The Power of Prayer and Fasting

The beauty of Brasil- Rio Grande do Sul

10/13/2014

I hope everyone is doing great this week! The weather here is having a hard time deciding if it wants to get super hot and humid or chilly and thunder storming which makes for great fun trying to guess what will happen by the end of the day. I figure if it's hot at lunch and there is wind it will rain but only on the days that I don't want it to. I'm just not looking forward to 40 degree C weather which is coming (100-112 degrees F) especially for the holiday season that will be weird. Oh and also the weather always decides to get hot and sunny whenever we have a service project and I forget to put on sunscreen that morning... yup. 

We had a couple service projects this week cutting grass at members houses. I like to make "friends" with the dogs at peoples houses and this time I made a new friend named Billy. And I got to go crazy with a weed whacker through a mini-jungle, the plants and weeds that grow here are different that back home which makes it interesting and you never know what has spines and such.

Going crazy with the weed whacker, yea!

I make friends!

Anyway this past week we had another Zone Conference and all the missionaries here in Cruz Alta get in a van and we travel to Santo Angelo. I love getting to see everybody and especially now because Elder Sargent (comp from the CTM the first week) is now here in the city, reunited again! haha And the trainings that we receive during the conference are always good. This time I came away with a feeling of how precious the Lords time is here on the mission and I made some goals to ensure that we could use all the time that we have to its full potential. 

In the van on the way to Zone Conference

Reunited

And now to the point of the title of my post. Here on the mission I am learning much more than I thought possible or that existed about the power of prayer and fasting. As a missionary we have a lot of time to think and that means going through the thought process of if we've done enough, we are trying but nothing is working or are we going in the right direction? All things work out in the Lord's time and in the Lord's ways but that also means that we have the responsibility to seek the Lord's will. The Lord's time doesn't mean that we wait till something happens but that we pray that he will show us the right path and then go! That is what Elder Gois and I have seen in our work. The first week of this transfer we were making a ton of contacts and marking appointments with people to fulfill our purpose of talking with everyone and now we are seeing how the Lord has guided our work and blessed us for our efforts. We have been fasting specifically to find a family to help them on the path and this week we found 2! Which is pretty exciting and for sure I'll keep you all updated with that progress. Your prayers and love are always appreciated!

Love you all and until next week!

Elder Pierce

A recent baptism with the other companionship.