Oi, como vai? In case you were wondering, no I did not end up playing a musical number for President Ballard. I did play a musical number and was the pianist for our last Zone Conference with Elder Eddy of the Seventy, but for whatever reason Elder Ballard wasn’t there. I’d blame it on a misunderstanding of the President’s email from last week, but my companion also read that he would come, so maybe it wasn’t a language barrier.
This week I want to tell you all a little story about my new friend Manuel Batista. About a month ago, when I was with Sister Perri, we found this older senhor, Manuel Batista, who was just walking the streets of Bom Conselho and we gave him a quick little message and an invitation to come to church. Later that week, we found him again on another street corner and did the same thing. To our surprise, when we walked into church on that Sunday, he was already there.
That Sunday was fast Sunday and Manuel stood up and gave a simple and powerful testimony about Christ being our leader and teacher. It was quite epic and we immediately tried to get his information after that meeting to try and make visits in his home. My last week with Sister Perri, we tried to find his house, because on Sunday he gave us a general location. However, we never found it and we also didn’t encounter him in the street again.
We assumed that would be the end of Manuel Batista. When Sister Leopoldes and I walked into church after a week of not being in Bom Conselho, I was surprised again to find Manuel already sitting there ready. We tried getting his information again, he gave us a new address which normally would be a bit suspicious but he’s an older senhor and we thought he had memory problems.
We went to the address he gave us, which was not his house but was the house of a part-member family that was inactive. They were really receptive and interested in coming back to church. Luckily, they were also friends with Manuel and helped us find his real address. In the first lesson in his house, we invited him to be baptized and he agreed.
All of last week we visited and taught Manuel. Although Manuel can’t read, he has a great memory for scriptures and can recite almost anything in the Bible. When we were teaching about the Word of Wisdom, he stopped us and told us that he read in the Bible that drinking coffee was a sin and he stopped years ago. Sister Leopoldes was obviously very pleased but also very curious because every missionary wants better scriptures for the Word of Wisdom. We assumed that Manuel was just one of God’s elects and was blessed with an incredible ability to understand the will of God for him.
Yesterday, Manuel came to the church again and we presented him to the Bishop saying that he would be baptized this Saturday. Bishop welcomed him and started getting his information to fill out the baptism form while we went to the secretary’s office to print some things. 10 minutes later the Bishop walks in and says “Sisters, I’ve got some bad news.” He then proceeds to show us a baptism record from the year 1995 for a Manuel Batista. Bishop explained that all the information matched our Manuel and that unfortunately, but fortunately, our new friend was already a member of almost 30 years.
Later that day we went to Manuel’s house to try and figure out the situation. In our previous contacts, Manuel had never mentioned anything about already being a member. He told us he had never heard of the Book of Mormon, or ever spoken to missionaries before. When we talked to him yesterday after church we asked Manuel what he remembers about the year 1995, to which he said “Nothing”. We then explained that we have a record of his baptism in our church from the year 1995. He suddenly got a huge smile on his face and exclaimed “Now, I remember”. Turns out, Manuel actually does have a memory problem and sometime within the last 30 years just woke up one day and forgot that he was a member.
Although we were a little disappointed that we lost a baptism, we were so much more excited that we helped find this lost sheep and brought him back to the flock. He has good friends in the ward now so if he should wake up tomorrow forgetting everything, he won’t be lost for long this time. He also led us to another family that we are helping now which we probably would not have found without his help.
“But, behold, Zion hath said: The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me—but he will show that he hath not.
For can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, O house of Israel. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me” – 1 Nephi 21:14-16
Christ cannot and will not forget us. No matter how many times we may forget him, he is continually watching over us just waiting to show us that he’s there. Don’t let the world convince you that He’s abandoned you because he hasn’t and he won’t.
That’s all folks, tchau tchau for now!
Ame,
Sister Alyssa Grace
Bom Conselho, Brasil
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