This week was double

So much happened this week that it felt like two weeks. So I will start with last Monday and work up.  The bad thing about p-day is that something really cool always happens right after we write emails.  So on Monday we were going to talk to a family that was a referral of a family in the ward.  We already had talked to them but they haven’t been keeping commitments.  So we went there and they weren't home, but there was a man that has a store under their house that invited us in.  We decided to just leave a scripture with him.  My companion pulled out his bible and the man said for him to randomly open the bible and the scripture that he needed would be there.  So my companion did it, a little reluctantly, and read a scripture about the Holy Ghost. The man started to cry, and then stood up and said a prayer thanking God that we had found him.  He said that he had had a dream that we came to his house and read this scripture to him; he said that he would come to church that week and that he wanted to get baptized as soon as he got married to his wife. WOW.  The rest of the week it was a little difficult to find him home so we were a little worried that he would make it to church.  But as we were leaving the church to go help people arrive, he showed up with his wife, they had walked a couple miles just to come to church.  He bore his testimony that he knew that God had sent us to his house to help him. He is incredible.

So that was the first thing that happened this week.  On Tuesday we got the calls about transfers, my companion and I weren't transferred but I was called as District Leader.  The next day we had p-day and the next we went to the office to help our new missionaries arrive in their new home.  They are both Americans, one of them is in my group and the other was the companion of the ZL and he has one less transfer than us.  So all of us have less than 6 months!  I was also given 2 sisters, both Americans, one is also in my group and I have already worked with her when I was in Embu, and the other was in our district last transfer too.  They both have less than 6 months too.  We had 4 of the 7 zones split, so now we have 11 zones in the mission, because so many missionaries have arrived.

The last couple of days have been going on splits with the new Elders helping them learn the area.  On Saturday we went to the cartorio to try and get a wedding date marked for two amazing investigators.  This is the third time that they have tried to get married.  The first time, something happened.  The second time, a car hit them and they had to get surgery and this was the third time.  So we all went together, the missionaries making almost a circle around them to make sure that nothing happened, and we made it to the cartorio, only to find out that one of the documents was wrong. NOooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  So we went and bought açaí and went back home, but we asked for a new document from the bahia and everything thing should work out, just pray for them, they are amazing.  We are getting everyone married here; we have 6 couples that we are helping get married to be able to get baptized.  

And then Yesterday.  We had 14 investigators at church!!!!!!!  It was so cool.  A couple of them were contacts, which is crazy because contacts never come alone to church, and they said that when we had talked with them they felt that they needed to go to this church, and so they came, and now they will be baptized!  The Lord has really been helping us this past week. On New Year’s Eve we got a call that President  P had received revelation that we needed to be home by 6 that night.  So we did it, it was crazy, the parties were so loud and the people were using so many fireworks, even giving them to little kids and the music and the people on motorcycles without mufflers, wow, my ears are still ringing! Thanks for the prayers that ya'll have been doing, they are really making a difference here.  Please pray for my companion, he has been a little sick this last little bit.  Love you all so much, don’t worry the Lord will work everything out, he has his plan already made, we just have to trust in it.  Have a great week of school and make goals to grow.  

Elder Anderson