For some time now we have been teaching Lidya. She is 17 and lives in the house next to the church. She lives with her 2 older brothers and her Mom and Dad live in some other state. She has been going to church, activities, and all the baptisms we've had over these past few weeks. So to say the least she is amazing. The problem is that her Dad is a Pastor and he really doesn´t like Mormons. Her brothers don´t support her being baptized again. Basically she is all alone.
She was really nervous to follow the spirit and be baptized because she was scared that her father would abandon her.
It was Saturday night and we had ward conference at the church. As we were getting ready to go home after a long day we saw that the Bishop was talking to Lidya. He called us over and asked if we could give her a blessing of health.
We asked what she was feeling and she told us she had a head ache, chills, fever, and that her body was just hurting. She was trying to fight back the tears but it didn´t do much good. Then she asked if I could give her a blessing. I was really thrown off because I never have given a blessing in a time of such need. I was super nervous and I was embarrased because of my Portuguese. But I did the best I could while listening to the Spirit. Then her brothers took her to the hospital. Afterwards we started to walk back to thehouse and I was really frustrated because I thought that I didn´t give a good blessing, that I had blown my chance to help our investigator. I was really down on myself.
The next Monday we went to see how she was doing. At first Elder Labrada and I thought that her fire to be baptized had disappeared and that she didn´t want anything to do with us. Then her brother left the room and she told us something that I will never forget, never in my life. She said after that blessing she felt perfectly fine; it was as if all the pain in her body was taken from her. She felt it immediately after the blessing. She said: "the blessing was one of the few times in my life that I felt the presence of God".
She said on the car ride to the hospital her brother were telling her, its ok to cry let it out, but she just told him "I don´t need to cry I feel perfectly fine". After she told us this she said Now I know this church is true and I don´t have any other option other than to be baptized this Sunday. I looked over at my comp and we made eye contact, he was in tears and then I realized that I was also in tears.
I have always heard of the miracle of the Priesthood when Jesus was on the earth curing everyone, during the time of Joseph Smith, and even people told me about experiences that they have had. But for the first time in my life I saw and felt the healing powers of the Priesthood in my life. The Priesthood is the power of God that was given to man to maintain his Church. I already knew without a doubt that this is the Church of Jesus Christ before this miracle but it reconfirmed and strengthened my testimony of the Priesthood powers.
Lidya was baptized yesterday! A lot of people came to her baptism and the ward was really happy that she chose to be baptized. Lidya spoke with her parents and they let her be baptized! We were pretty surprised actually because we thought that they wouldn't...
Sorry this letter is long, I felt inspired to share this experience that I had here in Brasil being a servant of the Lord. Its to bad I don´t have more time because there we countless of amazing experiences that we had this week. I can´t believe this transfer is ending in one week. It felt like yesterday that I had arrived here in Palmas with Elder Sales.
Thank you for the letters and I hope everything has a great Easter!
http://www.mormon.org/easter?cid=HP_FR_3-27-2015_dMIS_fMRMN_xLIDyL1-A_
Com Amor,
Elder Seth
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