Baptisms!

Well this week was realy awesome! Elder Del Pino and I have worked way hard to have sucess here and the sucess is coming at us really fast. We were able to have a few baptisms and we confirmed one more for the 12th. I am really happy with the work and I love working with my companion Elder Del Pino.

This week was kinda crazy because we spent a few days in other areas trying to help the other companionships in the zone. Our goal for the month of October is to have 14 baptisms and for that to happen we all need to work really hard together. our zone has 5 companionships of Elders and 2 of Sisters. The sisters work really hard in our zone and they kinda put their district leader to shame because the sisters outwork him haha.

This week alot of miracles happened. My companion and I were really diligent in our work and it really paid of. We were able to find alot of less active families that need to be baptised and also we were able to meet some new families to teach.

On Sunday we were able to baptise Rosilanie and her daughter. They are really special people and I am really happy that they chose to get baptised. Now we are working on baptising Rosis mother. She really likes the lessons that we are teaching. We have an investigator named Adriana. Adriana has been investigating the church ever since January and finally she is ready for baptism. She was having a few problems with the Law of Chastity and she wasnt reading the book of mormon or going to church but now she is doing great! She has a huge desire to be baptised and we marked the baptism for the 12th.

I am really exicted to watch confrence this year. With all the changes that have been hapening in the church as of late, im sure the prophet and apostles will have something new to say to us. Its such a blessing that we have a prophet who recieves revelation for us and who can lead and guide us. i hope that Everyone pays close atention to the message that he gives.

Today I passed by the mission home and was able to talk to our new assistent Elder Cox. He shared some important information with me that the family I was teaching in Bage was baptised on Saturday! What a marvelous blessing! Ricardo and Carla. I remember being inspired to talk to Carla one day while walking past her house. i said hi to her and continued walking. I felt the spirit so strongly that I needed to go back and I did. We marked another visit. I was able to help teach her and her family and I remember the first time that she went to church. This is such a special family for me.

Also I heard that Marcia is doing great. I was able to baptise her when i was in Bage. She has just finished reading the Book of Mormon, D&C, and Perl of Great Price. How cool is that?? Im sure that marcia will be a missionary when she gets a little older. Its nice to know that I made a difference in the lives of a few people.

This next month seems like it will pass by so quickly. We have tons of meetings schedualed including zone confrence, temple trip, leadership meeting, general confrence, baptims (obviously) and much much more!! Every day we have 2-3 really important meetings and we seem to be running from house to house all the time. Things are great here!

Love ya!

Elder Horst

Rosi, Milena and the Bishop

Elder Horst, Rosi, Milena and Elder Del Pino

This is me studying, but every time I hear a noise, I'm at the window to see what's going on, LOL!

District Friend Day (where we work in other areas in our district)

Elder Triffit, Elder Horst, Elder Berry and Elder Oliveira

We met together to take a break from knocking on doors.

Elder Triffit, Elder Hyitt, Elder Horst and Elder Del Pino

Preach My Gospel, pretty cool, huh?

Area Nilo Woulf is awesome!

Well the first week of the transfer seemed to pass by so quickly! My companion and I have been working so hard to get as much done as possible! Our zone is really awesome and we have some great missionaries working here. My companiona and i have a feeling that there will be lots of baptisms in the zone this transfer.

This week was Stake Conference and the stake center is really long from are area so it was kinda hard for us to bring investigators but we had two people there. the meeting was really good and spiritual. It also ended 10 minutes early... something that I have never seen at stake confrence before!!!

We have two people that will be baptised this sunday. Rosi and her daughter. They are really special people. They were already living all the commandments so it was really easy to teach them about the true church. We are still working on her husband and Rosis mom. Im sure they will get baptised in the future.

We also have adriana who is our investigator. She is special and really wants to get baptised. She has already stopped smoking, drinking coffe, and drinking acholol and has really changed her life. The problem is that her ex-boyfriend lives in the same house. They arnt together and She said that he needs to find a place by the end of the year. Its hard to baptise her because they live together and thats kinda dangerous. Preisdent Castro will let us know if we can baptise her or have to wait.

Anyways all is well here in the area! Im really excited to work with Elder Del Pino. We are gonna have lots of sucess together. Hope that everything is going well in the house! Have a great week.

Love,

Elder Horst

Suellen made this cute cross stitch for Elder Horst so that he would always remember their family, since he was transferred.

Elder Del Pino

Elder Horst

Elder Horst, making cookies for some lucky person :)

A note in Portuguese, I see that it's for Elder Triffit!

Transfer Day!

Today is transfer day! I will be leaving the área of Agronomia 2 only after 3 short months there! Its sad to leave but im happy and ready for a new experience. My new área is Nilo Wulff. Its really close to my other área. My companion will be Elder Del Pino from Chili. Itll be fun and a diferent experience having a spanyard as a companion haha.

.

Alot of things have been going on this week. Our investigator Daniel has been progressing amazingly! Unfortunitally, his wife will be having to do heart surgery again because of a stem that failed to work. Because of this he wont be able to get baptised on the right date but thats no big deal because I know he has a desire to be baptised and now he has more time to prepare and come closer to God.

 

We were able to pass Sabrinas house this week and it was such a great experience. She was so happy to see us. Her husband was a little more timid, but he warmed up when we started talking about every day things. He is a police officer so we had lots to talk about:) They have a 8 year old daughter that needs to be baptised too! Sabrinas sister is an active member of the church thats thinking of serving a mission. She was there too to help us teach and feel comforable in the house. I think that this Family really has potential. I am excited to hear about them.

