The power of the Priesthood is so true! Miracles happened this week! (11-23-15)

Well, once again, another week of miracles.... but I´ll get to that later! Everything is going great, and it was much cooler this week, thanks to the rain, one day it was actually cloudy all day! I also got to see another part of the city too, I was on a split with another zone leader in the area of Higienopolis, and they are in the city central. We were in a really wealthy neighborhood for little while but no one there ever accepts us, so went to another part of their area and had some more success. One lady was a Jehovah Witness though, and she didn´t like us to much, but she had a really cool house though! She´s a painter and had some really really nice paintings done by her. Also had this banana tart thing that was rather delicious. Did I tell you that they have like 5 different bananas that they sell at the store? big ones, little ones, ones that are like as long as your forearm. Ya, pretty crazy, and really good. They are also really cheep and so, I eat a lot of bananas, haha. This week was pretty good for investigators, though Cleuza ( the woman that I talked about last week) she was in the hospital. Kind of scary, but we are going back to visit her this week! Also this week is packed by the way!!! Today we have a Noite Familiar (FHE) with the LMA who´s inviting some less actives and we´re having Brazilian pizza (SO GOOD) and these like tapioca pancake things??? Then our lessons are stacked Tuesday already, Wednesday is a division and stacked with English Class that night. Then Thursday we have Interviews with President Brum and thanksgiving in Jussara (another area), Friday we have a ward activity, and then Saturday and Sunday is Stake Conference. Busy week! Also we had a couple investigators attend church finally, which was a really cool experience. They were actually saying, "look, I just don't think this church is for me." stuff like that, and so I pulled out good old Alma 32, with the experiment. Just solid, and I was like look, you can´t make your decision without actually trying it. It talks about faith not being a perfect knowledge, but you have to first exercise a particle of faith, and if it is good, it will grow. So I promised him if he went to church, he would fee the spirit and receive the answer he needed. And he also has some really big family problems, and I promise you that the talk given by Felippe, was totally inspired for this investigator, really it was just so amazing. Now, I want to testify that the power of the priesthood is so true. I had the most amazing experience this week. We have a fairly recent convert of about 1 year named Desiderio. He is 86 years old, and I say better late than never. But, I´m not sure if I told his story or not, so I´ll just summarize it real quick. He was down on his knees one day praying to know what church was true. He stood up and the missionaries literally knocked on his door in that instant. So basically this house is full of miracles, because I´m going to relate one that I took part in. We´ve been trying to get his wife to come to church with him, her name is Alice. But she is constantly sick and also has really bad anxiety about leaving the house. She always has the worst headaches and can´t leave her bed some days. We showed up there Thursday night and she was sick in bed and actually we were going to go pray with her, but Elder Barros felt like we should give her a blessing, so we asked her if she believed that Jesus Christ could heal her and make her feel better. She said she had faith. So I did the anointing and Elder Barros did the blessing and that´s when the miracle happened. She told us afterwards that the instant that Elder Barros laid his hands on her head it all went away, and she felt it pass from her head and then to her legs, and just give her strength. He also blessed her to be happy and smile, and there she was just smiling huge and brightly and so happy! You could literally hear the change in her voice. She got up out of bed and started to walk around! She had Desiderio fix her a plate of food and she said I can´t eat that much. She ate it all! It was truly a miracle to see her healed, in that very instant. The Power of the Priesthood is very real, and when you worthily use the Authority you have been given, anything is possible, so amazing. So happy and so blessed! Anyway, love you all! Elder Wyatt

She cleaned her house and made something sweet not knowing why. (11-16-15)

