January 8, 2017 -- Salvador (Ondina)

Sam is the new mission secretary! He has been transferred back to Salvador and will serve in a companionship with the financial secretary and outgoing mission executive secretary while he is trained. His new companions are Elder Cantuario and Elder Hilton.

January 2, 2018 letter -- Teotonio Vilela

[Sam did not email yesterday because all the internet houses were closed for New Year's Day. They were allowed to email this morning.]

this week was quite interesting. monday (Christmas Day) i got extremely trunky. also ate some crabs after we left the skype i think i sent pictures. 

tuesday we had a good day and two sweet miracles! we visited the aunt of one of the members here that we have taught a few times but have trouble meeting with her regularly and right when we got there she said she had recieved and answer to her prayers buuuut she didnt have time to talk to us. so pretty but she explained that she was very touched by the spirit during a prayer about the church and she loved it. personal revelation is real. also we had a cool lesson with estefane about the restoration and she immediately accepted a baptismal date for the 14 of january! we were in the lesson teaching and testifying and it was so cool the next thing i knew she had accepted a baptismal date. i love the way the spirit works in our lives if we follow his little whispers and have faith to trust in the promptings we receive. when we are able to do this we are extremely blessed!!!

wednesday was just a normal good day and we got to meet with ednalva to help her prepare for the interview and baptism this week! 

thursday we were truly guided by the spirit after a really poor lesson with some less actives to visit the home of another less active. abandonded our plans and went there and he had just gotten home after walking for 3 hours because he couldnt get a ride home from work after having a fight with his boss. he then started to tell us about how he is really frustrated lately and feels like God isnt hearing his prayers. we were then able to read some of the book of mormon and bear some good testimony to help him cheeer up and try again. i know that we are guided by the spirit and the Lord to do his will when we need to do it! we also got to teach a super cool young man named vitor who has some interesting  beliefs in God but doesnt believe in the bible or Jesus and we got to bear some testimony to him in the moment. after a really hard 30 minutes in the lesson we gave up trying to use scriptures and stuff and started to bear testimony of Christ and the Atonement and the restoration and one of the sweetest spirits i have felt in awhile entered into the room. It was enough to take him off his high horse and he kinda just put his head in his hands because he felt the truth of what we taught.

friday ednalva passed her interview and we followed up with estefane about the baptism and she was extremely excited!

saturday ednalvas baptism went well! 

Elder Sobral and Ednalva's daughter Tais

sunday was a good sunday and vitor and estefane both went to church! yesterday we had another good p day just kinda chilin cuz everything was closed.

i read neil l anderssons conference talk about the importance of revelation and general conference! it really touched me and i want you all to read it!

sam

December 25, 2017 Christmas video call!

December 25, 2017 letter -- Teotonio Vilela (Ilheus)

this week was chill!

monday we had a normal p day and we went downtown to see some stuff and go to the bank. we found a Crhist the redeemer statue and just hung out with some other elders until we went home and had a cool lesson with tiago. 

Christ the Redeemer statue in Ilheus

Not sure if you are allowed to climb on the statue base, but oh well

 tuesday we had a good day of normal work getting ready for the zone and christmas conference with president. we had some good lessons but nothing too special.

wednesday we went to another part of the city for zone conference. we talked a lot about the importance of working with members and had a few special hymns and activities to celebrate christmas. also we had a white elephant gift exchange and i got a bunch of chocolate hahahh

Ilheus Zone at Christmas Conference

thursday we had good weekly planning and a good session of cleaning the house! also did real missionary work and had an awesome day.

Elder Brito and Elder Prince

friday we had the branch christmas program with primary nativity and some food in the church. 

Elder Sobral and Elder Prince with ward members in Ilheus (from a ward member's instagram)

sunday was only one hour of church but ednalva and stephanie went to church! this week we really got down to business with ednalva dna she is all excited for her baptism this saturday so keep her in your prayers that everything goes well and the interview too. she noticed how happy her daughter has been since she got baptized and wants to feel a little bit of that same thing. that really helped me to remember the effcts we have on other people in our lives without even knowing that we did something for them.

Elder Sobral and Elder Prince

im extremely grateful for my savior Jesus christ and his birth. He lives and loves us. merry christmas to all and to all a good night.

elder prince

December 18, 2017 -- Teotonio Vilela

monday (P-day) we went downtown again had a good time just chillin there ya know. 

wednesday we went to una which is just not a place i ever want to go back to hahah then we had a sweet pre baptismal interview interview with emanoel. he's a funny kid and i'm glad i have gotten to know him. its amazing to see a teenager with such desire to study and learn. 

thursday emanoel showed up to his baptism interview full of doubts because of a few things that he read in the bible but i straightened him out with a good old scripture and testimony and then he passed his interview. also traveled to salvador to renew my visa 

Sam's photos for his new visa (current on left, at the beginning of his mission on right)

friday in the office of the mision to  go renew my visa. I left my trainee in ilheus with the other elders. i hope everything is going well wih him hahah pretty sweet day we got to participate in a baptism for some other elders in salvador and i got to see a few people from amaralina they gave me some chocolate. then i got back in the bus to spend the night traveling.

