Penúltima Transferência

Hey Family!

Guess what!?!? We Had transfers today! And I´ll be staying with Elder Neuman in Bento Ribeiro for at least one more transfer. After this transfer, I´ll have one more before I´m scheduled to finish up the mission. I know. Crazy Sauce to the max. I´m happy to hear that the mission prep class is growing now that there are more teenagers in the stake getting mission calls. I have two pieces of advice that I feel would give any young man or woman a good head start for their mission before putting on the nametag. There are many things you can do to better prepare yourself for the mission, but my top two would be:

1) Read the entire Book of Mormon and receive a personal testimony of its truthfulness

-I´m really happy I took seminary and Book of Mormon at college to atain a small and simple testimony before the mission, that way it could grow a bit more while serving, but there are many young men that I know and have served with that simply didn´t do that before starting to serve. It impeded their progress, slows them down while they´re in the field, and it could have been easily avoided if they had just payed attention in sunday school and done personal scripture study while at home. We can´t convert people beyond our own level of conversion, and certainly, our testimony will have more power when we can share with our investigators/contacts how we personally came to know of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon

2) Take an opportunity to go on splits or visits with the missionaries in your ward/stake

-This one, on the other hand, I didn´t take enough advantage of before the mission. I remember leaving maybe two times with the elders back at home, and because I hadn´t done that more, I was surprised at how different missionary work from what I imagined. Young men and women who ocassional do visits with the missionaries will start to pick up on teaching strategies/scriptures/questions that will better prepare them for the field. I trained a brazillian Elder who frequently before entering the MTC left with the elders in his homeward. Because of that experience and his preparation, I liked to tell other missionaries and members that I wasn´t training Elder Inácio, but that he arrived pre-trained. 

There´s many more things I can say as well about Preach my Gospel, learning how to study, language stuff, but I´d say those two are key to showing up on the mission ready to teach and testify.

Elder Neuman and I are doing super well in Bento Ribeiro. We´re excited for our special sacrament meeting this sunday. Things are going great with Luciano, we were able to get permission from President to teach him and prepare him for baptism this Saturday! He´s the guy from our English class, and he´s been bringing his friend, Ana Luisa, who has also become super interested in the church. Ana Luisa speaks English, like, fluently and we´ll start teaching her this week. Unfortunately, she has the same problem that Rayane has, where she works every sunday except for one each month.

Speaking of Rayane, she said she´s still looking for another job, but won´t leave McDonalds until the 25th of April. Luckily, I´ll still be here by then, so hopefully we´ll be able to have her baptism next month. She´s doing well, we´ve been visiting her and Rose once or twice weekly, especially in preparation for General Conference. OHGOSH #ldsconf #ILoveConf #likesomuch

I also had a family night with a family who I met in Maricá. Their names are Altamiro and Claudia, and they have a beach house in Ponta Negra, a town close to MAricá. They´re members of the church, but have been les active for a few years. When I was with Elder Inácio, we were visiting them a bit, but they said they were staying more time at their house in... Bento Ribeiro! I remembered them and we visited them and invited them to the 'Sunday that no one can miss'! They loved our message, gave us some hamburgers (...what? True Story). and they said they´ll be at church this sunday!

So yeah. Another great week, and I´m looking forward to what this transfer has instore for Elder Neuman and I. We have some good potential progressing investigators along with those who we´re focusing on right now. Sorry that I still can´t send photos to yall, I think you´ll just have to wait until Mother´s Day to see my sun-burned-yet-still-incredibly-handsome face.

Love you all!

Elder Braun