Baptisms!

Wahoo! So we finally pulled off these baptisms! Weve been working so hard on getting them baptised but the adversary was working so hard to stop it too! It all worked out in the end. The baptism wasnt that great, there wernt many members there but thats something normal here in the area :)

So this week we had some really fun times and good sucess. Weve been working hard on inviting the sprit in our work. Its worked out really good. There were one or two times where I got frustrated but we decided to pray and do service projects during that time and its so amazing how quickly your attitude changes when you help others. Its really a great thing!

We were able to find a lot of new families to teach. Its never a problem to find people to teach here. Wednesday we gave the zone training that was about the spirit and it was really good. The zone is improving alot and having some good sucess. The President was there to have interviews. I had a really good talk with him about the mission and stuff. I really love the president because he helps me to be a better person. he is really humble and close to the spirit.

On Sunday Elder Miller and I gave talks at church. I loved the experience. Elder Miller talked about Jonas and Enoque and shared the differences in their lives and how we need to be more like Enoque. I talked about John 6:60 where the deciples left christ. I talked about the things we need to do so that we dont leave Christ too but always follow his example. It was a really good meeting.

The young women invited three friends to church. They were all young men. I was able to teach the class for the priesthood and it was really fun! We talked about the Plan of Salvation. They loved the class and said that they will come back every week cause they liked it so much haha.

I hope that we continue to have a great week. Love you all and pray for you daily!

Love,

Elder Horst

Elder Staples, Elder Lazarte, Elder Horst, and Elder Ritz were all together at the Missionary Training Center in Sao Paulo.  Now they are all Zone Leaders, and going home in 8 weeks.

A Good Week

Well our baptisms fell through this week because they didnt show up for their interview, but im confidente that we will be able to get everything taken care of this week so that they can be baptised next week. THis week was really hot and tiring because of the weather but we tried working really hard. Nobody really wants to talk to us right now but we are thinking of creative ways to help people out and get them to church.

The power went out a few times this week and its been super super hot! But we get through it well. I have a medical condition that makes me sweat at the knees. haha. Its kinda embarrasing to walk into peoples houses with sweaty knees but i just have to live with it i guess haha. On Tuesday we had Leadership training and it went really well. We learned about how to feel the spirit in our lives and how the spirit will help us in our teaching as well. I liked it alot and will try to work on getting better at that next week. We will be giving the zone training next week and will have to pass the same information for them.

To make the week worse, there were only about 15 people at church. When I arrived here in the área, there were about 30. It was raised to about 45 and even had 80 at Ward confrence. now its back down to 15 and im kinda upset about that. But im sure it will get better soon.

Well to leave this letter with a high note, we will be playing Football this P-day! Wahoo! Thanks for all your love and support.

Elder Horst

Febuary of Baptisms

Well this week starts our febuary of baptisms! My companion and I are really excited for all the work thats about to come. For sure we have lots of Faith and desire to do Gods will and we know that he will help us in our work.

Sunday was a marvelous day for us. Marcio is our recente convert with 29 years. He is really cool, fun, and loves the church! When he arrived on sunday he started giving everyone hugs. He showed them his new scripture case that he was so proud of. I love him so much and think he is going to play a big role in bringing more love to our broken Ward. I invited him to bear his testimony with me in sacrament meeting. I was expecting him to repeat my words like he does in our prayers. I told him to say hello. He than started giving a whole talk about how much he loves the church. How he is new in the Ward, how is Family is really nice, and it was so touching! At the end he said, I know the church is true!!! Amen. I really loved it. I was next to talk and i got really emotional hahah. I told him that márcio really had the spirit of christ in his life and we all needed to be a little bit more like him. I love Marcio!

After lunch President called us and told us to come to the mission home to have a meeting with Elder Torgan from the 70. It was a rush to get there on time, Elder Torgan gave a wonderful talk that I loved and it helped me alot to be a better missionary. it was an answer to my companions and my prayers because we now have a better vision of how to complete our goals. 

Well i wish i could write more but it looks like time has passed a little faster than expected!

Love ya,

Elder Horst

Elder Horst and Elder Miller at Marcio's baptism, 4 weeks ago.

Good start to the best transfer ever!!!

Haha, well my companion and I are just completly pumped for this new transfer. We were really happy to know that we were staying together but we knew that we needed to change a few things. This week, we set some AWESOME goals and worked on trying to be better people. Were working more with members and recente converts and I can tell that there is a diferente spirit in the air. We are more happy, the house is more comforting at night, and the zone can feel the diference too and want to have the same feelings. Looks like were gonna have alot of success.

