Apostles in Campinas

Oi!
How are you doing this fine day? Are you tired? If yes, go sleep a bit so you can read with focus! Yet another wonderful week happened in sunny Brazil in the life of Elder Healy. I think I will tell it in reverse. Also, I am half way to the half way point :)

So we were doing a service project yesterday where we were helping in the construction of a member´s roof. We were passing ceramic tile from the ground floor up via a ladder. There was a dog in the next yard over that could see me on the roof over a fence. Everytime it would see me it would run at me barking until he lost vision of me because of the fence. He would lose interest because of lack of sight and then circle back to his original position. Repeat 100 times. Probably the dumbest dog I have ever seen. After we were done, the member´s brother´s lady showed up. After the brother talked to her for a couple seconds he slapped her bottom and just kind of left his hand there. Elder Corbitt and I were dying. We hope she is his wife.

On Sunday, we had the batism of the three investigators I talked about last week. When I was performing the baptism, the boy kind of locked his legs and spazzed out for a second, so I had to re-do the ordinance, but we were all smiles after words. It was the best feeling ever to hear the oldest say that she felt a burden lift from her after the baptism and felt completely cleaned. This is what I amhere for.

On Saturday we had a meeting in Campinas with two of the twelve apostles, Elder Ballard and Elder Anderson. They truly are called of God to direct this church. I felt as if they were specifically speaking to me and helpign me to becoem better. Before the meeting, my best friend Elder Duffy was flipping out because his ex-girlfriend was gettign married that day. I have not told you guys about her, but she wrote about how she loves Elder Duffy and let´s just say he didn´t reciprocate. So she got engaged after datign someone for two months... Got to love that about BYU :)


Last Wednesday, we had a Family Night at a member´s house to try and family friend of their´s help him understand how we can recieve an answer about the truthfullness of the Book of Mormon. He had established a goal with himself that he would read the entire Book of Mormon all the way through before praying to know of it´s truthfullness. I explained to him that when I first wanted to know whether the Book of Mormon was true or not I had much the same idea. I thought that it would be best to know the whole story before asking to know it truly is a book inspired of God. I have come to recognize now that I was doing thing because I was truly afraid of what the response might be, truly afraid of what an answer would mean for me and my life. But I know now that there is no reason to fear the truth, no reason to not follow if our message is true. You do not need to read the whole Book of Mormon to recognize it as the truth. You might just read in 3 Nephi 11 about the visit of Chirst or in 2 Nephi 31 about the path we all must follow or in Ether 12 about faith, but one chapter might just be enough. If you really want to know whether the Book of Mormon is true or not you must do three thing. First, you must read part of it. Second, you must ponder about you have read. Third, you must pray unto God and ask if the Book of Mormon is true. It is that simple. If you do these things with an open heart and mind and with the intent to act upon the answer you recieve, you will recieve. I testify that this is true because this is what I did. I asked God if the Book of Mormon is true and I recieved an answer. I didn´t recieve an answer after reading the first page or after saying one prayer. My answer did not come in the form of an angel or a voice from heaven, but it came. I know the Book of Mormon is true because I wanted to know and I continued until I recieved a response. My response was a feeling of love, of warmth, of serenity washing over my body and bringing me unexplainable joy. Even writing this now I feel the Spirit more strongly. I am no different than you. God is our father and he loves you as much as he loves me and he will respond. You just need to ask. There are dozens of you reading this right now who may never have picked up a Book of Mormon, who are only reading this because I am your friend or because you know someone in my family. But just because you have never been a part of religion, just because you have never prayed, does not mean you can´t, does not mean god does not want to hear from you. My invitation for you is this. I invite you to read, ponder, and pray about the Book of Mormon for no one else but yourself. And I promise that if you do this you will recieve an answer. I only ask that you do so that you can have all the blessings in your life that I have in mine.

Your friend,
Elder Healy