#62 November 7, 2015

This week was really good! We started working in a different bairro of our area and things are going really great and we are finding a lot of new people to teach! We also had a guy pull over in his car and ask us about geneology work cuz he heard the church does a lot of it and so we marked a day to go visit him and turns out he is a total genius engineer and had tons of questions about the church and is pretty interested so we will see where that goes! Also it stopped raining yesterday! So this week has been great! 

There was just one really big downer though. So we went to visit Rubens and Flavia on Thursday but Rubens ended up having to travel to go see his Dad who is in the Hospital so we ended up just teaching Flavia. We went there with Irmão Diego who is an R.M. of about 5 years and is already married and has a kid. 

Anyways everything just felt wrong in the lesson, the Spirit wasn't right and everything was just off. Luckily Elder Fernandez was good enough to turn it around. She just seemed kind of off and like she wasnt really paying a lot of attention during the lesson so Fernandez asked her a question (don't remember what it was) and she stopped and then spilled a bunch of stuff to us. She told us she just bought a ticket to Fortaleza, (north east of brasil) to go back and live with her sister and she is gonna take Leticia, their daughter with her. 

Turns out the fights between them had been really bad and it seems like they had just hit rock bottom when we found them. She told us how they had to be out of their house by December, and their relationship was just horrible and fighting every day. She has already left once but ended up coming back. Anyways it was super sad because she doesnt know what she is gonna do! She says that Ruben has begun to change a ton since he began reading the book of mormon but she feels like she has had enough and is thinking that she just wants to move back to fortaleza where her family is from. 

But then after we talked about why she thought we found them right when we did? She told us the story about how Rubens had been praying a lot for some kind of guidance in his life because everything was just going wrong and then we found them. It is just such huge proof that God lives and he loves us and answers our prayers! And we talked to her about that but she said that it has been really really hard the past two years because they arent married and they kind of had to stay together because of the daughter... (That is why we gotta keep the commandments) 

But Irmão Diego bore a really powerful testimony on how the Gospel and the Church can cure everything! I am really glad we had him because as Elders without marriage experience we don't know anything! But she said she is still trying to decide if she is going to stay in Fortaleza or come back. 

At the end of the lesson we invited her to say the last prayer and she did and at the end she just started crying... The lesson was probably the most spiritually intense one that I have had my whole mission! We did everything we can as missionaries, not stepping over our boundaries to try to get her to stay but now its up to prayers and them! So please pray for her! 

It was very interesting because it shows how important the gospel is in a marriage but more importantly how important the barriers are that God has set for us! And you are miserable when you try to pass them! You will end up getting eaten by sharks! Sounds horrible but it's true! 

So we are praying a lot for them right now and we will see what happens. Flavia said she would still go to church tomorrow so we will see. 

But anyways transfers are coming up in a week so things are about to get really busy! Time is just flying by! This past transfer felt like two weeks of any other. It is totally crazy! I love my mission! It is awesome here! President is in Recife this week in a Mission President training. Dang imagine what they are talking about their! I cant wait till he gets back because he for sure is just gonna talk a ton about it! Great learning opportunities! 

Oh yeah everyone go look up the Area Plan for where you are at in the church! That is a huge problem here with members. President Silva follows everything that the Area Presidency puts in the Area Plan but none of the members know that there exists an area plan so they get all ticked when President starts trying to do something different. But it was funny, President showed us the Area Plan of 2015 (you can look it up on lds.org) and everything in their is what he did this past year including the 3 km rule. And we are one of the only missions that follows it! But anyways go find out what your area plan is and try to follow it! 

But I love you guys so much! Have an awesome week! 

Elder Keller