Why hello!
I hope you are all ready for a great twist in my mission! I no longer am a member of the Brazil Cuiabá Mission! Can you believe it? I couldn´t either! I am in the Brazil Manaus Mission! The first Pres. bumped Porto Velho and Acre out of the Cuiaba Mission and put us in Manaus. Where the heck is Manaus? It is where two rivers join together forming the Amazon River . . . yep that's right . . . I am now an official jungle boy!!! It has been a little tough because some great friends are still in the Cuiaba Mission.
Everyone is talking about my release date . . . and to be honest . . . I have no idea when I will come home now! It could add some time to my mission or cut time off. So if you want to come get me the Amazon River is calling your name!!!! I am excited because Manaus will have a temple in about a year which will be amazing for recent converts! Pres. milder called us last week and said "I have a letter from the first Pres. that I need to read to you." He then read that starting July 1st we would be a part of Manaus. I was shocked! I just looked at Elder Windley with my jaw on the ground. However, I am still in Tancredo Neves. We have three baptisms marked for this Sunday. It could be more, but we´ll see. We have a lot of kids who could be baptised. We had an activity on Sat. that the members went into the streets inviting people to come to church and receive the missionary lessons. It was a good activity. There was a giant group of girls who went out and found . . . pretty much an entire primary that they brought to church. The Primary Pres. was shaking my hand saying thank you all day. So that's why . . . if we want to, we can baptize lots more people this Sunday. Oh I forgot... we baptized on Sunday. When Elder Windley showed up he asked who I had prepared to baptize on Sunday . . . said "nobody." He replied with faith, "the Lord will give us somone." It was Thursday . . . bytheway. That same day we found someone. His name is Carlos. He had gone to church but I thought he was a child (11yrs old or less have to go to church four times to be baptized.) He ended up being 12 yrs old and really wanted to be baptized. He is Ramons friend. We asked his mom if she would let him be baptized, she said of course! She wants him to be a missionary. He was baptized and now his mom, Ivanete, and two friends, Maikon and Lucas, have dates set for this Sunday. What a miracle! We taught our zone about miracles. And I would love to share with you what I learned this week. Well, in order to perform miracles you need faith. To have faith you need to be righteous. And to be righteous you need to be obedient to the comandments. So it works like this-OBEDIENCE-RIGHTEOUSNESS-FAITH-MIRACLES. We taught this to our zone. We need to be 100% obedient to the rules to live in righteousness. And when we live in righteousness we will build stronger faith. What is faith? Everyone always think that faith is like a little seed . . . if planted it will grow, or it's to believe in things we can't see. That's our Primary knowledge of faith. There is a conf. talk about faith, and he said that yes, hope and believing in things you can't see are types of faith. However, faith is power, power to perform miracles. In the book "teachings of the prophet Bringham Young" it says that faith is the power of God. So why could Jesus Christ perform miracles? He never broke rules or commandments . . . so his faith was perfect. Our faith can grow through our obedience to the gospel. Sister Dalton talked about how Pres. Hinkley told her after her wedding that there will be times in her life that we will need immediate blessings, live in a way that the lord will grant those blessings to you because you are worthy, not out mercy. "I the lord am bound when you do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." Or in other words "Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you." Obedience is the key to opening the door to miracles. As a missionary I can ask for miracles to happen in the work, and they will be performed according to my obedience, righteousness, and faith.
I love being a missionary. I know this church is true and I love helping others know its true as well.
I love you all!
Elder Perry