March 24, 2013

Dear President,

 Once again we are starting to see the fruits of our labors. When I first showed up to this area there weren't very many investigators and things were just passing along without a real excitement here. I remeber in the first week of this transfer you basically told me to just focus on families. We made plans to find, teach and baptize families and yesterday I truly saw a miracle! Yesterday we had a family of 7 show up to church and for the first time ever in Cape Verde I saw a family fill an entire row during sacrament meeting.

 So far in this new area we have been finding a lot of families and as of right now we have 3 of them that are progressing towards baptism! It is truly amazing to be a part of this work and to see first hand that the field really is white and ready for the harvest!

 

We need lots of help them please pray for these families!!!

This last monday... wow we had a crazy experience. Two weeks ago our neighbor called us over and said she wanted us to come to her house. We maked with her for last monday and went over there. When we showed up she told us she wasn't ready yet and had her son take us on a tour of her house. After waiting like an hour we finally went back up stairs to see that she had prepared a huge dinner for us! She said she had already eaten so we served ourselves and eat a good amount... then she came to the table telling us that she could see in our eyes that we haven't eaten well in a while and that our moms are for sure very worried about us. She grabbed our plates and filled them up FULL! I battled with all of my might to eat it all and got just about everything. I was ready to explode.. then she brought us out a fruit salad desert and filled up a bowl full.. I left her house the most full I have been probably since the last time I ate at chuck a rama. I am scared to go back there..

 

Well I hope all is well with you guys! I will try to keep writing more each week. 

 Love,

 Elder Edwards

Sorry Matt.

A few weeks ago (February 4th) Elder Edwards emailed home an incredible story. He asked for it not to be posted on the blog because he didn't want others thinking he was here for any kind of recognition. I emailed back asking for him to reconsider allowing me to post it but got no reply. I have had the nagging feeling that someone out there really needs to hear this story and in the past month 191 people have read this blog...so I am going against Matt's wishes and posting it anyway for whom ever it is out there that needs this today. Sorry Matty, Love you!

This week Lots of things happen. Breaking news in Relva! Due to excessive wind a power line was knocked over and forced to the ground nearly landing on a cinder block house! Luckily nobody was hurt and even more luckily they were able to just leave in like that the whole day live and full of power so everybody could watch the soccer game.

 This week was also zone conference. I was lucky enough to be called on to give a training which went by pretty good but the highlight of the conference wasn't there. The zone leaders came up with this idea that included every missionary there leaving and going out to try our faith. The activity was that we would all go out, find a member, teach them and receive a reference. Then we were to go and find that reference, teach them and mark a baptismal date with them. I know it sounds crazy. Because we weren't close to my area I was assigned to go out with my last companion Elder Christensen. We headed out of there a little confused by this difficult activity but we were ready to accept the challenge. We headed to the nearest memebers house. We talk to her and she gave us the sad story of all her friends live in a different city. There was a pause for a couple seconds... The member finally said ''oh actually I do have one friend that lives just up the street''. We knew that this person was inspired and we needed to go contact them. We ask her if she would come with us to contact her friend. She didn't really want to but then after a little bit of convincing power she agreed. She said she was going to go change cloths and then she'd be right back... 5 minutes later she came back shouting ''I brought a surprise!''..  she had left to change her cloths but she also slipped out the back door, pick up her friend, convinced her to talk to us, and then showed back up with her friend bright and ready to accept the gospel. We talked to the friend for a little bit, read with her joao 14. 1-6 and then invited her to be baptized... She seemed a little surprised by the invite but the spirit was s strong there she had to say yes. In the end it was a great experience and I thought that would be the highlight of my week.... 

Little did I know God had been preparing a miracle for us to find back in our area upon our return, 

Dear President,

      I appreciate your letter and I will keep working to help out where I can. This week I saw and felt God's love and I truly saw and felt that God always hears and answers our prayers. 

     Last week Elder Nhafé and I decided that we were running with a shortage of investigators in Relva and felt it would be effective to start working in the next zone over as well as in Relva. In the next zone, Achada Grande, there are only 3 active members in the whole zone! A couple months back Elder Schillimat had been working there everyday and after having no success the zone leaders told them he couldn't work there because it's was too catholic. It's a decent sized zone and with only 3 active memebers, to me the catholic church didn't seem like a good enough reason to avoid the area.. We trained the 3 members one day after church and had received 21 references, that seemed like enough for a full day of work there. This last Thursday we headed out with high hopes and with a spirit of urgency to find these people and to share the restored gospel with them. To make a long story short, we didn't find the success we were looking for. I literally witnessed a 70 year old lady run away from us screaming out ''no no no I'm catholic''. We walked back home that night with broken hearts and with a little bit less faith for the work in the area. The next day we had a division planned with the district leaders and I was suppose to go back there with Elder Guy. I truly felt that there was at least one person there who was ready to hear our message. I prayed, a true prayer, with all the energy of my heart and with all the faith that I had this work that on this, the second day in Achada Grande, I would find at least one person who would accept and feel our message. God heard my prayer, and he definitly answered it. 

     We found a lady in the streets who, after talking a little bit with her, she invited us to come talk to her at her house.  She told us all about how she had been searching for a church that was just right for her family. She explained how she had talked to several different pastors and preacher and had a mountain of pamplets, books and bibles to prove it. I felt in my heart, in that exact moment, that she was the person ready to receive us. I told her about the day before and how I had prayed to find a prepared person, then I spoke a little bit of the restoration and bore my testimony of its truthfulness. When I finished there was a short pause between us and then she started to cry a little bit.. then she tried to talk but it just turned into a lot more crying... After a couple minutes she regained her bearings and told us that she has been praying for this for a very long time. 