This week has been the greatest yet! Literally, miracles happened this week. So, I told you last week that it rained a ton, well this week it was exactly the opposite, and I dont know if you had a chance to check the weather mom, but it was extremely hot, but I have no idea how hot because it was in Celsius.... but you probably could fill buckets with the sweat that I sweat. Anyway...we also continued to knock doors at the beginning of the week, so we were outside a lot, not really teaching, but Wednesday it all changed. We had a Zone Meeting on Wednesday, and I got to see Elder Sant again, and we also have an Elder Seaman from Philidelphia, anyway, I split with Elder Klinsman in my area and Elder Barros went to Santana. We had a miraculous day, first a youth minister stopped us and really just asked us what we get out of serving a mission, and I shared Alma 29:9 with him (really great verse) next we made some good contacts and met some great people. But we found one lady, 60 years old, never once talked with mormons before, and she suffered from breast cancer earlier in her life. She was buddihst and converted after 17 years and was baptised into the Methodist church. But she has always felt this longing for more. She woke up Wednesday and she just knew something was going to be different. She said she cleaned her house, not knowing why, and then made some sweet pumpkin stuff still not knowing why. Then we knocked on her door. She was so touched, we shared the Restoration and told her to pay attention to how she felt while we explained about Joseph Smith. She could feel the spirit prompting her that what we said is true as she listened. She promised to read the book of Mormon and pray about it, and after reading Moroni 10 when we returned she says she feels that God was speaking this directly to her. She is really a miracle like I said, just amazing. But she´s not the only one, We have found so many people, and after what has felt like so long, we are finally finding real investigators that are interested in hearing our message, and are willing to make changes, and they are truly growing. It´s so amazing to watch this. We found 3 others, and I won´t like they are the rough, almost hippie looking type of people. One has these huge dreadlocks. But this teaches you why you don´t judge, they are super interested, and really understand the need for authority, the thing is almost everyone we teach, they all see and understand that everything we are saying, it all makes sense. The only problem is that they won´t pray and ask, and really it´s a humility issue. Another family we found, not married honestly, both about 50 years old, and the wife can´t read, and the husband barely, but we invited him to pray and ask if Joseph Smith was called as a Prophet of God, and he did recieve his answer. He lives in a tiny house, but honestly, in the moment, he recieved a truth that is greater than all the knowlegde that so many people on this Earth cherish and pridefully flaunt. It´s truly amazing to be apart of this work. So about the brownies, I actually didn´t make it to class on Wednesday, we got stuck in a lesson with another awesome family we found, Leticia and Ben-Hur(yes, his name is literally Ben-Hur, how cool is that!) He´s a fireman here and he also race's bicycles. They have a 1 year old son named Arthur, such a great family, and they are super interrested and had a ton of questions. So I missed English class, which is actually really improving! btw mom, I haven´t recieved your package, but I´ll probably get it when President Brum comes for stake conference at the end of the month. I´m doing fine btw, I did get slightly homesick, but honestly, I´m way to busy to get homesick hahaha. No, I do not like Reese´s puffs, and I found reeses here actually! also found a backery really close to our house, pão de queijo(cheese bread), sonhos (literally: dreams and they are just that) all kinds of great breads here. And our Christmas Conference will be in Rio Preto north of Araçatuba and I´ll travel there in the morning, and then that night travel back late. It´s like 4 hours on the bus one way. I´ll be able to skype at President Galvez house, a member of the Stake Presidency here. Can´t wait to talk to CR and everyone! Love you all, Elder Wyatt

We are always looked after (11-9-15)

Hey eveyone, it´s been another great week, it really has! mom, btw on questions, if you have specific questions you want answered specify them by listing them, it´s just difficult sometimes to see them in the paragraph and it would be easier if you did that, but sorry, I´ll try and do better about answering questions more! So ya, we only have about 50 people, but all of the organizations are present there and everything runs fine. lot´s of old people though, but still some families. The church is older here than most other parts of Brazil, in general anywhere in the South, than it is in the North of Brazil. But once again, there´s a million different churches here, and the Catholic Church isn´t all that prevelant here. Still plenty of catholics but not as many as in other parts. They have a million evangelical churches and they all teach different things... Except they all love to read Psalms, we contact people and they like to show us what they´ve been studying, and it´s always Psalms, really pretty hilarious. I mean Psalms is great and all! but you can ask them about Christ or an Apostle and they don´t know the doctrine, but ask them to quote some random Psalm verse, and they´ve got that baby down. A few things about the weather, it´s been rather great! Lot´s of rain, for a while there everyday, so it´s been in general quite a bit cooler! It has been pretty hot when it´s not raining. The only thing is that you have to be careful if you washed any clothes and hung them to dry. I´ve also got pretty soaked a few times now! Araçatuba is pretty dry for Brazil, but when it does rain it rains hard. Also they have a lot of lightning here and irmão Bento told me that Americans come here to study the lightning here in this region actually, so interesting. But honestly, now, I wish I hadn´t bought a rain jacket, because it doesn´t just rain all day, and I don´t want to carry it all day, and if you get wet then so be it. Also, the people here gave us towels one time, and another person gave us an umbrella, so we´re always looked after. My English class is going well, I´m ready for the books to get here, I think that my lessons will be a little more focused, right now it´s just whatever I can think of. I taught different buildings last time, like courthouse or library, and then taught the phrase, "I am going to the...." (Eu estou indo pelo) and then the new words they learned. I have different people, not to many though attending yet. The Stake President's wife attends though, and so far she has brought us carrot cake (not like in America, it´s literally made from carrots and they also have corn cake, which is just like a sweet cornbread), chocolate cake, and she´s bringing brownies this week! She´s really cool, and has actually been to America several times! The stake president is also a convert of 8 years btw, pretty amazing. But, actually I attended the English class of Elder Smedley, the other American, they have a really well established class that the Branch President there runs. They are having a Thanksgiving Dinner on the 26th! We are invited and I´m pretty excited that I´ll be getting thanksgiving with all the fixin´s! Something really cool happened with an investgator! She says she won´t change her church, but I don´t believe her. Anyway, she basically testified of us and who we are. She talked about how she feels different around us, and that she can feel the peace and comfort when we´re around. She really believes that her family gets along better now, and they started having family prayer together. She said that since we arrived heavenly father has been answering her prayers, giving her money when she didn´t think she´d be able to pay the bills, comfort to family members, and more understanding in her church. Now she just needs to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it! And, she said she would, and I believe her, and that she´ll do it with the real intent! Really she´s such a wonderful person, the whole family is! I´m excited to see where she goes, but they only moved here 4 months ago from São Paulo, a young mother married with 4 kids. She´s nearly died twice in her life and miraculously was healed, she obviously needs this! really amazing, I´m so excited to see where she goes! So anyway, it´s been a great week, though we ended up knocking a ton of doors, sometimes that´s what you´ve got to do! All the time actually.... haha, and I actually thought about some Christmas suggestions during this week, so added to what i said last week, I would love cereal also! That´s one thing I miss! Anwyay, just some suggestions, choose what you will, thanks! Love you all so much! Elder Wyatt

