Letter from Elder Peacock...2/21/2012

We had a pretty good week.  Nothing happened with transfers, so we are both still here.  A couple of weeks ago we knocked the door of this lady named Lúcia, and she was super nice and talked to us.  She told us how she knew who we were and then she had talked to missionaries in Venezuela when she lived there for many years.  It was awesome, and she told us how she lived next door to some members there and always went to church with them.  We thought, “Awesome, we are for sure coming back to visit this lady more.”  After a second visit we learned more about her and what she knew about the church and some of the challenges in her life at the moment, and they were some pretty big ones.  Then we went back for a third time and got to know her more and we dug about her knowledge about the church.  Then she started telling us about a leader in Venezuela that kind of offended her and her husband because of something he said about tithing, and then I said, “You know you don´t even have to worry about that because only members need to pay tithing and you were never baptized so he shouldn´t have said anything about that.”  Then she said, “But I was baptized and my husband to…” what!?  She was baptized in Venezuela and she was already a member, then I thought oddly we have a number of members here in São João that are from or lived in Venezuela, what are the names of the people that took you to church there?  She told us, and believe it or not, they live here and are active and the Patriarch of the stake baptized Lúcia´s husband.  It was insane.  But so sweet, so Lúcia really wants to come back to church and she told us that she is going to.  She said, “I had been praying a lot, and asking for help from Heavenly Father and then you guys came and knocked the door.  I don´t believe that it just happened because it was an answer to my prayers, and I want to come back to church and this time I´m not going to leave.  It was an awesome experience.

Paula and Joaquim are great, Joaquim received the priesthood and they are moving forward.  We are teaching one of Paula´s friends now, Samanta and she is way cool.  We have been pretty blessed here and we still have a lot more we need to do to show our gratitude.  But I am glad you guys had a good week.  That is awesome that Cameron lost 2 teeth, just like that.  Well, I love you and hope everything goes well!

Love,

Elder Peacock