Day 294 (Transfer 2 In Tancredo Neves, Santa Maria)

I'll be staying here in Tancredo Neves for another month and a half (but I think I'll stay another transfer after this one).

We have two baptisms marked for this Saturday, two brothers, Milton (14 years old) and João-Vitor (9 years old). They have another brother, Maicon (13 years) who still doesn't feel ready, and also needs to visit church one more time to be baptized, but I'm fairly sure that after being present at his brothers' baptismal meeting he'll want to follow their example next Saturday.

João-Vitor continues to surprise everyone in a very positive way. We brought him to his very first family home evening at a member's house and he was excited to give the spiritual thought on Jonas the prophet, who he learned about the day before in Primary. He's already been to church about 4 times with us, but he already knows almost all of the primary kids.

We showed him (and a bunch of kids who also followed him) the baptismal font yesterday, and he's pretty excited. The parents of these brothers have seem to have zero real interest in religion for themselves but are fine with their kids going. But I think we'll try to work with the parents more actively; it's pretty difficult to keep someone active when they only have the missionaries to depend on to bring them to church. There's a crowd of inactive members who were baptized without the active support of their parents, and that same situation has shown up in every area I've already passed through.

Were also working with another investigator, Emily (9 years old), whose parents are inactive members and are separating. We've already taught almost everything, she's already been to sacrament meeting several times, she's already reading the scriptures, praying, and has already felt a positive response through prayer about baptism. Her mom agrees that baptism would be something good for her, but her father won't consent. It seems that he has problems with drugs, crime, and alcohol, and that the mother and 2 kids only have been living there because his family owns the property. But this month, they'll be moving to São Pedro, a town about an hour from Santa Maria that also has the Church of Jesus Christ (a branch that meets at a rented house). We've already gotten permission from the mission to continue teaching there because there aren't any missionaries currently assigned to that city. We'll go there by bus. If her father won't give consent we'll just have to mark the date for a bit later, because in São Pedro he won't be part of that decision process (since he won't be living with them).

But we're the next in a long series of missionaries that have been in that house planting seeds of hope. The first times we visited there was a sort of tense atmosphere, and we've already seen a positive change. Even when everyone is feeling the spirit, once her father arrives in the room it's as if everything reverts to heavy discomfort. If there ever was a family that needed missionaries visiting, its that one.

Tomorrow's the mission Christmas conference, we had our last choir practice this morning. There should be video going out soon after.

Excited for the 25th, we already got an invite from an investigator for the evening so we might make the skype call from there, more details closer to the date.

Spencer