Dearest family!
oh my goodness, I love you so so so much and I miss you so much too. But no worries. Everything is going great here. I have seen miracles and truly seen the Lord´s hand in this work. When Elder Awerkamp, my companion, arrived in the area about 3 months ago the bishop said to him, "There are 2 things you need to know about the area. 1. There are a lot of houses and lots of people to teach 2. The ward doesn't have much missionary spirit." Also while he was here last transfer, Elder Awerkamp was talking about doing some activities and everyone said oh bishop doesn't like to do activities. When I got here, we had one family and a few investigators we were teaching. It was hard but we worked our tails off.
A few weeks ago we drafted up this plan for a mega-activity, to get everyone pumped for missionary work. We would show them this video about missionary work, we would do trainings to show them how to be effective ward missionaries and then we would play this awesome game. We perfected the plan. We talked with our ward mission leader and then presented it to the bishop. He said that sounds like a great activity. But the people won´t come to it. We won´t tell them it´s for missionary work, but that it was a night of pies. So all the leaders and missionaries told everyone that it was a night of pies.
When we arrived at the chapel, we didn't end up watching the movie. But we got everything set up and the people sat down. We did the opening excercises and then I got up in front of all the people. I pulled out a Bis. which is this very delicious brazilian candy. I called on a guy from the ward and said "Irmão Bill, do you like Bis" "Absolutely" "Do you want this one?" I asked "Yeah!" and then I opened up the chocolate and licked it! "Do you want it now?" Then Elder Awerkamp explained that sometimes we take good things and we don´t represent them the right way so we make people lose the appeal. Then we did some trainings, how to hand out cards, and act in a lesson with the missionaries and after all that we bore our testimonies. I told them about how I have a testimony about ward missionary work because I wouldn´t be here without it. I told them about Roger Ethington and how he helped dad join the church and he helped us. I told them that I will never forget him, my family will never forget him. My children will never forget him and how my family has been changed for the better. I don´t know how I said it in portuguese. Definitely by the Lord´s help. Then after our testimonies we played a game.
One little boy was the sheep and the missionaries were the wolves. We have the ward mission leader protect him. He couldn´t. Then we had the bishopric join and help. They couldn´t protect him. We had all the men of the ward join, they still couldn´t protect him. So we had the whole ward come up and protect him. We couldn´t get to him. The second counselor tackled me to the ground while 7 guys took down Elder Awerkamp! It was great! Then the bishop got up and gave his testimony about how we all need to work together to protect the sheep of the Lord. It was great then we ate delicious pies! oh man it was so good.
The next day at church we had 8 investigators at church! It was great! And a family who I love so much! (The family that we took the coffee away from! hahah) and the ward was great! We couldn´t even sit by them because the ward was just going to town with being missionaries. Now we are teaching 3 complete, legally married families! We have a few other people and the ward is saying let´s do family nights! Let´s go out with the missionaries! How can we help you? What a miracle.
Well I have to go. I love you all so much. I'll talk to you next week!
com amor
elder askins!
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