Adelçio

Hey everybody!

How are you guys doing?

Alright, we had a cool experience this week. It was Wednesday night and we had not been by to visit a recent convert. We were coming back from the market and we passed by her house. We decided that we needed to stop by the very next day. So, we go to Val's house (the recent convert) to see how she is doing and there was this other guy there talking with Val's son. We were just sitting there talking and I didn't even have the feeling to talk to the guy, but then he asked the key question, "How did the Mormon Church start?" The gloves were off at that point. We then had an amazing lesson and invited him to be baptized the next Sunday, but then we got on the subject of smoking and the Word of Wisdom and we learned that he smokes a pack a day, which is around 21 cigarettes. 

(how the Elders have to wash their socks)

We made goals for him to stop smoking slowly. We made a goal for him to smoke 15 on Friday, 10 Saturday, 5 Sunday, and 1 or 2 Monday, and 0 by Tuesday. We made up a contract and he signed it. We left there feeling good and we set up an appointment to see him the next day (Friday), but we missed the appointment because we had to go to Cumbica to do some baptismal interviews for my district. We were super bummed and we felt  bad because we didn't get home until late. 

(Digital Jesus graffiti) 

On Saturday we went to his house and we had a long talk. The interesting part was Friday night I had a dream that we were talking to Adelçio (that is the name of our investigator) and he told us that he only smoked 6 cigarettes on Friday and 0 on Saturday. I woke up Saturday morning and told Elder Hanni that I had a weird dream and he said,"Hmmm that was a very specific dream." Then we go to Adelçio's house and we were talking and we got on the subject of his smoking and told us that he only smoked 6 cigarettes on Friday and none that day (which was Saturday). I was stunned! I stopped and asked,"Wait, you only smoked 6 yesterday and none today?" (just to be sure i wasn't crazy) And he replied,"Yes! And I'm feeling great!" As Elder Hanni and I were walking away, Elder Hanni just shoves me and says,"Dude, you're weird!" It was a really cool experience for me and really shows how the Spirit lets us really know our investigators.

We went by Adelçio's house on Sunday to go pick him up and take him to Church and he wasn't home. I was disappointed and we left to go look for our other investigators. When we got to Church we saw Adelçio was already there chatting with everybody. It was amazing! I loved seeing him there so happy and making friends, and to me, that was a miracle.

Well, I love you guys! I will talk to you next week!

Love,

Elder McKeon

("Tell Jan The Man that this one is for him. These cows just walk around right by our house! -- Elder McKeon)