A miracle happened this week

This week, for the first time ever, I had the opportunity to baptize 2 people from the same family! A mother and her 10 year-old son. Also, another first -- these 2 people are the first people that I've ever baptized that I met just stopping them on the road to talk with them! All of the other people that I've baptized, I've met through members of the church (referrals), and so I'd kinda lost faith in the whole idea of "street contacts" and "door knocking"... but, this time, it worked out! It was such a great experience to teach this family. The lady said that she had seen missionaries walking around and talking with people and visiting people, and for a while, she had been thinking "Why don't these missionaries stop and talk with me, or visit me?", and just a few weeks later.. we stopped and talked with her! haha! I thought that that was really interesting. The Lord is truly preparing people to hear our message, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth in it's original and pure state. Did we just happen to talk with her at exactly the right time? No way! The Lord puts these people in our path, when He sees that we are prepared to open our mouths and share the gospel, and when He sees that the person is ready to hear/receive/accept the gospel.

We visited this mother and son every day this past week, except for Saturday, and helped them to prepare for baptism. She had to give up drinking coffee, which she did every day (and a lot, too!), and she was able to do that after just 2 days! We gave her something to substitute for coffee, which is called "Cevada" here, and I believe is called "Barley" in English, and so she started to drink that. It's very similar to coffee (or, so I've heard), but it doesn't have the bad things in it that coffee has. By the end of the week, they were totally ready, and so they both had their baptismal interview on Friday, and they passed! They were baptized yesterday (Sunday), and it went great. We bought a cake for them, too, because we were really excited/happy for them! One of our investigators makes cakes, and so we asked her to make one for the baptism -- it was really good. Chocolate.. :d ... hah

The only downside, is that now, we have no one left who is progressing, and so we have to start all over again! We do have one girl who is kinda progressing, and we'll be visiting her this week.

I taught the Gospel Principles class yesterday, and it went really well! I love learning/teaching about the basics. :)

One thing that Elder Taraveira told me last night (he lives with me), that a member had told to him, was that the reason that some returned-missionaries end up going inactive or being less-active members of the church, is because when they are released, they go back to being called by their first name, and they forget the name "Elder". If they would remember this name, they would continue strong in the church. But, since some returned-missionaries forget that they were once "Elder", they end up losing sight of the path that they were on. He said to him, "Never forget that your name is 'Elder'. Even after you are released, your name continues to be 'Elder'". He said that he would never forget what that member told him, and now I won't, either. (this goes for those who are or were once 'Sister', too!)

I hope that you all have a great week! I have to get going now.

Tchau! :D

Elder Canto

P.S. Just 9 weeks away from home! I'm still working hard, though! Don't worry! ;)




Our make-shift baptismal font.. haha! The person who is being baptized has to kneel on the bottom, or else it doesn't work out too well! Oh hey -- we're going to be moving to a new building this Sunday! I won't be living in the church anymore );


Another baptism, which happened on Friday :)


P-Day last week on the rocky hill (it's a tourist attraction here!)
Left to right: Me, Elder Riffo (my companion), and Adriano (our Ward Mission Leader)

A NEW ZONE!!!!!

Well, after 1 year and 4 months, I finally left Zona Rangel, and was transferred to Zona Liberdade (Liberty). My new area is called Esperança (Hope), and apparently, the group here recently became a branch. There are about 50 people attending right now, someone told me... I'm a lot more West now in Paraíba than I've ever been, and I'm really excited to be here. Something funny, is that we live in the church! XD The church has 3 classrooms, and there's a main room with a table, a pulpit, a microphone, and chairs, for Sacrament Meetings. If you go past the main room, there's a sink, and then there's another door, which enters into the kitchen, and there's a staircase which goes up to our bedroom. All 4 of us elders share one bedroom, and so there are 2 bunkbeds in the room. I'm living with an American, who is from Missouri (Elder Mather), an African (Elder Taravera (sp?)), and my companion, Elder Riffo, is from Chile! I've never had a hispanic companion -- this should be interesting! :D

I don't know much about my area yet, but when I do, I'll let you all know.

On Saturday and Sunday I was super sick and barely ate anything until now. I had a fever and a headache on Saturday, and Sunday, too. On Sunday, I ate some bread, and drank some juice, and then I threw up about 30 minutes later... so.. I didn't eat much of anything since Friday! I'm extremely tired right now. I'm recovering from my sickness though, at the moment, I'm pretty sure.. don't worry about me! hah

I need to get going now, but, I hope that you all have a great week!

Sorry for the lack of consistency with these updates

Elder Canto

I lost 1 week of my mission! :S

So I found out last week while talking with the Executive Secretary, that I'll actually be going home on October 29th, instead of November 5th! Now I'll be able to celebrate Halloween in the US! Awesome! :D

Yesterday we had 101 people attend Sacrament Meeting, which was the highest number of people I've seen at church here so far! We also had 7 investigators at church, which was another new record for me -- I couldn't believe it! hah :)

I hope you're all doing well! Have a wonderful week! Sorry this is so short!

