The 400 Yard Sprint

Have you ever run the 400? Well, if you have you know that in the last 35 to 45 meters it's pure guts. Your body doesn't have much to offer but you just keep running. That's exactly how I feel every night. This week was an amazing week full of tears. Yep, tears. I cried. It's just amazing to see the miracles of God in these last 4 weeks that I have.
It's not that I'm spiritually drained this week, but I'm physically tired. Seriously, like the last 35 yards of the 400 yard sprint. I'm just giving everyday my everything and its paying off. I don't think my feet, knees, back and even my shoulders have ever hurt so much, but I don't think that I have ever had a bigger smile on my face than I do now. I love being a missionary. :)

Next week we will have the baptism of Camilla. She is a special story. When my companion and I first got here in the area, we met her. She is a daughter of a recent convert. So we started to teach her and we wanted to baptise her but she basically didn't want anything to do at all with the Gospel. She basically called us stupid and said that the Church is false and that we are going to hell. So we pumped the breaks and let her do her thing. Well... Heavenly Father works his magic. Come to find out that she watched General Conference with her dad on the computer at home. She basically took a round house kick from the Spirit and became humble. She showed up at church and so we went back to see her and asked her how she was doing. She basically broke down in tears and was asking us for forgiveness to have thought that the Gospel was false. She has had some really marked spiritual experiences in the last week. She explained that she prayed to God and the Spirit responded to her and said here take this, this is all you need. So while she was explaining all this she said, "Yes, yes, I will be baptised and I'll be baptised on the 24th." So we said, OK. She is all ready to be baptised. After the lesson, Dean, her dad came to me and said; "Thank you, thank you sooo much for you work." Man, I just love being a missionary. I love helping these people out, all day, every day. It's amazing.
We also found a lady, Valeria, clapping doors. We taught her one of the most "authoritative" lessons ever. I don't know if that makes sense. But basically I just taught with authority, and she had no way to escape. She accepted a baptismal date for the 1st of May. Happy birthday Robbie. I'll give you and the Lord a baptism.
I just want to thank you all for sticking with me during my mission.
I love you all. :)
I'll try to bring some Brazilian stuff home. Some original stuff. Not just the tourist junk. haha :)
I love you guys so much.
Know that the Church is true.
Elder Manis