Osvaldo Cruz-Week Eight

Hello everyone, 

My apologies that it has been along time since my last message. I encountered some problems with my email account but after lots of testing and phone calls to Salt Lake, everything is fix. Thank you to the mission secretaries that helped me get it fixed.

Lots of events have happened these past couple weeks so I will try to get the highlights. 

Elder J  and I are having many miracles here in Osvaldo Cruz. Before we arrived, the work was really going super slow, but Heavenly Father has been working His purpose for the people here. We have had the blessing of finding many people now that are ready to hear and accept the gospel. I am have been truly humbled to see how Heavenly Father puts us in the right place at the right time. I have been reminded on a daily basis that to listen to the Spirit and follow the impressions we receive.

This past Sunday, I taught for the first time the Gospel Principles class. I was super stressed out and did a lot of preparation to make sure everything would go well because it was my first time teaching the class and in Portuguese in front of lots of people. (I don´t know if I mentioned but I have also already spoken in Sacrament meeting two times now during the mission.) Anyway, I spent a lot of time preparing the lesson, practicing with Elder J , and praying that the Spirit would be there to testify for our investigators. In the hour of the lesson, everything went super well. We talked about Adam and Eve and the important blessing of The Fall. I also shared the video of Elder Uchtdorf about the man who went on a cruise and spent the whole trip in his room. I shared my testimony on how we can take advantage of all the blessing that Heavenly Father has for us in the gospel. Really, the gospel is a feast of blessings and we take advantage when we actively participate in what we know we should do.  We had three investigators in the class and you could tell they felt the Sprit.  I was able to speak Portuguese and they were able to understand me. It was a huge blessing. When I asked Elder J afterwards, how did it go?, he said that it went perfectly. I felt really grateful and humble for the simple answer to my prayers and hard work.

Below are some of the photos of the past couple weeks.

Also story about the cereal is that it was a gift from a member family. They are super awesome and are always thinking about the missionaries. I had cereal several times this past week for breakfast and I can testify that it is really good. 

Love and miss you all. Forgive me as I try to catch up with every one over the next couple weeks.

Elder Pinkney