Mad's Happy Life: MONDAY - March 25, 2013

a modern day Joseph Smith

Dear Blog Readers,

Last Sunday i was sitting in sacrament meeting with a few of our investigators thinking about who in the world we would baptize this week. President promised me miracles for the month of march...and i was seeing them...but our numbers were not. As I sat there i thought about Mormon 9:19-21. We just have to BELIEVE in miracles and they will happen.

Right about then I made the mental note ``God, I am believing. I am believing a miracle is bound to happen this week. Just bring it for me.``. And thats when Gustavo walked into church.

Gustavo is 15 years old and he walked in with a book of mormon and a pamphlet about the restoration. Since we share a ward with the zone leaders (and they had been talking about an elect teenager) I figured this must be the kid. I motioned to Elder Johnson that his investigator had arrived and he went to sit by him. Sacrament meeting passed, we all were ushered into Gospel Principles and I had completely forgotten about the young man. Until Elder Pray gave me a piece of paper with Gustavos name and address.

``Its your area-I have never seen anything like it before. He found the church on facebook. And hes already in 1Nephi 18.```

What?! I dont recall exactly what was said between me and Elder Pray-but needless to say, I made a B-line for Gustavo. He´s shy, I introduce myself and he says quite plainly-ah so you are the one that is going to teach me more about the doctirnes of the church. Yes. that would be me. We made plans to visit him later that day and I walked away excited.

That is until we realized that Gustavo lives on Francisco Firmes de Matos. A road that goes on forever and ever and has no sort of number system whatsoever. But this kid was our miracle, so i was willing to walk the entire road to find him. I am not exagerating when i say this road is a solid 5 miles long. And after an hour and a half of looking for the kid, two houses with the same address and no sign of Gustavo, I was about ready to call it quits. If i could locate a moment of my mission where i literally just looked up into the heavens hoping for some sort of ...sign or something, it would have had to be march 17th. I was so sick of walking, and i felt like someone had played a bad joke on the poor sister missionaries. it was 4:30 and we had yet to teach a lesson. I grabbed my companion and looked her in the face.

``Suelen. If God wants us to baptize Gustavo this sunday, we will find this blessed house by 4:40. If not, we are done looking for him and its off my conscience.``

I said a prayer, opened my eyes and expected Gustavo to be in front of me, ready. Nothing. We had nothing to go off of, our phone was dead and the sun was hot. He lived so close-i knew it! But the kid was not appearing. Until 4:39. When a woman who had seen us walking back and forth decided to assist us in our search. I had my eye on the clock. 50 seconds left. She closed her eyes as if trying to remember if she knew a 15 year old named gustavo. 40 seconds left. eyes still closed. 30 seconds. ``ah yes. he lives right there`` (pointing to the house in front of us.) I ran to the other side of the road, hit the door with 20 seconds left and low and behold, Gustavo answers.

And here´s his story-

Gustavo is 15, the youngest of 5 kids. He was catholic growing up, like every brasillian until he reached 11 years old-when he decided to start attending the evangelical church right next door, and then after a year he switched to assembly of God. He had heard things about the mormon church before from the internet and through facebook, was able to find mormon.org and from there chatted with a sister missionary in salt lake.

He is elect.

We shared the first lesson, and as we got to the part where joseph smith saw God and Jesus Christ the most peaceful sweet spirit filled the room. I didnt even get to say the first vision-i just flipped to the photo of it and we sat in silence for a few seconds until Gustavo looked up- ``He saw God and Christ. I know it.``

Yes, yes he did.

I could tell you all the miracles that occured this past week if i had more time-but needless to say, he knew it, and God knew it, and he couldnt deny it. The pastor from his former church came to tell him his salvation was at stake and just like the story of Joseph Smith-he knew it and no one could take that knowledge from him. He bought a white shirt and tie, he attended seminary, and every day we visited him he had another question for us.

oh the love God has for his children. And really, there are people out there searching-believe in miracles, i have no doubt they do come when you have the faith.

love you all,

sister mad

p.s. you knew they were coming-wednesday our first batch of 19 year old sisters got here, and we LOVE them. They are little fireballs unaware of whats ahead of them-blind and full of faith. I recieved Sister Grangeiro-from Fortaleza Brasil. She´s a little blonde, (not her hair) but i am totally loving it.

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