Hey!! Pretty good week for us. It was a bit harder to do stuff in the office during the first part of the week because President had interviews with the missionaries, so a bunch of missionaries from the areas here in Ribeirão Preto and close cities were here. Fun to see everyone, but it makes it a bit harder to get stuff done!
This week we had a super cool experience. On Saturday the Sister's had a baptism, and before we stopped by our investigator Leila's house to pick her up. But, we found out that her husband, Luciano, had gone out onto the street and started to argue with some neighbors, then grabbed Leila's phone and the keys to the house and just walked away super mad. Their daughter Letícia got really scared and went to a friends house to spend the night with her. So Leila explained that she really wanted to go the baptism but couldn't leave the house unlocked with nobody there because of security reasons. It was sad for us, but we just told her that we'd pass by her house to get her for church the next day. So on Sunday morning we got to her house again and went to church with her. This year the ward is starting with Quorum and Relief Society, so we left her with the other women and went to quorum. As the first block was ending, we saw the Sisters motioning for us to come in the door, so we went out to talk to them. They said that Leila got up and said she was going to get a drink, and never came back! We couldn't believe it! Until then, I'd never had an investigator leave in the middle of church without telling us... So, we went to her house to find her. We kept clapping at her door, but she nobody was coming. Then a neighbor passed by her house and threw a bag of recyclables over the wall (her and her family sell them to earn a little extra money). We waited for a few more minutes, and then we heard some rustling, I looked through the crack in her wall and saw her getting the stuff the neighbor threw over. So then we knocked and she had to answer!
She told us that she had gotten a call from Letícia's friend's mom that she was going to drop Letícia off at their house in between 9:30 and 10:00, but she couldn't drop her off at the church because she was "embarrassed". So we decided that we'd wait with her until her daughter got back, and while we were we'd review the Restoration with her. We asked her if she'd prayed about Joseph Smith since the first time we taught the lesson, and she said that until then she hadn't. I started to say "Tonight will you pray to receive..." then I immediately remembered something that President told us; "Why don't we invite people to pray then and there? Lots of times we say that it's the investigators that don't have faith, but it's actually you guys that need to have more faith!" and I knew that I needed to invite her to pray right then. So I asked her if she believed if God could give her an answer if she asked, and she said yes. So we invited her to pray for us. We knelt down and she said in her prayer "God, I want to know, with a sincere heart, if the things the Elders have taught me are true, and if you called Joseph Smith to be prophet. I believe that I can get an answer to these things". Wow! I'd never heard someone pray that specifically to get an answer! As she was praying, I was also praying that she'd get an answer that she could recognize. Elder Dantas and I put our trust in the Lord and we needed Him to do His part! And, he did. At the end of the prayer I started to feel the Spirit, and Leila did too. We sat in silence after the prayer for about 15 seconds, and we told her to look at the image in the pamphlet of the First Vision. Then we asked her what she was feeling. After a little pause, she said "peace". We explained that peace is one of the fruits of the Spirit, and if what we taught wasn't true God wouldn't be giving her the feeling that she had. She started to cry as we continued to talk. It was a real miracle that happened right in front of us. It was a great experience that I'll never forget, and an important lesson that when we really put our trust in God He will always do His part. What's interesting though is leading up to that point, it seemed as if everything that could've gone wrong did. And when I was inviting her to pray, I felt something that I've never felt before... I felt that Satan was actually mad at us. I can't explain it very well, but it was like a heavy feeling was in the room in the moments leading up to her prayer. Super weird, but I'm super grateful for the Lord's help and that I got to be a part of this great experience! We actually went back to church without Leila because Letícia still hasn't gotten back, but it was all worth it!
Well, I hope you have an awesome week! Love you!
Elder Odom
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