Elder Benjamin S. Smith

This month has been crazy with the temple open house!! It's been a great experience to go on tours with the people we are teaching and see the difference afterwards. People who are nervous about going to church or taking important steps in the gospel leave the temple ready to take a leap of faith. Nelma was baptized a couple of weeks ago!! She only talks in poems. Seriously, everything that she says is a rhyme. She's a cousin of a recent convert and accepted a baptismal date soon after attending the temple!! Ana Clara and Ana Clarice were also baptized this last Sunday. They are an incomplete member family that is excited to return to church, so excited that they showed up in the chapel for General Conference without even being invited!!  Ana Clarice also made this awesome drawing of me as a gift since I'm finishing my mission. The DC temple back at home is having the open house now as well! It's an amazing opportunity to get to know the House of the Lord. 

Kaick is the son of a woman who was baptized a few weeks ago. When we first met him, he had no desire to be baptized, but we noticed that he is a good kid and he always stayed within hearing distance of the lessons. Over time, the desire grew within him, until the day of his baptism he was super excited!! We found Ricardo when visiting a couple that we had been teaching. We invited him to participate in the lesson and he said that he couldn't but that we could visit him afterwards. When we visited him, we taught the about the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and he immediately decided to be baptized.  Luciana e Junior is a family that I had started teaching with Elder Pinho a couple of months ago. At the time, they were not able to be baptized, and we ended up losing contact with them. Then Junior found us on the street and invited us to visit their house. We brought them to church and afterwards we invited them to be baptized. Luciana said that she'd be baptized only ...

These last couple of weeks we had the baptisms of Cássio and Ana Cláudia! Ana Cláudia has been being taught for a long time but had a small thing keeping her from being baptized. Then one Sunday she sent us a message basically saying "I want to follow God and NOTHING will stop me from being baptized this week." Cássio is an awesome guy. He is a jin jitsu fighter that had been going to church just a few years ago but had stopped going. Then he decided that this is what he wants in his life. He came back to church and when we asked him if he'd like to be baptized he told us "this is what I was planning when I came back".  We also had a transfer and so Elder Lees is my new companion. He's super excited to be here and it's going to be a blast working together!! 

Some of the missionaries were having trouble so we did a bunch of exchanges this week to figure out how we can help. Lots of people were staying in the habits of the pandemic. They were staying inside calling people and not visiting anyone in person. They weren't moving forward. There are also a few new Americans that were feeling discouraged and stressed. The problem is that when you arrive in Brasil, you are being acted upon. You aren't acting. You can't talk, you don't know what's going on, so you basically just follow your companion around. This can start a negative cycle because you start to blame your circumstances for everything. Blaming your circumstances for failures or weaknesses makes people miserable. So, they end up miserable and discouraged and if something doesn't change soon they don't stay in Brasil for very long. The key is simply to start acting and start taking responsibility for your progress, the results in your area, even the cleanline...

Conceição and Val --> their son's friend stopped missionaries on the road and asked for a visit. They couldn't visit the house of the friend, so they visited the house of Conceição and Val. They were having a tough time because their son was killed a couple of years ago and they still hadn't found peace. After almost two months of missionary visits, they are anxiously awaiting getting married, baptized, and going to the Rio temple after it gets dedicated in May!! Ana --> the daughter in law of Conceição. The missionaries met her while teaching Conceição. She felt like she made a few decisions in the past that distanced her from God and now she wants to get back on the right path. Yesterday she told us that her strongest desire is to be baptized. Dayane, Kaique, e Yasmin --> An awesome family in a tough financial situation. In Brasil, you can get a "family scholarship" which gives a little money to help buy food for children. She was able to get the schola...

I was transferred to Madureira with Elder Pinho and it's been an absolute blast here. There's a side if a mountain with a million houses and we work there all day every day. So basically we are walking up and down the mountain (they have stairs) visiting people all day and it's the best. Elder Pinho is also the perfect companion. My English has been getting worst... And I am having trouble talking to the new Americans in English these days. This week we had 3 or 4 people stop us on the street and ask us to visit their homes. These people are in complicated situations. And the gospel of Jesus Christ is simple. But it helps. It's hard to understand how something so simple can help in such complicated situations but it really works miracles in the lives of everyone. Elder 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 ...

It has been a couple of really great weeks for is in Santa Cruz! Two families in the ward haven't been able to be completed because the marriage process in Brazil can be complicated. One of the families has tried 7 times to be married but it never worked out.  But this last month we had the chance to help them get married and baptized!! It was a special experience to be part of 2 weddings and a baptismal service. In high school I would have never thought that I'd be waking up at 4:30 in the morning to help two couples navigate public transportation in Brazil so that they could be married... honestly just about nothing on the mission I would have really expected. The other Elders also had the baptism of Enoque this week! Enoque is a great example of having faith to follow the commandments of God. He knows what's true and he can't be moved. While it's getting cold at home, it's getting hot in Brazil.  We found a Christmas tree. 

One of the Areas of our mission is called Angra dos Reis and I have always wanted to serve there because it's name sounds like anger of the kings and because it's more out of the city. Kind of like an out cast area with a lot more nature. So, when I got moved to Santa Cruz I ended up in the same zone as Angra dos Reis and this week we got to go on exchanges with them and another area even further out, Parque Mambucaba! The only problem is the distance. To get there, we go from Santa Cruz to Itaguaí (1 hour) then after two more bus rides we get to Angra (3 hours) then you can get on a bus to Parque (2 hours). So on Monday we traveled out to Angra and spent Tuesday with the Elders there. We were looking for a miracle with their friend Hernane - a young man who wants to be baptized but his family has some doubts. His story is a lot similar to my companion's, so we sent my companion out to talk with the family. The Elders in Angra were planning on visiting him at 3:00 but weren...

President decided to split the Santa Cruz ward between two companionships and so he sent Elder Matos and I there with Elders Turner and Boxer. It's been a blast to work together with 3 other Elders and I am loving the new ward. This week we taught Wanderson and his family. Their children wanted to be baptized but were feeling shy and nervous about the baptism. But after they had their baptismal interview they realized how much they know and how ready they are. Their baptism was special and set an example for Ray and his mother who were also feeling nervous.  After the baptism we had a huge barbecue with Bishop. During the barbecue, Ray sent a message to Bishop and said that he decided to be baptized!! So we are more than excited here in Santa Cruz! Also, we had a birthday party 😁

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"...