Area Book = Baptisms!

Me, Rayane, Rose, Luciane, Ruan, and Elder Neuman at Rose´s Baptism

Hey Family and Friends and Other people who happen to be reading this,

Thanks so much mom for the application work for the scholorship and BYU admission. Any news on whether I was accepted at BYU for Summer term? I would assume yes if you were able to plan housing during summer. I´ll try not to worry about it too much, it sounds you´ve got everything in perfect shape.Tell Jeff good luck for me in the Marathon in Louisiana!

Elder Neuman and I are so happy to share some great news and miracles we´ve been having recently. The Lord has truly blessed us in Bento Ribeiro, and even though our progress was a bit slow when we first arrived here, we´re starting to see fruits from our work, planning, studying, and prayers. Last saturday, Rose was baptized! It wasabout 5 weeks ago that we found her name in our area book and decided to go back to see if she´d like to receive the missionaries again. She said that her and her granddaughter were learning a lot and loved having the Elders over, but all of the sudden, they stopped coming. When we arrived, she was happen lots of back pains, problems sleeping,and slight depression, but as she read the Book of Mormon with her granddaughter, Rayane, she started feeling that what she was reading really contained the Word of God, and as she started attending church and keeping the commandments, all of those problems started dissapearing. She had a wonderful baptism and Confirmation, and we´re excited for Rayane´s baptism in the soon to come future (she hasn´t been able to go to church much because she works every day at Mcdonalds in Copacabana and only has one sunday off per month). I will not leave this area until we´re able to help her get a new job or get sundays off so that she can be baptized while I´m here.

With Rose´s baptism, we were also able to meet her daughter and grandson (Luciane and Ruan) who also loved the baptismal service and are willing to learn more. They don´t live in our area, so we passed their reference to other missionaries. We´re expecting many fruits from our work with Rose and her family.

After church was over we had a rather SPLENDID surprise. An 11 year old girl named Bruna who we´ve taught a few times already decided, after receiving our invite many times, that she wants to become a member of the church! She accepted our challenge to prepare for thissaturday, the 7th, to be baptized. Bruna´s mom has been sheltered because of her addiction with drugs, and lives with her aunt, who´s a member of the Primary Presidency in Bento Ribeiro. I see this girl as a future sister missionary, and now that she has accepted our invite to follow Jesus´ example, she can become closer to that happening. WOOHOO

Our English class is still going wonderfully as well. The three teenagers who came to church last week came again yesterday, so now we know that instead of just being curious about the church, they are actually interested in learning about it. I really REALLY wanted to be able to teach them, since they live closer to the church than any other investigator that we have, but since they BARELY live in Abolição (Whose chapel is mother stinckin far away), we passed their address to the missionaries in that area. We had a lesson about food and how to describe food and how to order food items at a restaurant in english. They seemed to really like it, and hopefully, we´ll continue having new people in our class each week with more students becoming interested in investigating the churc has well.

So yeah. This was a wonderful week for us. So great, that Elder Neuman and I decided to walk a lot more on our P-day to find a different internet cafe that way we could send photos from our week to yáll. I love this Gospel, I love the blessings that our Father in Heaven has been giving us these past few weeks, and I know that in all of my mission, now is my time to shine and work the most. 

Love,

Elder Braun

"Atençao, Homens Trabalhando"

Another picture in front of the chapel