We had 4 confirmations and an incredible miracle this week! You guys remember Lui? He is the son of a less-active that we have been teaching. He had gone to church with us a few times and liked it, but wasn’t ready to make the commitment for baptism. He was having the influence of different friends to attend different churches and thought he might fit in better in a different church. He didn’t know that we were trying to help him enter into the only true church of Christ. He just thought it was another church. We had really been encouraging him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon, but he was just never really doing it. Every time we went back, he hadn’t read or prayed.

On Tuesday night we went over to his house to give him, what we thought would be, a last lesson. We conversed for a few minutes and then asked to say a prayer to start the lesson. Right after the prayer, we asked him if this time he had read and prayed. He told us that he finally did and that he wanted to be baptized! We made plans for him to be baptized ‪on Saturday morning and be confirmed on Sunday. Afterwards, we were super happy as we were heading back home and to celebrate we bought a pizza! haha

Our temple trip was awesome on Wednesday. It was good to see a lot of old friends and see how everyone is.

This week we will be working with a lady named Neide. We are helping her quit smoking to be baptized. She loves the church and will need all the help she can get this next week to be baptized. Please keep her in your prayers as well!

Thanks for everything!:)

Love, Elder Olsen and Elder Grover

Elder Grover

My new area is nice because it has a richer area, but also a more humble area which is better to work at. The church building is also very nice; it´s one of the nicest ones I´ve worked at!

We are teaching a mother and daughter who were brought to church by a less active who is returning. We will baptize them this next week!  Samuel wasn´t confirmed yet because we had stake conference yesterday! He was there, though, to watch. He will be confirmed next week along with Pierre, the man we baptized yesterday! He is Haitian. He has like 3 months in Brazil. We got ahold of French and Creole Books of Mormon and pamphlets to teach him! He is the cousin of a less active who is returning to church as well. Another Haitian member baptized him and said the ordinance in French. It was cool!

Thanks for everything!

Love, Elder Olsen

Samuel was baptized on Sunday after church and it went awesome! His girlfriend came to watch as well and she loved it. Samuel was so awesome and really accepted the gospel in his life.

After lunch on Saturday, the member that gave us lunch told us about a less active that lived in the same apartment complex. We went to go visit him and found him home with his whole family. His name is Marcio. He is married and they have two kids. Loui is their oldest and is 17 years. He is a great kid and really trying to look for God in his life. We had a lesson with them and Loui accepted a baptismal date for this Sunday! It was awesome! Yesterday, he went to church and enjoyed it. We also had a few other investigators to church as well who are progressing towards baptism soon.

We had a surprise yesterday when a less-active showed up at church after a long time away and even brought a friend! His name is Samon and he is from Haiti. He has been here in Brazil for about a year now and was baptized here in Brazil. He also brought his roommate, Pierre, to church. Pierre has only been in Brazil a month and knows very little Portuguese. But he enjoyed church and we have a lesson with him tonight. We are going to watch the Restoration in French so he can understand everything. It should be an awesome lesson tonight!

Last week we celebrated my birthday with a cake and a bar-b-que!

Love,

Elder Olsen and Elder Grover

I couldn´t e-mail yesterday; the power cut out in the entire city before I had the chance! I am in a new area, now.  My new companion is Elder Grover from Utah!

My convert from my first area came to sacrament meeting on Sunday. We also helped reactivate a young man that I became good friends with last year. He went to church the two Sundays that I was there after not going for more than a year. We helped him set up an appointment with the Bishop and he is now making goals to go on a mission!

We also threw a surprise party for him on Saturday night. His birthday was on Sunday, the same birthday as me! We used the party decorations that you sent me for the party:) After singing Happy Birthday to him, another missionary spilled the secret that it was also my birthday; so they all sang to me too haha!  I´ll send some pictures next week.

Tell everyone that I am thankful for the birthday wishes and I will respond next week, I have to go work now!

Thanks for everything!

Love,

Elder Olsen