Campo Grande 3-17-13 to 3-24-13

Mais uma vez em Campo Grande (Again in Campo Grande),

As for this week, my companion got sick, and will probably stay home for the next week. So I´ll be working with Sister Carvalho (an awesome sister from São Paulo). My companion will stay with her companion, a mini-missionary who is from here in Campo Grande. I think she´s coming down with something too. We´ll see.

This week we talked with a lot of people on the street, and because of it, we have a lot of new investigators. And we found a lot of people ready to accept, so I´m really excited. I just hope I´m not transferred before then. We´ll have several in the next two weeks and transfers are in a week. But we should have three baptisms marked for this Sunday if everything goes according to plan. Idk. I want to stay in the area because of the people we are working with, but then again, I´ve been here for a while. But then on the flip side my companion isn´t getting along super well with the ward, so I might stay for another transfer here to help her assimilate more. So this transfer I really don´t know what will happen. I´m putting it on a 50/50 chance. But if I stay another transfer here, I´ll probably have a 90 percent chance of leaving after this next one. Because really, I´ve been here for 4 1/2 months. If I stay another transfer that will put me at 6 months here in the same area. But we never really know. Only the Lord knows where we need to be and when we need to be there, even if it doesn´t make sense to us.

But other than that, the work just continues on. I feel like I´m growing so much, not just my testimony, but my application of my testimony in my life. Our mission president has been talking a lot about the difference between testimony and conversion. It´s only when we are truly converted that we will put our testimony to action and stay firm until the end. This is our goal for each and every member. They may be baptized with a testimony (or at least better be :P) but even then, members are really tried in their lives in order to bring about true conversion. It´s remarkeable. 

Oí! So, transfers passed yesterday, and guess what, ... , I´m staying in Campo Grande! That means that I´ll stay here for at least 6 months of my mission. But I´m switching companions. My mission president said that he wanted me to learn different techniques from different people, so that´s what´s up. My new companion is Sister Carvalho. She´s from São Paulo. I knew her in the MTC and she´s been in the same ward and house with me for three months already. Just now I´m going to be her companion. I´m super excited though. We worked together this past week as my companion was sick. She works super hard and is very focused to the work. I´m going to learn so much from her.

And as for this week... we had two baptisms!!!!!! Yeah, two young men from two different families. They both can feel the Spirit very strong and will be amazing missionaries. I seem to just be growing the youth program here, but that´s a great thing as now I can see how much it will grow as they get older and serve missions and marry and start new families within the covenant of the gospel. I´m so grateful to the Lord for allowing me this opportunity to be an instrument in His hands and to be able to share in this process. Their names are Kennedy (like the president...) and Dhioni (said like Johnny, pretty cool, I know, lol).

Sister Grimes