Another email - 7/7/10

Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 9:25 AM

Greetings from Sunny Aparecida de Goiânia! I can´t even remember the last time I saw rain, nor green grass for that matter. And wow, the road there looks so . . . clean.

These days we´re working with a few key people. Adriana, a single mother of 5 who we´re helping stop smoking. She´s really nice, just that I think she smokes because of the stress she has when she has to care alone for all her children. She´s really cool, too, but it´s hard to teach her every day.

Tatiana, a young woman who stopped us at the bus station to ask about the Angel Moroni. She absolutely loved Church the other week, and she told her mom she´s sure she found the right church for her. She says she prayed about the Book of Mormon and felt good when she prayed. I really think we´ll be able to baptize her this month.

Janaina, a less-active member´s girlfriend. She´s been a few weeks now, and I really like when we go and teach her with members, because I feel a little bit like I´m hanging out at home.

As for the guys back home, the boys of our ward, I´d give a lot to be able to talk to the youth in our ward now. Every single day I remember how much time I wasted as a kid not paying attention in seminary, goofing off at church, and not taking the preparation classes for the mission and temple. What a wonderful privilege it is to be raised in the church! So many people here these days envie those who are born in the covenant, and those whose parents are sealed to them.

But I only came to understand these things when I began to thrust in my sickle in the Lord´s service. I only realized how much I wanted my family to be in the church forever and how much I wanted to be like Christ when I could feel my own soul´s weight. How can I teach a child to know what I only learned by faith, and by suffering?

My advice to the youth of our ward is that they enjoy their time as youth, that the boys enjoy their time as members of the Aaronic priesthood, and that they honor one another. Another thing I´d advise the youth from 16 upward is to date. Not as the world dates, but that they might, how do you say, live a little more.

As for if a missionary who baptizes many people quickly or at once gets to know them as well or loves them as much as one who baptizes less and with more work, I don´t know exactly how to respond. I know that there are many who probably don´t get to know these people as well as they should, but I have always sought to love the people I bring to the Lord, and to see them with a bright and long future in the church.

I like to remember the example of Amon, and the sons of Mosiah. They went and baptized an entire nation, but who can doubt that they didn´t love these their brothers, and that they didn´t worry about their eternal exaltation? At least in Brazil these are the men we are often pointed to, the Sons of Mosiah, as our exemplars. And above all the Lord Jesus Christ, who laid down His life to save all humanity, loving all, independant of if they loved Him back or not.

I, myself, have always worried about the people I brought to the Lord. This very weekend I found out that the first family I baptized on my mission is still really strong in the church, and I got letters from them. I found out that the woman I baptized in Anapolis moved, but even though she´s gone to Goiânia, she intends to keep going to church, and that a man who I taught and almost baptized in Garavelo is still going to church these days.

There are many I didn´t worry enough, and I don´t know where they are. My own soul hungers to bring as many as I can to the Lord. Something I didn´t understand at one time on the mission was this, but these days I always, always, look to love those who are coming to Church, even when they´re being taught by others. After all, even if you baptize in one ward or another, it´s still the same Gospel, right?