Chamado a Servir em a Missão de Brasil Santos.

 

This is Moroni Kocinba.  He is a faithful young man from Beja.  We have been privileged to work with him as he prepared for and served a mini-mission here in Portugal a few months ago.  His father is also a good friend and has served in several positions in the Church.  His father also served his mission in Brasil several years ago.  Moroni will be serving in the São Paulo área of Brasil in Santos.  He called us this morning so excited to receive his papers and start preparing to leave.  He leaves the first part of September.  We are so excited for him and know that he will do well.  It is especially fun to see second generation faithful Mormons and the results of the wonderful blessings the Lord pours out on those that serve him.  This is a picture of Paula working with him on applications to attend BYU when he returns from his mission.

 

 

 

 

 

This is Moroni´s father on a service project with us at the beginning of our mission in Beja.  Brother Kocinba has been such a wonderful example for Moroni and we know how excited he is right now to see his son following in his footsteps.  When we go to Moroni´s farewell in a couple of months we will update this blog. 

 

We are finding wild flowers on our walks every day.  It is hard to keep Paula walking.  I keep looking around to find her and she is off picking more flowers.  It is a good thing that Portugal is abundant in wild flowers and there isn´t some law against picking them!  It´s a good thing we are not walking for the cadio-vascular aspect of walking!!

 

 

We finally found a street named after us, Casal Velho.  Yeah, it means Old Couple!  We went down this street and then up into the mountains behind us.  There is a winding walkway up the mountainside and rock walls all over the place.  If you look really close you can see some of the walls.  We are not sure why so many rock walls.  One lady there told us that is was to keep the animals contained and protected.  It had to take centuries to build all of these walls and walkways.  From a distance it did not look very pretty, but once on the hike we could nt believe the wild beauty.  It is amazing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Larry Rose, Paula Rose, Celina Banza, Augusto Banza

 

 

Here is one of the most exciting missionary emails we have received since being in Portugal.

 

"Queridos irmãos Rose: Aconteceu um grande milagre! Meu marido vai ser baptizado este Sábado,dia 20 de Abril,as 18 horas! Espero que possam vir! Por favor orem para que tudo de certo. Um grande abraço,   Celina"

 

And, a little history to give some perspective to what has happened here.

 

Celina has been a member now for 22 years.  She is faithful, goes to the temple, teaches SS, has 3 sons between 14 and 22 ... all members.  She also has a husband that just has not been able to pull the trigger and get baptized.  Until now.  We absolutely fell in love with this family while we were in Beja.  We had the opportunity to home teach while we were there with their faithful home teacher, President Ruberval.  He was constant.   Every month, and usually twice per month. They live in Aljustrel, about 40 minutes from Beja.  She frequently could not make it until SS time or Sacrament meeting time because Augusto and her sons (teenage boys) struggled to get up and on their way. He would stay in the car until Sacrament meeting, but almost always was there.  He is very timid and seldom makes eye contact.  We could not get him to pray out loud or even assign someone to pray.  Some of that personality will likely linger.  But, when we finally got to know him, which took forever, we finally got a glimpse into his heart.  It is good.  Celina had requested priesthood blessings on 3 occasions.  Each time he left the room.  The 4th time it was a blessing for their 17 year-old son.  This last time he stayed, and right behind my shoulder.  I didn´t think much about it until now.  But after that he started to talk with us about little things, things like their olive trees and the planting season for his wheat fields and potato gardens. Once he saw our family on our laptop, and wanted to go through every little boring photo of our children and grandchildren.  It surprised us. To be honest, we hardly ever talked about the gospel with him, at least not formally.  We did go out to lunch with them a couple of times, but mostly to relax and enjoy. Paula and Celina have become fast friends. Our missionaries, and specifically our sister missionaries, did make great efforts and continued to teach in their home.  I am sure they made a huge difference even though the Banza family has had missionaries in their home over all of these years. I would like to know the secret of the Lord´s timing in this.  I do know that Celina has been heart-sick for years and as been forever praying and fasting for this day.  Obviously she is also doing the same for her teenager boys.  So many times we have had discussions with her about patience and faith and trials and tribulations ... and the Lord´s timing.  I can honestly tell you that I didn´t expect this right now, although I did feel it would happen some day.  Celina´s consistency and faith and prayers and patience has brought forth fruit.  So has the work of a faithful and constant home teacher and BP.  So has the continuous work of our faithful missionaries who did not give up.  This is a testament to me as I look at these three groups of persistent members and missionaires of the principle of "never, never, never give up".  Even for one man, one baptism that takes 22 years!

 

What a wonderful work.  Paula and I are so blessed to be here and see the Lord´s hand so profoundly involved in the lives of His children.  Augusto was baptized by his 17-year-old son Daniel.