"É Quando O Pouco Vira Muito (It's When A Little Becomes A Lot)" -Presidente Edmar

The work just keeps on rolling here in Itapecuru-Mirim, and we're basically just counting the days down until we can send a proposal to Church Headquarters for the city to be considered a branch.

When I say "just counting the days down," that doesn't by any means mean we aren't working. We had a full week to work in our area and had some miracles happen as a result.

Yesterday we welcomed 5 new members into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after a baptismal service at a neighbor's pool. Everybody that came to sacrament went to watch the baptisms, so it was a pretty incredible service.

Raimundo Nonato has started to conduct sacrament meeting in preparation for him to be the Itapecuru Branch President. Two recent converts gave talks about keeping the Sabbath Day holy and the importance of the sacrament, as well as the importance of forgiveness. It is just truly incredible to see the growth of the faith of these members that are so young in the Church. They are all growing in spiritual maturity and doctrinal knowledge and it just fills me with true joy.

During a movie night at the Church, a member talked with me and misunderstood something I said as me wanting to go back to the United States early because I was sad (as if). Next thing I know, my recent converts are all sending me messages and talking to me telling me that they know the Church is true and that I can't give up on the mission, etc. 

While the last thing I would want to do is leave right now, it is pretty amazing to now know of their testimonies and independence. When I do go (which will not be soon, thankfully), I now know they will not; they will still be here building the kingdom.

Speaking of the movie night, we watched "The Other Side of Heaven" as a soon-to-be-branch. It is very crazy to me how many similarities can be drawn between my mission and that of the film's main character. While I don't have to worry about rats eating my feet here, I have seen myself in that Elder's shoes many a time in this mission. If you've never watched this movie, member or not, you should give it a go. It's pretty entertaining.

We are no longer renting chairs! After weeks of headaches, we finally just hired a boxtruck driver to bring the chairs from Santa Inês to Itapecuru. The Branch President there was kind enough to also send us a table for the sacrament and a pulpit complete with a microphone. 

He explained the long history of this rugged old pulpit; it has apparently traveled around this mission. It has been in Parnaiba, Santa Inês, and Pindaré-Mirím, all of which went on to become branches. 

He said the following:

"É quando o pouco vira muito (It's when a little becomes a lot)."

I couldn't think of a better explanation for this city.

Love you all and hope you have an EXCELLENT week! Remember who you are and where you came from. Pay attention to where you're going. Remember that the pointers our spiritual compass "work according to the faith and diligence we... give unto them" (1 Nefi 16:28).

Love,

Élder Lindsay

P.S. Antonio's birthday was this past week, so I put in a picture because I thought you might like to see how he's doing. There's also an image of some guy who stands on his front lawn from 6-8ish every night and sings into a microphone that's not plugged into anything, so thought I'd share that as well. The other images are pretty self-explanatory.