Emanoel and Elder Sobral at the baptism

saturday we had the baptism prep and lunch and the baptism! it went well and had cake so it was a success. we also went and visited less actives with members after to invite them to church on sunday!

sunday we had 71 people in sacrament meeting! 20 more than last week and 30 more than the week before so i was stoked as can be. also emanoel got confirmed a member so it was successful. did some visits and planned the skype. 

merry christmas!

Elder Prince

December 11, 2017 letter -- Teotonio Vilela (Ilheus)

my week was pretty chill. monday we went sightseeing downtown and saw some other elders. had a good lesson about the restoration with marcos and part of his family! 

Sao Sebastiao Cathedral

Elder Prince and Elder Sobral

tuesday we started teaching the mother of a recent convert! she didnt tell us but told her daughter that she wants to get baptized but doesnt know if now is the right time for her! pray for edinalva! shes kinda deaf so we had a fun time teaching her practically screaming the whole time wiht a lot of translating from her daughter hahah we get put in so many interesting situations during the mission hahah

wednesday we had zone meeting on the other side of the city so lots of travel and some good training there. it was just missionaries because we will have christmas conference in a few weeks! we have also started to set up soccer activies on wednesday nights for men and young men to come play together with dominoes and ping pong too. it was so awesome to see the church full of men and young men and we were able to get all their addresses and we have started visiting them! the look on our branch presidents face was priceless when he got there i dont think he had ever seen so many men or young men in the chapel hahaha

Elder Prince and his zone (elder costa e silva, elder lluberes, elder souza, elder moeira, elder bastos, elder davis, elder ferreira, elder sontag, sister g silva, sister miguel, and my companino and me in no particular order)

thursday we contacted some references with members and taught a really interesting lesson about the restoration to a presbyterian. he told us all about this gospel music cd hes recording and how is trying to work his way up to the level of priest and pastor in his church. it just really reminded me about the blessings of the restoration and how we have revelation to truly understand about the priesthood and callings and leadership in the true church of Jesus Christ. also a sweet family home evening in the church with most of the branch and investigators. 

friday we taught emanoel about the plan of salvation and he was all excited to get baptized this week! his excitement to read and get baptized is energizing for me. before he was just a low energy person but now he has really started to be lively and open  up to us. he is really happy and reading tons1

sunday i gave a talk on the restoration and we had some good visits with members to less activies and references! investigators are coming. we are getting some real good references from the members and everythings starting to go well. keep emanoel in your prayers for his baptism this saturday! trying to get some more dates of baptism out there but its coming slowly! gotta find more sincere people. 

i love you guys have a good week. 

Elder Prince

December 4, 2017 -- Teotonio Vilela (Ilhéus)

monday i got to travel to salvador to pick up my new comp straight from the mtc and i sat on the bus by 3 missionaries going home and they were just trunky and nervous hahahah but we made it to salvador safely. 

tuesday we spent the whole day in presidents house recieving training and introducing the new missionaries to the mission. it was pretty cool and nice to be back in salvador. i had really missed it and it was fun to see some friends and other missionaries. I got my new comp elder sobral from sao paulo! hes been a member for a little over a year and he's extremely excited about the work. we finished off the night by picing up another bus back to ilheus 8 hours yay

Elder Prince and Elder Sobral

wednesday i showed elder sobral around the area and we met some membrers and some of our investigators. we had a cool lesson with emanoel and davi about their reading in the book of mormon and they both accepted baptismal dates in a few weeks! its so nice to have the book of mormon and challenge people to read it to gain a testimony. 

thursday and friday and saturday were just kind anormal proselting days. elder sobral got to experience his first day in the mission where you dont find a whole lot of people at home and you do a whole lot of walking. but we had a really cool experience. we were walking down the street and this man walks past us then turns around and stops us and read our nametags then nearly pulled us to his house to teach him more! his name is junior and we started talking about the Church of Jesus Crhist and how it was lost after the death of christ and was restored. He gave this whole explanation aout how he wondered why there were so many churches in our days and stuff and it was super cool.

we got to see a ton of less activies ths week and they all or most of them went to chrch it was so nice to see the church more full and stuff. 

i think the best part of this week is that every time we walk by the church elder sobral shakes his head because our church is gigantic but we only have  branch here. its so different for him becaus ehis ward is big but chapel small and it makes me laugh so hard everytime.

Gigantic church building for the branch

i love you all so much. Jesus loves you too.

sam