Wow, what a week!

Wow. What a week. I am going to write a lot because I can't stand writing by hand anymore in my journal and will just use this blog as my journal entry for the week...

This week...was...so sweet. I could say that it was definitely one of the best weeks of my mission so far.

My week here in Barcelona started off with me having to do a division on Thursday to do a baptismal interview in São Roque. I went up there with Elder Schoen, an American with about 4 months on the mission. He's way cool. The interview went fine but then that night I had a way good and spiritual experience with him. We got a reference from a recent convert there so that night we went to visit the reference with the recent convert. The reference was a mother of 3 who is about 28 years old. We got there and found her in bed, obviously in a lot of pain. She asked us if we could give her a blessing and we agreed. I asked "In order for us to give you a blessing it would be a lot easier if we knew what was wrong with you." Nobody seemed to want to tell us as they avoided our gaze. Then finally in a whisper the recent convert said "She...she has cancer." It was crazy. But we went ahead with the blessing. I gave her the blessing and it was definitely the most spiritual blessing that I have ever been a part of.

I talked to Elder Schoen about it after and we both literally felt power leaving our bodies and entering hers. As I gave her the blessing I felt the spirit so strong as it guided me as I truly felt like the Lord's mouthpiece in that moment. We ended the blessing and testified to her of God's love for her and the Restoration of the Gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith as she looked into our eyes with tears pouring down her face.

Then I went back to my area on Friday for my first full day in my area. So, Mother, my area is here in Sorocaba where I have pretty much been for the last 9 months of my mission but Sorocaba is a really big city with 4 different Zones. Barcelona, Trujillo, Sorocaba, and Santana. There are about 60 missionaries here in Sorocaba. I have had areas now in Zone Trujillo (Area - Julio de Mesquita), Zone Sorocaba (Area - Salto de Pirapora, and now Barcelona (Area - Barcelona). I like to say that I am serving Mission Sorocaba and not Mission São Paulo North haha.

Seriously though. There are 4 Zones here in Sorocaba and 13 in the whole mission and I have gone through 3 of the 4 zones here in Sorocaba now haha. It's cool though. I feel like this town of 700,000 people has become my home. And seeing as I will probably stay here in Barcelona for a good 6 months or so, I will do around 3/5 of my mission here at least.

Anyway, so my whole mission I have heard of Barcelona being a really hard zone and the least baptizing zone in the whole mission. Like, really bad actually. Our area is a pretty difficult area because it is a rich part of Sorocaba. And we all know that rich people are meanies. Anyway, with Elder D. Gonçalves here for the past two transfers he was able to get a little bit going here in the zone...but still there isn't much. So when I got here Elder D. Gonçalves and I made some plans and goals to get this zone and our area going again. We had meetings with the Stake President, our Bishop, and the ward leadership to let them know that we are here to work and turn this place around.

The problem is that this ward is REALLY REALLY old. The chapel has been here for over 40 years. Luckily it's been reformed and is really good looking now but the members here are really old and have lost that "fire" for missionary work. Anyway, to show the members that we are here to work and to put that fire back into them we set out to get a new family of investigators in the chapel for Sunday to get them excited again.

So Friday we started working again. We were going to an appointment and we saw a drunk on the street. We watched him for a while as he kept running around and running into the walls and stuff...obviously a little funny. Then when he was WAY far away he fell down on the street. We saw that a guy went to help him, then we turned to go to our appointment and didn't think anything else of it. We taught then left from that appointment and went back from the way we came.

We were walking on the street and out of nowhere D. Gon. stopped in mid step and looked across the street and a really nice, rich looking house and said "I did a contact with a guy and he gave me this address a while ago. Let's check it out." So we went and "clapped" at the door and a lady that was crying came out. We asked her if the man was there and she said "Yes. But it's kind of impossible to see him right now." We asked why and she said as she started crying even more "It's my husband. He went to the bar this afternoon and got way drunk and fell on the street and hurt himself really bad." I thought to myself "there is no way it is the same guy..." The we asked if we could come in and share a message and she said yes.

She was there with her 2 sisters (all in there mid-30's) and so we went in and saw the drunk man passed out on the couch. I couldn't believe it. It was the same drunk guy we had seen earlier! He had fallen and messed himself up pretty bad with a swollen face and cut up knees and elbows. We asked if we could leave a message. His wife, Eliane, said that she really wanted to hear it but she wanted her husband to hear it too. We said "Alright then. We will leave our number with you so when he wakes up call us and we will come back and give you the message." She agreed and we left. I'll be honest...I didn't think she would call. But at 7:45 pm sure enough our cell rang and it was her asking us to come back because her husband had woken up.

Not only was her husband awake but Eliane called her dad to come over and got her daughter to come listen as well. They were all waiting expectantly to hear our message. We gave them the first lesson about the restoration but both of us were impressed to talk a lot about families. It was an awesome lesson. As was explaining about the Book of Mormon and hadn't even invited them to read it when Eliane was like "Yeah I'll read it for sure!" Haha. Anyway, they all agreed to go to church. The drunk dad paid a lot of attention even.

So Sunday 2 of the sisters, the daughter (17 years old and she speaks english unbelievably well) AND her boyfriend who she invited and their uncle who they also invited went to church. I had never seen anything like that with investigators taking other people besides themselves to church. In this area here investigators at church are pretty rare so when the members saw that we had a whole family with us along with other investigators the ward got really excited.

We had a meeting after church with the Bishop and our Ward Mission Leader and they said the we had put the fire back into the missionary work of this ward. It was way cool. We wanted to find a family to bring to church we did everything in our power to do so and the Lord fulfilled His part and helped us in doing so. This family is awesome too. They went to the church last night to start doing their genealogy work! We took advantage of the opportunity and followed up with their 3 Nephi 11 reading of the Book of Mormon. We invited them to baptism and they accepted. The 2 sisters have been smoking for 30 years but they want to stop and want our help.

Oh yeah then ANOTHER experience. Saturday Elder Richard G. Scott one of the 12 Apostles came to our mission! It was way cool. The entire mission got together which is extremely rare in the chapel by the São Paulo Temple and we listened to him speak. He told us all to get married as soon as possible after our missions haha :).

No joke though...he said that. "Marriage should be your HIGHEST priority after your mission." Other quote "I know Jesus Christ and God love you missionaries here because I KNOW them." Good stuff. Very powerful. Did you guys know that he speaks Portuguese? Well, he does. He had a translator with him to say the stuff he couldn't quite get right, but he speaks really well actually for someone who has never lived here in Brasil.

Anyway, I have written tons. It was a really good week though. It is awesome having a comp that...is good...and who I can trust to teach with me haha. I think we will be able to get a really good work done in this area. Loves and stuff for all!

-Elder Brent Parsons