Puppets, Prophets, and Presidents of Branches

I was glad I brought some of my puppets with me from Utah to Brazil.  I wrote a skit about missionaries keeping their apartments clean and one of the Assistants did a great job helping me present it at our Mission Council Meeting to all the Zone Leaders and Sister Trainers in the mission.   Above is pictured Officer Sargento Limpador the Enforcer of Domicile Cleanliness of Missionary Apartments here in the Salvador, Brazil Mission. It was good to laugh a little about a subject that usually isn't very fun to talk about! 

We had such a great time watching General Conference with some of our missionaries in a room at the Church where it was in English.  When they announced that the Brazilian speaker, Elder Godoy would speak in Portuguese we could hear a cheer from the Brazilians watching in the chapel.  We quickly changed the channel on our TV to hear it in Portuguese.  

As Elder Godoy and others spoke in their native languages I couldn't help but think of Moroni making the point to tell us that when the Savior appeared to him He spoke to him "in his own language."  Until you've lived in a place surrounded by people that don't speak your language it's hard to appreciate how wonderful it is to hear the word of God in your native tongue.  I heard a Book of Mormon scholar say that by the time Moroni lived that there would have been so many different dialects of language being spoken by so many different groups of the people of his time. It isn't hard for me to imagine why Moroni took the effort to tell us that the Lord spoke to him "in his own language." (Ether 12: 39)

Pictured above are three of our wonderful outgoing elders getting ready to go home at the airport.    The one in the middle had only been a member for a year when he came on his mission.  None of his family are members and he asked President Lisonbee for advice on how to tell his mom about him having garments since she has never seen them because he went to the Temple for the first time while in the MTC (CTM in Brazil).  He was an outstanding missionary and such an impressive young man as are all three of these men. We hated to lose them.

We drove for about 12 hours to some more of the branches in our mission.  We have now made it to all seven of them at least once.  Some are in some pretty rural areas as you can see from the mules on the road. 

We are so grateful for faithful men and women who lead the church in these small branches.  Above is the young Branch President in the Paulo Alfonso Branch in our mission.

The young woman with the black belt to the left of me joined the Church about a year ago.  She does a great job teaching the Gospel Principles Class in the branch. She brought her mother (left of her) and her two sisters (in purple and turquoise shirts) into the Church also.

This precious little boy became my "buddy" in the last branch we visited.  At first I thought he had eyelash extensions! Such great eyes! 

This cart was waiting outside our chapel after Church in one of the branches

Our drive home from visiting the branches was long and slow on two-laned roads.  But the scenery was nice and the sunset golden. We listened to previous conference talks and we actually enjoyed the ride.  I guess that's important, isn't it?  Like this fellow pictured below - we need to enjoy the ride. 

Until next week. Até logo.