     I know that during that day I truly was instrument in the Lords hand and He truly guided us to that person to recieve his message. I pray that I will always remeber this and that I will always pray and search for his elects.

To finish off this week of miracles, I saw the fruits of my labors yesterday in Elders Quorum. Yesterday there were only 11 people in Elders Quorum. 2 were me and my companion, 5 were my recent converts and 2 were investigators we brought to chruch... I know that I have and am still making a difference here in Relva and I'm glad glad to be a part of this work..... And to just add to this pill we baptized and confirmed the mom of a bunch of members this week... She was the first investigator I have baptized that I had to teach in Creole because she doesn't understand or speak a word of Portuguese. 

I love you all and hope you enjoy this, the longest email I have ever written during my mission and probably during my whole life.

  Elder Edwards

God is watchin out for us. (See Alma 26:1-12ish... I think)

The New Relief Society Teacher.

Okay I thought about my week more during the week so I would have something to write about. This week after feeling like we were lacking good solid investigators we ended up having 10 show up to church on sunday and are now getting ready to fill up all the baptismal tanks on the islands! The church of elder (Igreja de élder) as they call it here truly is growing really fast! The mission average for baptisms last year was 25 a month...The mission average now is usually 125 to 140 a month! I think a lot of the difference is our new mission president. He was a CEO for some big company in America and as a child his family was all military... What that means for me is that he is running this mission as a fortune 500 company would be run with an extra drop of super shined shoes, extra ironed shirts and pressed pants as would be done in the Brasilian Army. As for my week... I have been unofficially called as the new relief society teacher... It's was a little bit of a challege as first because I showed up to church and then after 20 minutes of nothing happening in RS they handed me a copy of the teachings of Lorenzo Snow book I had never seen before in my life and told me I was called to serve! In the end though It turned out to be a good class. Yesterday at church I basically did the same thing, the only difference was I found out saturday afternoon. 

    Love ya,

 Elder Edwards.
January 28,2013

One Year Down, One To Go!

We got the wonderful opportunity to speak to Elder Edwards on Christmas. It was such a blessing. He is doing great and loving the work. His only complaint was the high price of food in the tiny market where he is living. Matt says he eats more rice and beans than he would like. If anyone was thinking of sending a package any time soon I'm sure some American food would be appreciated ;) Also, if anyone wants to send anything you can drop it by my house (Heather) and I can mail it with our packages. E.E hasn't been gone a full year yet but thinks that the Mission Pres. will send him home a transfer early so he is able to make it home for Christmas 2013 and to start school back up in January 2014. So, from here on out the posts will be labeled Year Two to reference back to. Love you Matty!

Bom Dia,

  This week I had a chance to tan and to even get a little red on the neck. The work here is starting up again. We had a lot of investigators and we baptized them and then during the holiday season we didn't find a lot of people because everybody was partying and doin' worldly things. I hope all is well and that you guys aren't freezing!!!

 

To Mission Pres,

 This week I truly saw the fruits of my labor. On Sunday, after the branch had been struggling to find worthy and willing men to fill the leadership positions I had a great opportunity to watch one of my recent converts named Ady, who may be the most converted convert I have, be called to serve as our new ward mission leader. We have also have started to teach all of Ady's family and to add to the joy of his new calling his mom, for her first time ever came to visit The Church of Jesus Christ. Ady went up to the stand and with all the sincerity of his heart bore his testimony about his love for his mother and his love for the gospel and how today he got to see them both together. I don't think that there was one person in the room who didn't have at least one tear in their eye. 
Then to add one more thing to the joy of it they called the father of our beloved family that just got baptized and married to be the 2nd councilor of the branch. With the fullness of my heart, today and I hope for all eternity, I know that Christ lives and that his gospel blesses families.

Busy Boy.

Elder Edwards has been working his butt of lately (10 baptisms this week!) so he hasn't had time to email everyone who emails him. Don't feel bad if you haven't heard from him in a while. Each week he is required to email his Mission President so Matt has decided to just copy and paste those emails for us to keep up on his work. Here is this weeks update:

Buenos tardes. I have been working on my spanish lately. I plan to speak it fluently before I make it home. I was planning on calling you guys about the same time as last year, maybe an hour earlier. This year I realized how awesome Thanksgiving is and how when you dont know what day it was until it passes its kind of a sad holiday. We didnt have our phone that day so the next day when we got it back we had recieved a bunch of Happy thanksgivings texts. Looks like everyone else knew what day it was. 

   This week is going to be CRAZY!!! This whole transfer we have been working with all of our people and planning their baptisms for the last week of the Transfer. Also our wedding, due to a poorly organized government, was delayed until tomorrow. As of right now we have 10 baptism that are all pretty solid for the end of this week. One baptism is kinda stressful trying to do everything, 2 is really stressful and exhausting, 3 is a killer. 10 is going to be a nightmare. Pray for us please... we are going to need it!

    Why do you have to get a cancer screenning? that sounds kinda scary.. It was good to hear that Katie got her letter I was hoping she was gonna like it. Thanks for saving my emails. You shouldve told me that. I wouldve been in more effort. I will email janet right now. Also I got the bank info finally i will send that back soon. 

        This week I took your challenge and I have been working to improve my morning and night time prayers. I have started praying for each investigator by name and taking each of their problems one at a time. I have really seen that the Holy Ghost will direct our prayers and also he will inlighted us about problems or doubts they have that we dont know about. This has been a valuable lesson to learn and I will definitely continue to improve on this. (to mission pres)