Tuesday was our first district meeting. We had a fun time together getting to know the new people in the zone. Were working really hard on a reverent unity between them so that they can rely on eachother and work harder. I really like some of the new missionaries that we have. On Wednesday, the assistentes needed our help to do a baptism interview. I was able to go to their área and work with Elder Lazarte, my companion from the CTM. It was fun... I dont like working in his área because its in the middle of the central of town. It was really annoying to have to chace people and talk to alot of people that didnt want time for us. I missed Restinga alot!! haha.

The baptsim interview was beautiful! The woman that got baptised was so ready to make a commitment with God and wouldnt let anything get in her way. She got married to a good Strong memeber too which is good. It makes me happy to see a complete Family enter into the Church of Christ. Her baptism was on Saturday and I heard it was lovely.

Elder Miller and I have been RUNNING around this área trying to get as much done as possible. We are trying to avoid the houses where we loose time and they never let us leave early. haha. let me tell you about this weather. I CANNOT handle this weather anymore! ITs just killing me. Im talking 110 degrees with 100 percent humidity. Its horrible. you walk into a house looking like you just came out of a swimming pool! It makes me kinda embarrased but everyone else is the same way :) Its also really hard to sleep. The fan blows hot air and a ´´cold´´ shower feels like the heater is on. Its THAT hot. Than Friday I think a storm came in. It was the best thing ever. We just opened all the Windows and turned on the fan. I almost got cold at night. It was the best sleep ive had in weeks! It looks like this week it will go back to hot but it was a good break :)

So next week I will talk about our investigators that we have and their stories and how they are preparing for baptism. We sure have alot on our hands. I just hope that I can do my job as a servent of the Lord and do his vontage. I am so thankful for everything he is doing. I can easily see his hand in my work and that just gives me more desire to work harder and be better. I hope and pray that he blesses you and waches over you as you show your Faith in him.

Love ya!

Elder Horst

I received this message from Michele Soarres on Facebook, about Elder Horst (it's translated from Portuguese)

Oi Sister Cynthia, I am the friend of your son and am writing to say how marvelous of a work that your son is doing in the South. You have a marvelous son and nobody has ever passed here that pays as much attention as he does to the work. He really has the purê love of christ and I am greatful taht he is still here with us. We want him to stay til april because I want him to be at my sealing. We also take care of him good becase he is gone from home for 2 years and its a big sacrifice but we are here to help. Thanks. Kiss.

Yes, yes, i love this kid and its amazing how much he loves children. I do visits with him once a month and he is Always playing with them. he has a gift to talk about the gospel that i have never seen before he isnt lazy. He remembers the music that you guys Always sang together (Lucky-Jason Mraz). Its cute and almost made me cry. My house is like a refuge for the missionaries.

The letters on his name tag had worn off, so he was able to get 2 new ones.

Transfer Day

Well Transfers were today! Seems like ive been doing something right here because ill be staying one more! I thought that I would be leaving so that I could get a full to transfers in another área but now who knows what will happen in the future!! I really like it here but I have to have alot of pacience with the members. They are really hard and annoying and sometimes they make a bad impression on our investigators but its okay:)

I am felling the presure to work really hard this transfer. I have had so much sucess here and I just cant imagine leaving the área without even more sucess. I am hoping to rely more on the Lord and his work. I know without a doubt that the lord has people ready for me to teach each day but I just need to find them! Ive learned a few more techniques to fell the spirit more and listen to its promptings.I am excited to apply it all.

On an even better note, every área in our zone changed missionaries so we are gonna start FRESH! We have new district leaders, new trainers, new missionaries, and were ready to work! My companion and I will work hard to motivate and help them in every way possible. We are planning to do lots of divisions and stuff. I am REALLY Excited for this transfer.

Last week was cool. We did a helping hands servisse Project at an elementary school and painted it all. I really enjoyed it because it was a change of pace and we got a lot of time to hang out and talk to other missionaries. We were able to confirm Marcio and Yasmin yesterday at church and on top of that we had 10 investigators at church! THat was a big deal. Almost all of our investigators are half memeber familes which makes it really so much easier to teach and invite. Our investigators have alot of support from other members.