Q & A with Aunt Marcy (11-2-15)

Hey Aunt Marcy, sorry I wasn´t able to reply last week but I didn´t really have time, so sorry! but I´m answering now, oh and first, thank you for sharing the scripture, I have used it in 2 different instances with a member and with an investigator, so thank you so much! 1. What is a valuable lesson you learned from your companion this week? 2. What was the best thing you ate this week? 3. What was the strangest thing you ate this week? 4. Who spoke in church and what were the topics? 5. What could you use for Christmas this year? Wants and needs. 6. Tell us about a time this week when you were feeling humbled. 1. How to use the first picture in the gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet to teach people to pray. 2. A cake that a member made for a ward party, it had a pineapple creme in the middle and figs. So good! 3. pig fat 4. it was fast sunday, and really good. though quick story, a woman started nursing her child in sunday school and I remembered what Uncle Richard had told me. 5. Wants are just peanut butter or jerkey, or maybe something sweet, really I can´t think of anything I need at the moment, but I would really mostly just love a letter with some nice thoughts. 6. One thing I´ve really tried to work on this past week has been my love and charity for the people, so one thing I´m doing was a suggestion to me, to look at each person and say they are better than me in a least one thing. So, I find what it is and as long as I focus on that it´s easier to not be judgemental. I have found that I am lacking in many things after talking to so many people this week... But you also find out things that you can honestly do better in your life.

One thing here the members do not lack is A Testimony of the Truth! (11-2-15)

Hey mom, so one quick thing, you´re not allowed to ask for people at home to fast for your investigators, but since I didn´t actually ask.....by all means, thank you to everyone who fasted and prayed for him, and he is really progressing forwards! We also have a family commited to baptism now, but honestly they lack real intent, they have the faith, they know that what we teach is trully, they just really need to put it to action, so we are working with them right now. This week in general was pretty difficult, but we persevered through and the end of the week was better than the first. Tuesday we had a completely full day with totally pre-planned lessons with people we´d talked to and progressing investigators, and not a single one happened, so like a said difficult, but we had more lessons at the end of the week, and we met our goal in contacts for the week, that was exciting! This was the first week of the new transfer since this transfer is 7 weeks, and we´re excited for another week! We had a ward party to celebrate the birthdays of everyone for the month of October, and we had 3 less active members there at the activity, so that was really exciting for us and the ward. Honestly the ward has not been very missionary minded, but things are really changing for the better, they are trying to focus more on helping us, and then planning more activities which we hope will help retain and reactivate members of the church here. Also, Irmão Bento, 1st counseler in the bishopric honestly bore one of the most powerful and heartfelt testimonies I have ever heard. He talked about how the church is true, and what it means to him, but more importantly, how much it can mean to others. He talked about how he would go out with us, and then crying (btw, he´s the tallest and biggest brazilian I´ve met so far) talked about how he just wanted to plead with them to please bring your family to church, because it´s true, and you can feel the spirit, and really, the only way to salvation is through The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Haha, not going to lie, I was in tears also, but it´s because I´m involved in this work and I know what he´s saying, I feel that way too! So strongly, and I really do know it´s true. Our ward mission leader talks alot about the spirit, and I´ll be honest, the church lacks a lot in Brazil, like leadership, running the church correctly, and they are far from perfect. But this ward mission leader Felippe is his name, knows more about feeling the spirit, and teaching and using the spirit than any person I think I have ever met. if there is one thing the members here don´t lack, it´s a testimony of the truth, and a strong one. it´s a testimony builder for me. Well, love you all so much and I will be continueing to do my best everyday, just in case you were worried. But all is really great for me. Thanks for sending out the package! The ZL´s go to Ribeirão Preto the first of every month, so if I should probably get it the first of December but we also have presdent Brum coming here for Stake Conference at the end of the month, so could be then. Anything sent out during december I will get 1st of Janurary. But As i said early to Aunt Marcy, food is always appreciated, but I would honestly just love a card from anyone too! Maybe a tie, never would say no. Anyway, all is great! Let me know if i can do anything here to help! Love you all! Elder Wyatt