Better Open The Door

Zone Conference was yesterday, so we were authorized to take some time today to write home. Sorry for the delay!

As the song by Motion City Sountrack states it, we were working hard this week to get people to actually open their doors to us! And what blessings did we find!

Our week started off pretty crazy, because of all the movement that was happening. On Monday, my comp was in Praia, so I hung out with Elder Schlichte for a while. Then on Tuesday we hung out with Elder Price, Elder Fernandes, Elder Wendt, Elder Call, Elder Firmo, and Elder Podzikowski at different moments. We even ended up all going to Ponta Verde on a rescue mission looking for Elder Arteaga, who was told to go there even though his new comp was here in Sao Filipe. Later in the week we hung out with Elder Jesus and his new son, Elder Canizares, along with Elder Schlichte's new son Elder Valenzuela. It was all fun. That's what happens when Transfers, Leadership Council, and Visa Renewals all happen in the same week.

Other than those instances, our week was a really good one! We saw a lot of miracles. I think that the biggest one was the fact that after a lessonless day on Wednesday, we were easily able to pull an 8 lesson day on Thursday! It was incredible, and we've seen greater things happen because of that day.

One of the coolest things that happened on Thursday was that we talked with Irmao Ze's older brother Nelito, and he said that he received an answer to his prayer about the Book of Mormon! It was really cool, because he said he couldn't understand it well but when he prayed he really felt that it was true. We're going to work with him for the month of September for baptism, because he needs to get married as well. His girlfriend Ju is actually a less-active member, so she's giving some good support too. Sadly, only Ju came to church yesterday, but at the same time it was cool to se her there for the first time! We're pretty stoked to help this family out.

Zone Conference was really good! We really focused on how to get our investigators with dates marked for baptism to really progress and to feel prepared so that everything can run well. President's son Mark gave a super good training on why we don't Bible Bash as well. I really felt inspired to show my love for my investigators and put in the extra mile. I want to apply a lot of what I learned yesterday.

That's about it for this week! Hope you all are well! Have a good one!

Abraco,

Elder Penner