July 29, 2013

Oi Familia!!!!

Wow Those mountains make me have a lot of misses!!!!! I am so jealous that you all went up there. And those babies are getting so big:) thank you so much for all the pictures and whatnot!! I love seeing all our your wonderful faces. I will try and find an adaptor so that I can send you all some pictures someday but first I will ter que perder um pouco peso:)

This week was just filled with miracles for our mission. So some of you may know that the Angola consulate last week had decided to not issue any more visas for missionaries entering into the country. They did this because of problems they have been having with churches coming into Angola and basically stealing peoples money from tithing and hiding it underneath the governments nose. When we found out we were just astonished and really didn't know what to do because we were waiting for 5 more missionaries that are in the MTC or in the field and  8 others or so pre-MTC missionaries to replace the 10 that we lost the past transfers.

In that same day we got an email from one of the mothers in AZ telling us about a special temple trip that they were going to start on the 3rd week of every month to pray for our mission and no matter where they were at, they would go into the temple on the same day. It was just in the nick of time too.

So a couple of days after all that happened, we received a message from the consulate clearing the missionaries visas allowing them to receive them and enter into the country. Oh man, it was just so cool to see everything working together. President Merrill and the district president had written to the consulate and also Salt Lake and south Africa.  With all the praying and fasting that has been going on these missionaries will be permitted to enter the country.

Anyway just to share a quick story with y'all about this week. We taught Maria and the Abrantes family this week about he word of wisdom. Abrantes has a really bad smoking problem and Maria and the daughters all love to drink coffee. They understood it perfectly and committed to living it. 2 day later we decided to go back to see how it was going and they fell into temptation and drank some coffee and said that when they finish their supply that they would stop drinking it. So I shared a talk from general conference a few years back that I was reading that I think is titled "for how much would you sell you soul" as in would we sacrifice our souls for sins. It was so awesome and they agreed that they needed to stop. So at the end, Elder Mariquele and I told them that we would pass by their house the next day and bring a replacement drink. So we did and threw away all of their coffee right in front of them:) ha ha

Well I love you all!!! Tenham uma boa semana!!!!

Elder Wilhelm