Mais uma semana🙃

 Monday, September 23, 2024; Floresta Ward, Rio Branco, Acre, Brazil:

Eai gente, tudo bem?

This week was pretty normal. Hot, smoky.

My companion kept talking everyday this week about the actual temperature and what it felt like. Let's just say 37°c was the cooler side...

This week one of the days we ate some fresh pineapple... so much sweeter here than in the states. Fruit is so much more a part of the diet here, and there's a lot more variety. One day a member gave us a dessert -kind of like a mix of pudding and ice-cream. It had a layer of maracujá, a layer lemon, and chocolate. It was super tasty!  

There was a boy that came to church last week, so we passed by his house to teach him. He was playing soccer in the street so we started walking with him there. But that lesson ended quickly when his neighbor came outside and started smoking. It really ruined the mood. 

Terere (grassdrink) is so much better with juice then just with water.

This week really struck me the influence that youth have, and how much good they can do, how much they can help their friends and the world. 

On Sunday Ketlen was baptized! She asked me to baptize her! Afterward she asked if she could cry, she was so happy. I love seeing the change in the course of someone's life when they are converted to Christ. 

This week I was thinking about a decision that I needed to make, that will affect a few things in my future. I talked with my Mission President some about it, about the options I had. He was supportive in whatever decision I had to make. While the decision in the end may not matter too much, I decided I would fast and pray about it, and I was thinking that it maybe would be this really spiritual experience. Not that it wasn't... but what actually happened reminded me of a talk I heard a few years ago. 

The speaker shared that she knew people who received personal revelation and help from God in different ways. Some had dreams, others heard a voice in their heads. For many it is feelings in the heart or mind. And for some it may be more logical, something that just makes sense. 

As I thought over my decision, I did my due diligence looking at the costs and benefits of each plausible answer. The more I thought about it, the more logical the decision became. 

A decision I had thought difficult and needed a big 'sign' to know what to do became simple and logical. It showed me one of the ways the Holy Spirit speaks to me. I also can see that for me that answer came logically, but for some people that same thought process still wouldn't do it. They would need more to decide the same thing. 

Each of us can feel the Holy Spirit and receive personal revelation in different ways. Each of us is different, and so we receive God's help and understand things a little differently. 

My question for each of you is this: 

How do you receive personal revelation? How do you hear God's voice in your life? 

That's it for this week, but love all of y'all, hope y'all have an awesome week!!

Elder David Olson

Missão Brasil Manaus Sul

Pics-Just 2, didn't take many this week

-Ketlen!

-Elder Santos and I