Well this week was great! Our trio is over. We got a new american names elder daines from logan utah! He is a really good guy! He was serving in montanah for 5 months and then came out here! He is super funny and is actually speaking pretty well already. So now im with Nascimento and Elder n. Lopes is with daines! So we are back to 4 in guaratuba!
But this week we went into joinville to get Daines and we also had to go to itapoã to do exchanges (i just realized thats what they are called in english not splits when its between missionaries haha) But it went really well! Itapoã is like an hour away south of us on the beach as well! The branch there is pretty interesting... Its got about 20 members ben it is really weak! The missionaries there Elder Sierras and Elder Mendes are more qualified to be the branch president there than the branch president haha! But they are doing really good work and principally trying to strengthen all the members there to see if they can help it grow! Rumor is the last bishop here in guaratuba who is coming back from being a mission president in june is gonna move there to try to wake em up! we will see what happens! But it was starting to get cold here and i was super excited and then these past couple days just had a random heat wave! haha good ol brasil (: but who knows, maybe it will get a little better here during the "winter"!
But this week we had an interesting experience. There is a brother in the ward here named adelmo. He is totally awesome but the only one in his family that is baptized! his wife and kids are but his paretns and siblings arent. He wanted to take us to visit his mom and brother because he said they are in really bad shape because his brother is into really heavy drugs... So we went by there with him this week and we went into the house and the smell was just so sad! We had taught others who used drugs but nothing super serious. This guy is totally addicted crack and the house just wreaks of it. His mom is the sweetest lady in the world but has to take care of this 34 year old full grown man who has totally become victim to another one of satans tools! But we saw how drugs just totally detroyed the family! The dad left because he couldnt handle the son anymore and now the mom has major mental issues because of her son. And as we were sitting there the brother in the ward was talking to his mom and brother and I felt the weirdest most empty feeling i have felt on my mission! I felt like I used to feel before my mission, like I always needed to repent of something, or that something just wasnt right in my life and it was so weird! I literally felt like I had to get up and go repent of something that i had done! And i was trying to think about what I had done and then i realized i hadnt done anything but i literally just wasnt feeling the spirit! It was the strangest thing that has happened on my mission I think. But I think Heavenly Father wanted me to have that experience so that I could recognize what it is like to not have the spirit!
That is why the sacrament and our baptismal covenants are so important! It doesnt seem like the promise that we get in return from our heavenly father is as big to have the spirit to be with us always but it is everything! If we have the spirit, it means that we are keeping the commandment and remembering christ, and when we do that we are happy! It is so simple! We always need to strive to keep the commandments and align our will with Gods. That is one of the biggest principles that i am learning on my mission, do what God would have us do and everything will work out alright!
But everything is going great here in Guaratuba! We are working our tails off and loving every second of it! We are trying to expand our teaching group right now because we have pretty much cut everyone we were teaching except for a few. We will see how this week goes!
We go to joinville on wednesday for a zone conference with pres so im super excited about that and Ill get to see buck! someone from the hometown!
But I love and miss all of you so much and hope everything is going great! Have an awesome week and strive to keep the commandments and magnify your callings!
Love Elder Keller
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