Elder Canto

São João is here!

This holiday is a month long in Campina Grande.. luckily, it's only about a week long, here! Anyways--

Hi everyone!

Things are going well here for Elder Buechele and I -- we have transfers in one week, and he is probably going to be transferred.. sadly :/ But, maybe we'll get lucky, and he'll be able to stay for a fifth transfer! Him and I are both fine with the idea of staying here until November -- that would be great! We love it here! But, it is very unlikely.. hah

We went to the only McDonalds that I know of around here on Wednesday, and bought Angus Bacon burgers, with fries and Guarana (a soda they have here). The burger seemed very salty for some resaon.. It was pretty good, though. It was R$25,00, which is about.. $8 USD.. maybe a little bit more expensive than normal.

On Thursday, I went on an exchange with Elder Costa, my district leader's companion, in my old area, Geisel, and we visited an old investigator of mine -- Daniel -- around 8pm. He was very surprised to see me, and him and his mom were very happy :D She made dinner for us, too! They took some pictures with us, and we talked a bit, and then went home. It was so nice to see them again, after almost a year! I am extremely grateful for all of the friends that I've made here while serving my mission. I love Brazilians! :D (the nice ones, anyways -- haha!) I also got caught in the rain, and so I have a cold now. :S

On Friday night, we went to a party to celebrate São João at the church, and everyone was wearing plaid (sp?) shirts, and jeans, and straw hats, and they had all sorts of food made from corn.. hah -- My companion made chocolate-chip oatmeal cookies, to be different from the corn theme, and about 20 people have asked him for the recipe since then. People don't bake here.. it's weird! They only make cakes, for the most part, as far as baking goes. By the way, if there are any random "a"s in this email, it's because the 'a' key keeps sticking.

Yesterday (Sunday), we brought a 77 year-old woman to church, and she said that she felt different there than in any other church she'd ever visited, and she expressed a great desire to be baptized, so we marked her baptism for next Sunday, the 28th! :) We're working with a 16 year-old boy as well, and a 17 year-old girl (who has a 1 or 2 year-old son), and we also marked a date for one of the ward members to marry the woman that he is living with (August 1st), so that she can be baptized (on August 2nd). We're working with some other people as well, but these 4 people are the ones who are progressing the most. We talked to the boy's dad last week, after he had gone to church, and he said that he'd been telling him "Dad! I really liked going to church there today!". We're having a bit of trouble with visiting some of our investigators, who are home only at night, when we usually have lots of things marked (between 6pm and 9pm), but.. hopefully we can plan well enough to be able to visit them this week!

I hope that you all have a great week! :)

Love,

Elder Canto

P.S. Happy Father's Day, to you fathers! And of course, Feliz São João!

Festa!

People attacking my companion for his cookies


Ward cleaning on Saturday

A New Month

Well, June is officially here! Last month was pretty great -- first, we had the baptism of a 24 year-old girl, who'd been investigating since September, and then on the 30th, we had the baptisms of two 9 year-old boys, whose parents are members, and went out for pizza afterwards at a restaurant called "Arte da China" with one of the boy's families.

Yesterday, a new Ward Mission Leader was called, and he must be retired or something, because we had a meeting with him right after church, and I was like "So when are you free?" and he was like "When am I free? Let me see.. all day, every day!" haha! That's a nice change! Our previous Ward Mission Leader was busy all day, every day! We didn't have a single meeting with him in the past 3 months! Now that we have someone who can actually go out with us and visit people, things are really going to be different! I'm excited for this month now.

What's interesting, is that a new Ward Mission Leader was called in the ward that Alissa is serving in yesterday, too, and, that after the baptism on the 30th here, there was also a wedding at 7pm at the church, just like there was after the baptism of her investigator 2 weeks ago! Parallels.. weird..

Anyways! Um.. what else.. We taught a lady who is Atheist about 2 weeks ago, and that was an interesting experience! Just about everyone here has a belief in God and Jesus Christ.. so it's pretty uncommon to find someone who doesn't believe in them! That was only my 2nd encounter on my mission with an Atheist, and it was very different teaching her. We taught about The Book of Mormon not with the usual aim to show that the church is true, but with the aim to show that Jesus Christ really was the Son of God, and not just a regular person, and that God exists.

She'd said that she used to believe in God, but then she felt like He stopped answering her prayers, and so I feel like she is just kinda mad at Him -- but she said she doesn't believe in Him. I asked her if she knew the answer to the question "Why do bad things happen to good people?" and she said "Right? Good question. What do you think?" and then I shared this scripture with her (from The Book of Mormon), which Alissa had showed to me at one point in 2013, which I have really come to appreciate during my mission:

Mosiah 3:7

"And lo, he shall suffer temptations, and pain of body, hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer, except it be unto death; for behold, blood cometh from every pore, so great shall be his anguish for the wickedness and the abominations of his people."

