Elder Benjamin S. Smith

We got transferred over to a new area but with the same 4 missionaries together this week. It was kinda cool. Itaguaí is a ward with a lot of youth that are preparing to serve a mission and lot of part-member families which makes it a really great ward for missionary work. It also covers a huge area, including a few beach towns where "groups" existed before the pandemic started. It has been an exciting first week already meeting everyone here. It was especially cool to meet Karan, someone who was baptized just a couple weeks ago. He gave up everything to move to Brasil 3 months ago, not knowing any Portuguese, because he couldn't be Christain in his home country. After just a couple of weeks, one of the missionaries sent him a message on Facebook. It's a fun game talking to him because neither of us know how to speak in Portuguese 😆

It was a fun time participating in the Brazilian Christmas and New Years traditions, especially when I found their version of cinnamon rolls! The last couple of weeks we spent a lot of time with other missionaries helping them serve more effectively. During these days I learned a lot about the power of faith. Faith fills us with courage and leads us to action. Without faith, we hold back and are never able to achieve our potential. When our vision and our faith change, our actions and our attitude change as well. Josiele is a great example of this! After going to church for years, she took the act of faith to be baptized and make a commitment with God. The spirit that filled her home afterwards was so sweet that her Sister decided to be baptized just 2 weeks later, even after she told us that she wasn't interested. Faith always comes before the miracle. Elder Matos and I have seen miracles of physical healing, spiritual healing, unemployed finding work, and families growing closer ...