Elder Miller is about as cool as ever. I like him alot. my only complaint is that we talk way too much english in the house but other than that I am really happy and like him alot. He motivates me to work hard and is a good at inviting the spirit and testifying. We are gonna be amazing compainons this transfer.

So to end the note on a spiritual side, I gave a blessing to our investigator who is loosing her vision. The blessing was really powerful and I had the strongest feeling that she would get better. I also blessed her that she could have strength to get baptised and i know that she will be baptised soon :) I hope you all are working hard to see the spiritual experiences in your life. Never forget to pray and ask God for opportunites to help someone else.

Love,

Elder Horst

My Christmas package finally arrived, and I made these cookies for Adriana's family.

3 Weeks of Baptisms!

Well we were able to pull it off! Elder Miller and I were able to accomplish our goal of baptising three weeks in a row. We also had a goal to baptise 9. We didnt get that accomplished but we baptised 5 which was higher than the standard of the transfer. Unfortunitally we dont have a baptism for this week, but we will work hard to have another one soon!

This week was not too crazy. My companion and I gave the training for the zone. We talked a little about the work than got to talk and study about how to be truly converted to the Lord. It was an excelent discussion. I was able to learn alot of the Principles of Conversion and realized its alot harder to achive than people think. True conversion leads to Exaltation and thats no easy thing to get. Its actually fairly simple to recieve a testimony but a testimony and salvation wont get you very long. So I now know that to be fully converted I have to keep all the commandments so that I dont even have a desire to do bad! Im getting there...

My companion and I worked really hard trying to find new people to teach. We didnt have any investigators at church ( first time in months) which wasnt that good but its nothing that we cant improve. We are going to work even harder with Less active families and try to find some that we can teach and baptise.

This is the last week of the transfer. I have no idea if I will get transfered or not but it doesnt really matter either way. Im just happy to be here working! I was happy to recieve my package this week. It came really late, but better late than never! I think ive already eaten the majority of the candy inside haha.

Today for P-Day Elder Ritz, Marshal, Beary, MAchado, miller and I played football. It was really fun to play. It rained a bit and we got really dirty but we didnt mind. It was fun to just relax and play the best sport ever! haha. After that we went to McDonalds and just feasted. Its way more expensive here but we decided to spurge ahah!

Well Thanks for all your love and support. I hope everyone is doing great and being happy. Ill be sure to send photos next week!

Love,

Elder Horst

time to get a haircut....

The Stake President at Adriana's baptism. Elder Horst and Elder Miller attended her marriage ceremony last Monday.

Elder Miller, Adriana and Elder Horst :)

Adriana and President and Sister Castro :)

Football on P Day.

McDonald's, Brazilian style!

My Christmas parcel arrived :)

Happy New Year!

This week was really good. We are having lots of sucesso here but we are really hungry for more. This sunday we were able to have two more baptisms. Marcio is a 29 year old man with Down Syndrom. He lives with his sister because both his parents have died. All of his nephews are baptised and when I asked him if he wanted to be baptised, he was really happy! Hes been going to church all by himself for the last few weeks and is always the first one there!! He is such a special person and it was such a pleasure to help him get baptised. My companion baptised him.

Yasmin is the daughter of some investigators that we have. Her brother is already baptised and she wanted to follow his example. We taught her the lessons and were surprised to find out how much she understood! Her parents arnt baptised because they are not married and he needs to get divorced to his first wife. But they go to church every week and want to get baptised!

These baptisms sunday were alot different from the usualy. My companion noted that both of these people getting baptised were cleaner than us! The ones baptising them. A boy with down sindrom and an 8 year old girl can be some of the most clean people in the world. With this in mind, baptism is still essential in order to help people return to the fold of god one day. I was honored to be part of it.

Today we will go to the wedding of our good friend Adriana. She will be baptised on Saturday. We are so excited because she has been waiting so long for this and has been working so hard! She cant wait to get baptised. Right from the start she stopped drinking, smoking, and coffee and she has never returned, she always goes to church. She already has a talk ready to give after she is baptised. She is a perfect member of the church! Im really happy that she will finally be baptised. She asked me to baptise her. Yesterday, we gave her a priesthood blessing so that she could feel better and not get so tempted the last week before her baptism. She doesnt have good friends and they try to always get her to break some commandments that brought her down, but she didnt give in. She will be great!

In the upcoming weeks we have a few people that we hope to baptise. It looks like the field is really white and that nothing can stop the Kingdom of God from growing and getting stronger.

Love you all,

Elder Horst