JUNE 1: MILAGRES EM MILAGRE

You guys this last week was INCREDIBLE! The Lord has blessed us with the opportunity to meet and to warm so many amazing people. Let me introduce you to some of them

The Woman with the greyish hair and pink pants is named Rosa! We found her by contacting, and she ended up being very interested in our message! She's already been to church, an activity, and has pals in the church! She makes us food each time we visit her and is very observational (she saw that I had a whole in my sock when we visited her and bought me a new pair of socks hahaha)

This gentlemen here is Vinicius! The legend in the red shirt, and a recent-convert's boyfriend. He's been to church twice, goes to seminary almost nightly, and has a genuine desire to be apart of the church! There's a high chance he'll be baptized either next week or the week after, which will be an incredible event!

Next up we have Neto, who's the young man on the right. He's amazing, and so genuine! He has a lot of respect and admiration for the missionaries, and wants to be one someday. He's been to church 3 times, and has even bought a friend! He loves the church! There's only thing keeping him from becoming a member is that he's already got compromises at his Evangelical church, but he's looking to get out of them so that he can recieve the blessings of being a member of Christ's church!

And then there's Carlos, he's a talking car! Just kidding, unfortunately I'm still on the search for one of those. But he repairs and reassembled old-fashioned cars in his free time, and has a very friendly family! He invited us over to have dinner with them this week and made a dish called "Frango com Tucupi" and it was way good. He came to church with us this week, and said he liked it a lot! Shout out to Samara, the member in our ward who gave us his contact as a reference #workingwithmembersisthefuture The Lord has been blessing us sooo much. I love it here in Milagre, and I'm so blessed to have stayed one more here with Elder Babcock! Every day's a party with him, there's never a dull moment. I wanted to share a story that I shared during Sacrament Meeting this week, by Bradley Wilcox! Some of you ought to already know it, but it's titled "his grace is sufficient." He talks about how we have overly expect too much from ourselves from time to time, but how we need to be patient with the process and trust in Christ's grace. "Christ's agreement with us is similar to that of a mother who offers music lessons to her son. The mother pays the piano teacher. Because the mother fully pays the debt, she can turn to her son and ask for something. What? Practice! Does the child's practice pay the piano teacher? No. Does the child's practice repay the payment made to the mother? No. Practice is the way the child shows gratitude for the mother's incredible gift. It's how he takes advantage of the wonderful opportunity his mother gives him to live his life at a higher level. The mother's joy is not in being rewarded, but in seeing her gift being used—in seeing her son progress. And so she continues to insist that he practice, practice, and practice. “But, Brother Wilcox, don't you realize how difficult it is to practice? I'm just not very good at the piano. I miss a lot of notes. It takes me forever to get it right.” Hold on. Isn't that part of the learning process? When a young pianist misses a note, we don't say he's not worthy of continuing to practice. We don't expect him to be perfect. We just expect him to keep trying. Perfection may be his ultimate goal, but for now, we can be content with progress in the right direction. Why is this perspective so easy to understand in the context of learning piano, but so difficult to understand in the context of learning about heaven? Many are giving up on the Church because they are tired of constantly feeling like they are failing. They have tried in the past, but always feel they are not good enough. They don't understand grace." Perfection IS the ultimate goal, but Christ knows that in this life we will not achieve it. For now, he requires that we always seek to do our best. Following his teachings, repenting, getting up when we fall down, and trying again. Be patient with yourself! Be patient with others, too. Everyone is trying their best, and everybody wants to be treated with grace, just as you do. Christ, the most perfect man of all, chose to have grace with us instead of looking down on us. It's our responsibility to do follow him and do the same for others. ELDER ⛰️STEAD