 

Sunday was stake confrence. I was SOOOOO Excited for stake confrence because I knew I would be seeing lots of my friends from my old área of São Tomé. It was so amazing. i was able to see so many friends and shake all their hands. A few of them cried and some others wouldnt let go of my hand.. one pet my hair like I was a dog... haha it was a great experience. I was able to sit by my friend Vania. I was able to baptise Vania one year ago on Sunday. It was nice for us to be together on her aniversary of baptism. Its such a good feeling to know that she is still active in the church and wanting to go to the temple. Obviously she has had her rough times and she has even thought about giving up and going to another church but for now she is staying Strong and giving it another chance. Im realy proud of her.

 

Well this is my email for the week. Next week I will have lots of information to share and Picture of my new área and companion. Im really excited for the change but need to go and get my suitcase packed.. again!

 

Elder Horst

Me and my fans

Grazi and Luisa

Precila, Brenda and Julia

Me and Elder Childs who is from Virginia

Me and my companion, Elder Oslo

The gang after Stake Conference

The Hand of God

This week I have really focused on trying to see the hand of God in our work. Our father in heaven is Always with us, watching us, but sometimes we arent tuned into seeing his work. I tried really hard to see his hand in our work and I was able to see some pretty amazing things.

On Thursday the assistentes did a division with us. I was able to stay in the área and visit one of our investigators named Daniel. Daniel is a very cool guy. He is really happy to have us over and really wants to follow the example of Christ. He has a baptism marked for September 21. He has been to church the last two weeks and is reading the book of mórmon and praying for an answer. He is already married (A rarity in Brazil) and has no addiction to smoke, coffee, or alcohol. You could pretty much say that he is a celestial investigator!

There is also our investigator Fatima. Poor Fatima cant see anything good that is happening in her life. She has a daughter with a mental illness that is really hard to take care of. She lives a very poor and simple life. She explained for us that it seems like her life is just getting worse and worse. She doesnt have any light at all in her. But, there is hope! She knows that God lives and loves us and she knows that he sent the missionaries to her house to help her! It is a great privelege to be able to help Fatima. I hope that with the next few weeks of being able to teach her, she will be able to see the light of christ in her life and follow it. I have alot of confidence in her.

Heres another example of how the Hand of God affects my work. Wednesday I was sitting at the bus stop waiting. A lady came up to me and asked me from where i lived! We had a nice talk and at the end I asked for her address to have the missionaries visit someday.. It turned out that the lady lived in our área right next to our house!! It was a miracle! She is a baptised member of the church that hasnt been there in many years and her husband isnt baptised.. maybe we can help them out:) We have an appointment with them tomorrow.

Ive come to learn that whenever you have a hard time, difficulty, or sickness that seems to be bringing you down there are two ways to look at things. You can be sad, or you can be glad! One thing that seems to help me is that when im having a hard time, I work harder to help people with their problems. The more that I help other people, the more I feel my problems go away. Thats how we can be blessed from God.

I know that the Hand of God is Always with us, we just need to be in tune with the spirit to see these things. Our Heavenly Father loves us and Always watches out for us.

with love,

Elder Horst

p.s. Congratulations Benjamin on having your first birthday! I was kinda thinking that you only had 6 months (time passes quickly) so it was kinda a suprise to hear.. but cant wait to meet you in a few more months:) (Rebecca Ill be expecting pictures:)

Elder Ferreira just before he left for the airport to go home.

A good Sunday

This week turned out to be a lot better than the last few weeks that ive had! There was plenty of work to do and a lot of divisions! On tuesday, I was able to do a division with Elder S. Ferreira, Wednesday with Elder Emanuel, Thursday I was supposed to do one with the assistentes but it didnt work out because of a strike that they had in central. Friday we did a division with the President and Ward mission leader. Like I said, it was a busy week but was really fun to work with alot of diferent people.

I feel that this week I have really bonded with some of the members in the Ward. Its Always a nice feeling to know that you are part of the big Ward Family. The members here take care of the missionaries really well. Also this week we had lots of sucess finding new people to teach including an old man that calls me Barac Obama and a few families with potential.

Sunday was a really cool day at church. We had 118 people there which was really awesome! One of our investigators came to church and we were so happy to see him there. He wanted to come because he feels that something is missing in his life. During sacrament meeting there were two baby blessings. The blessing of baby Samuel (My good friend) who was born a month ago, and Kayla, the child of Alan and Debora who were recently baptised a few months ago. Alan also recieved the priesthood! I was really blessed and honored to give Kayla a blessing but they asked me to do it right before the meeting and I have never done or even thought about doing a baby blessing before in my life! Luckly, it was really simple. I was a bit nervous and I think that I said a few things wrong, but I was able to give a really nice blessing and Debroa seemed to like it alot. I was really honored to be able to give a childs blessing to the Family that I love so much!

Alan and Debora are doing great in the church! They have no desire whatsoever to smoke or drink coffee at all. They love going to church and frequently study and read the scriptures to learn more. They are also helping us with the missionary work! Im trying to teach Deboras sister right now and I hope that things go well:)

Ive been studing alot in the book of mórmon and Bible and I have been facinated by all the things ive been learning in the Book of Acts. I wish that I had read the bible earlier in my life because it explains so well how the church got started, its growth, the doctrine, and how the apostacy started.

This upcoming week seems that it will be busy and go by quickly. Tomorrow we have a Zone Leader meeting that will take up the whole day. I Always like going to those meetings because its a good motivation to do better and a good opportunity to share ideas with eachother (and see old friends).

Well thats all I have for this week. Tchau!

Elder Horst

Kayla, the little girl I gave a blessing to. 

Kayla's brother, Hector

The three of us

My sort of messy room

A division with Elder Naronha, who is Assistant to the President

New soccer jerseys

Ha ha!!!

Deborah's sister Santa Catarina, who we are teaching.

I made a tent over my bed and attached the blanket to the wall with BYU duct tape.