Please Raise Your Hand

Hello Everyone!

We had some more baptisms this week! Unfortunately, not all 7 could be baptized. A few had to be moved to later dates, but we had 2 of our friends get baptized and confirmed! Funny story about that, after the confirmations, the Branch President asked us to welcome the new members by raising the right hand. Most of the congregation did so, but the Branch President (on the pulpit!) pointed at one person in the middle and told him to put his hand up. It wasn't until he was 100% sure everyone's hand was up that he told us we could put them down. He must've really wanted these new members to feel welcome. The Branch here can be a little funny sometimes because all the members are such close friends. Their excitement and happiness is almost palpable!

Other than that, we had Zone Conference where I got to give a training for everyone! In Portuguese! After being on the mission for a little more than 6 months, I got to give a training to all the missionaries and a bunch of future missionaries in a new language that I've just learned! I know that I've been blessed with the gift of tongues to learn how to communicate and teach the gospel while I serve here in Angola and I'm so happy for all the blessings I get to see all around me!

I hope everyone has a good week!

Elder Thatcher Bishop

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's A Boy!

Image
Hello Everyone! Sorry about not writing for a while. I had a really hard time with my companion and trying to work all that out. However, things are looking up as I've had my first son! That's right, I got a new companion again, continuing my streak of new comps, and I am now a trainer! He's in his first transfer in the field and from Brazil. I've also been set as District Leader, so it'll be interesting balancing training, District Leader duties, the Branch responsibilities as 2nd Counselor, and just normal missionary work. Luckily, I'm not actually doing any of these things; I am just a vessel for the Lord to realize His work. He does everything—I just do as He says. We started an English class in our group to try and bring more interest to the church, find new people, and just help out in the community, and we found a new person! We are also getting a new chapel that's actually in my area soon, so we're working on finding people close to there. The wo...
Read more

Living On A Prayer

Image
Hello Everybody! In 2 days, I'll have been on my mission for a full year! As I've reflected on this last year, I noticed some ways that I've changed because of the mission and by God's hand. Fluency (2 Nephi 32) Yeah, I can speak Portuguese fluently (and honestly, I'm proud of that), but I've also gotten better at speaking "with the tongue of angels." My relationship with my Heavenly Father and my Savior has grown. I've learned how to speak "by the power of the Holy Ghost" and to "speak the words of Christ." I can teach people about Christ's doctrine and help them grow, and I have learned how to help people apply this gospel in their own lives. By learning how to touch people through teaching by the Spirit, I can recognize the Holy Spirit guiding me more in my own life. Love (Moroni 7) While on my mission, I've interacted with many people, be it companions, friends, members, or other missionaries, and I've learned to...
Read more

God Is A God Of Miracles

Image
Hello Everyone! So it's been a while, but I am still alive! We had a hard few weeks at the beginning of this transfer. All people that were progressing suddenly just stopped keeping commitments, and our teaching pool fell down to 0. However, this week we had a bunch of miracles! We were having trouble bringing people to church, and then out of nowhere, 2 people that we've never met before showed up to church 2 Sundays ago. We were really excited and marked lessons with them so that we could meet them later and begin to teach them and hopefully help them gain their own testimonies. Both of them are super awesome, but the absolute golden miracle was Jocinda. When we went to her house, Jocinda had already read Joseph Smith's testimony, so we explained to her the restoration of the Church of Christ and had a great lesson. She invited us to come back the next day so we could teach her husband and all her kids, which we were happy to do! During that second lesson, while we were t...
Read more