This scripture talks about Jesus Christ and what He went through here on the earth for us. Jesus Christ is definitely one of the best people who ever lived here on the earth, and He went through all of these terrible things! He suffered physically, and especially, spiritually, when he performed the Atoning Sacrifice, and then was crucified.

God doesn't let us suffer because he doesn't love us, or anything like that -- He lets us suffer, and have hardships, and struggles, because we need to have both negative and positive experiences in this life to truly learn the things that we need to. If life were just pure happiness, we wouldn't really learn much, now would we?

After I shared that scripture, a few minutes later, she said that because of that scripture, she became interested in reading The Book of Mormon, and that she's going to read it. I hope that reading The Book of Mormon can help her get her faith in God and Jesus Christ back!

Well, I've got to go now. I hope you all have a great week!

Feel free to email me with any questions or comments, or just to say hi! :)

Elder Canto

Photo from the baptism on May 30th

I love this family!

Photo from the baptism in early May -- not sure how the left side is blurry and not the right side.. maybe we were moving when they took this picture

A Long Week...

Hi everyone,

My companion and I were sick this week, both of us with the same sickness, and so we had the same symptoms every day.. it's been an adventure! On Monday and Tuesday, until Wednesday afternoon, we both had fevers and headaches, and we went to the hospital on Wednesday, when we got these red spots everywhere that were itchy. They drew blood for a blood test, and diagnosed both of us with Dengue. I thought this was round 2 for me, but then, we went back for a follow-up visit on Friday, and they did another blood test, and said that it wasn't Dengue, but it was an unidentified virus that has been going around here, which is like Dengue, but a bit weaker. I think that I'm basically fully recovered today, after the 2-3 days of rest recommended by the doctor, and so hopefully we can work this week. They also said to drink 4-5 liters of water per day, which, I discovered, is no joke! It felt like I was drinking water like it was my job! XD Also, since Thursday, we've both gotten tired really easily, and had to rest a lot. All of our numbers for lessons taught and everything were 0 this week.. imagine that! I miss my investigators.. DX hah

Hopefully, this week will be better, and we're done with this "unidentified virus".. I'm still kinda itchy though.. and tired.. but.. we'll see.

I was able to talk with my family on Skype last night, for Mother's Day, and it was really nice to see everyone again! It's hard to believe that the next time I see them, it'll be in person! I'm looking forward to that. :)

Well, I'm going to go rest a bit more, and hopefully I can go out and work at 6pm tonight!

I hope that you're all in better health than I am! haha! Have a good week.

Elder Canto

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May the Fourth be with you..

I thought I'd steal Alissa's subject line here.. :D

Hi everyone! So Alissa and I have decided to move our wedding date to December 5th, 2015, since that's a Saturday, and it'll be easier for people to make it, we hope! Please email me to let me know if you're planning on going, whoever is reading this! (just so I'll know :]) We'll be getting married in the Seattle, WA temple. It's going to be awesome! :)

I officially have been on my mission for 17 months today, and I have 6 months left.. it's crazy how the time has flown by.. I'll be talking to my family on Skype on Mother's Day, for the last time before I go home, and I'm looking forward to that! It's only twice a year that we get to do that! I'll be flying in to the SEA-TAC airport on November 5th or 6th, and going to NY after getting married.

We'll be having a zone conference tomorrow with 5/7 of the zones in my mission, so that should be great, and I'll get to see some of my friends!

I was super tired this week, along with my companion, and our 2 new Brazilian roommates, since we spent our whole P-Day moving furniture and cleaning.. but, hopefully this week will be different, since today is going to be more relaxed. haha

I wonder how my brother feels about Alissa and I getting married on his birthday.. XD

Anyways, have a great week, everyone! Don't forget to pray and read the scriptures daily! God didn't give us the scriptures to keep them on a shelf, but, He gave them to us for us to read and study them! The more good things that you fill your life with, the less likely you are to have bad things in your life.

By the way, I was thinking about 3 questions this week:

1) Do I want to return to live with God in His kingdom after this life?
(to which I answered yes)

2) Am I ready/willing to do everything that I need to in order to receive this great blessing?

3) What do I need to change/do in order to qualify for this great blessing?

I promise you, you won't regret doing this! God has asked us to keep His commandments, have faith in Jesus Christ, repent of our sins, be baptized, be born of the Spirit (John 3:5), and endure to the end. Whatever you need to change, change it, ASAP! This life is the time for us to prepare to meet God, and we should not procrastinate the day of our repentance! Also, Jesus Christ will come again, and He will come when no one is expecting it, so we need to always be clean/free of our sins, and be ready, and watching, and waiting, for when He does come again! And by doing this, we will be blessed, and we can rest easier. :)

I love each of you! Have a great week! Happy Mother's Day, to all of you wonderful mothers! Especially you, Mom! :D

Elder Canto

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.