Brazilian Adventures of Elder Crandall: Monte do Senhor

This week was awesome! I love going to the temple you feel so great afterwards (not just because of the BBQ after). It was a great temple session were many personal questions were answered and revealed to me. Today for P-day after vigorously cleaning our apartment I watched "Monte do Senhor" which talked about the Salt lake temple and it was a lot better this time because the last time I watched it was at the beginning of the mission and I didn't understand everything. Also I got to see and have lunch with Sandra and her baby Sofia. It was great to see her and her family we were trading off what we both liked about our countries, the food we miss, the customs we will continue as we return home. It was a great conversation all in portugues unlike the last time I was at their house in Redmond before my mission were we kept up a good english conversation. I hope you like the pictures, I felt the picture taking experience after helping another woman from Fortaleza take about 35 pictures at the temple while we waited for our Zone to show up.

Hey Elder Munk is coming home already! Wow time is really flying by and that's great to hear that Alex Burt is coming on down to one of the best countries in the world. I remember when I was waiting for my visa after 7 months of Waiting I finally got it. I already renewed my visa so I am good to go until March!

Hey mom look up for me how much it costs for a "panela de pressão" its a pressurized pot to cook rice and beans and other delicious stuff when I get back, it might be cheaper and leave more space in the bags if we buy one from the internet. I am having a great time with my companion Elder Augusto from Brazília the capital of Brazil. He has 8 months on the mission and we are going locous por Batismo here. We are going to have some great baptisms this week and on the 10th of November. I am doing my best to stay focused on the work when I know that everyone is coming home already and the end is getting closer every day. I am very exited for December, not only because of natal, christmas, but because of our goal as a mission. Yea our mission is getting crazier every month and we are going all out, going big, letting it all out! Yea we are going to baptize 1,000 people, yea you heard me right something that has never been done. I think the last time they had this many baptisms was probably the time of Alma at the waters of mormon haha. Even if we don't get our goal we are going to raise our vision and start baptizing a lot more then before. Well my time as usual has run out and I am very grateful to be worthy for such a sacred call, the next time I will be called Elder Crandall after the mission would only be if I was called to be a seventy or apostle so I am enjoying the title as it lasts. I truly feel the power of the priesthood and the blessing of using it worthily and now I have a very strong testimony of the sacrament. I will tell the story real quick. Yesterday night we went to a members house and the mother had surgery and was not able to go to church. The Family's home teacher hasn’t come by in 3 weeks so I decided to call the bishop and ask if we could bless the sacrament for her and he gave the go ahead. She lives with her 3 kids. one is a member and the other isn't. The one that is not a member has been declining to be baptize for over 4 months. We blessed and gave the sacrament and she said she felt a lot better and then we went along to give a message with here and he daughter who is not baptized. we gave a part for the mom to read and she read a part in 3 Nephi 11 verse 33 which said all who believe in Christ and are baptized are saved. But without asking she went on as guided by the spirit to read the following verse which says all those who do not believe in Christ and are not baptized are condemned. Very direct scripture followed by a strong testimony of her mom clicked in here daughters heart and she said she wanted to be baptized! I think how would this have turned out in this situation if we were not worthy to bless the sacrament and the mom couldn't renew her covenants and the promise of the spirit. Would the spirit have inspired the mom to ready that last scripture which was exactly what her daughter needed to hear? I don't know, but I felt the spirit testify to her as we spoke and felt the savior himself invite her to the waters of baptism. She will be baptized on the 10th and we have many others too which will be a great day for sure.