuntochrist.org and wanted a Book of Mórmon.  Normally we have a rule that we will try contacting the person three times at different times in the day before we move on and leave them to be contacted by other missionaries.  We did that, and after the third attempt we sent a message and left it at that.  Miraculously, she responded and then we called her on Saturday morning.  She told us about the difficulties in her life and how she wanted to find herself through God.  We told her about the Book of Mórmon and asked if we could stop by later to drop it off! 

That visit ended up being 1.5 hours of us talking about God and how she wanted to have a closer relationship.  She talked about her experiences with other churches and how she felt that she was never really in the right place.  We invited her to come to the church the next day with her, and she came!! She loved it and the next day we marked a baptismal date with her! Over the next fifteen days we taught her everything and she was baptized! Every time she talked about her testimony she said "I can't describe if quite yet, but I know it's true." One of my favorite quotes from her is what she said about the Book of Mórmon.  She said "I have learned more things about the gospel and Jesus Christ from the Book of Mórmon in the last two weeks than I have learned in the last twelve years!" She is amazing and she is so happy to be part of the true church of Jesus Christ!! 

Okay, so now you are probably curious about the title of this blog post right?  Well, about three days before the baptism of Carolina, President called us.  At night.  That's always a worrisome call.  He called to say that there had been some changes and Elder Lopes was going to be transferred and that I was going to train a new missionary! And so, now I'm training a new missionary! I'm a father! I've been waiting my whole mission to train someone.  His name is Elder Ebberts and he is from Idaho.  He has a great desire to learn and he's been making some great progress here in the last couple days.  

So other than that we have been working hard to make the most of our time here! This last week we were able to mark two baptismal dates with people who are really firm.  Please keep Pedro and Margareth in your prayers.  

Pedro is working with us to stop smoking and yesterday was the day that he decided to just stop all of it, and we felt like we should give him a blessing.  After church we went to a room and gave him a blessing to be able to overcome the temptation of the cigarettes and prepare for his baptism.  Later in the day he sent a message saying that he didn't even feel a loss of the cigarette and it feels as if he never smoked.  Miracles!! 

Me and Elder Doller did two exchanges.  In the first one we were in a favela walking down a long flight of stairs and there was a guy carrying a lot of bags and we asked him if we could help with anything.  (Side note: No one has ever said yes to this offer in my entire mission.) He accepted!  We helped him and learned he was moving out on his own for the first time and asked who we were.  We explained our missionary purpose and then marked to come back the next day.  We ended the exchange, but I learned that they marked a baptismal date with him on the first lesson and after two weeks he was baptized.  Miracles!! 

We've also been playing hard! One of our p -days we got to go to The Maracanã Stadium! It's the big stadium here in the center of Rio! It was really cool to be there with our district.  

In terms of spiritual experiences, I began to think a lot about how we are teaching people and what their lives are like.  Unfortunately a large percentage of the people we teach are all in difficult situations.  It hurts my heart to hear about their troubles and problems.  However, the thing that makes me so happy is how they have so much faith in Jesus Christ and God.  Like, they have so many troubles and they could be so mad at God, but rather they have faith and act on the commitments we give them and then begin to see how Jesus Christ can help them in their problems.  I know that Jesus Christ is the healing power of all problems.  It makes me think of the scripture in Alma 32 when Alma meets all of the less fortunate who were kicked out of their own places of worship.  

6 And now when Alma heard this, he turned him about, his face immediately towards him, and he beheld with great joy; for he beheld that their afflictions had truly humbled them, and that they were in a preparation to hear the word.

There are always people prepared to hear the word.  They may be your neighbors or your family or friends.  But they don't know yet!  They don't know how amazing the gospel us until you share it! So don't wait, go and find those who need it, and I promise that the gospel will change their lives.  

I am grateful for all of you my friends and family! I hope this week is a great one!  

Elder Moss

RJ, Brasil