Beira Rio, Brazil Week 18

Hey! This week was really great. It´s crazy how the weeks seem to be going by so fast. This week started out great with a Family Home Evening at the house of our Ward Mission Leader. He and his family are fairly new in the ward and they are awesome! We brought Michael and Lidiane (the couple we have been teaching that got married last week). The other two missionaries in our ward brought a couple that was recently baptized. It was awesome! We watched two videos, one about the story of the Ugly Duckling based off of a talk by President Uchtdorf and another video about the Temple. It was so great to be with a strong family in the church so that these two young couples could see how the gospel of Jesus Christ truly blesses families and what they can do to have that same happiness in their families.

We had another Family Home Evening the next day with a long time member in our ward, Liliane. She invited her daughter, Ana Paula, who is not a member of the church. We watched the DVD of the Restoration. It was so great and I am hopeful that Ana Paula and her family will visit the church sometime soon.

After our weekly meeting with our Zone, I did a companion exchange with a missionary in our zone, Elder Leite, from São Paulo. I went and stayed in his area for a day. It was great and I learned a lot from him. We were able to spend the entire day teaching with two members of the church. His area is super big so it was a lot of walking and even taking the bus but it was great!

I did another companion exchange on Friday with Elder Dias, from Cape Verde. We were able to teach a few people but then we had to take the bus to another part of our Zone because I had to interview a few people for baptism, which is also an awesome experience. This week 9 people were baptized in our Zone so Elder Bini and I were busy doing a lot of interviews, and it is so awesome to interview a person who is truly prepared for baptism and to feel so strongly of the spirit and the desire they have to follow Christ. We really have some great missionaries in our Zone and the Lord is truly preparing many people. I was able to interview a man who had been coming to our English Class every week and the Sisters started to visit him and teach him and his wife. They were both baptized yesterday! It was awesome to hear how our simple English Class gave him the opportunity to get to know the church and the missionaries and now he is baptized!

I am super excited for General Conference this weekend! I hope all of you are able to watch it this week. It is such a blessing in our lives!!

Anyway, things are really continuing to go great here in our area and zone. I really like the zone and the missionaries we have here. Next week we have missionary transfers so who knows what will happen. But until then, we just keep working hard and trusting in the Lord. I hope you all have a great week!

Until next week.

Love,

Elder Helvey

Family Home Evening with the family of our new Ward Mission Leader and with Michael and Lidiane.

 Pizza night on the companion exchange with Elder Leite. It´s a tradition!

I met while I was spending the day in another area! His name is John and he is from New Hampshire. He is studying abroad here for a few months. He is here with a group of like 8 students.