Elder Benjamin S. Smith

I ended up needing to stay with the Zone Leaders for the last couple of weeks and we worked in both of the areas together as a trio. It was tough to stay in contact with the people from Curicica, but we were able to keep up with some of the best ones. Márcia is super excited to be baptized this upcoming week. She explained to us that she was not at all expecting to accept a baptismal date but when we invited her something inside of her just shouted yes! Vitória is super cool as well and I was excited to work with her more. She has a lot she wants to change in her life and feels too inadequate to be baptized. But when we said that she could be baptized and that we would help her prepare her face lit up with hope. So then I was transferred to Cesário de Melo with Elder Grimshaw who is also new here... So we have no idea what's going on but it's going to be a great week. Elder Smith

We were able to teach Gabriel and Theo a few times this week and had some solid experiences. Gabriel has been reading a ton of the Book of Mormon, and he sent an adorable photo of him reading with his 2 month old. We prayed with Theo to know if the Book of Mormon is true and it was a powerful experience. We also visit Barra Shopping which is a super fancy mall with beautiful art! And along the way we found massive lizard with a shiny green back. Yesterday we tried to contact some people on the street but no one was out. So we decided to check out the park. And it turns out that there was a community soccer tournament going on with hundreds of people playing in the rain. There were huge barbecues and fireworks with a couple hundred people watching. We walked around and talked with a few people about who was playing and found out that this tournament went from 9 in the morning until 11 at night. Curicica, where I'm serving, already lost. But there was a team from "WaterBox"...