Dear everyone,

Well I passed a long week of training for the new program that the First Presidency approved for every mission in the world and it was great. I learned so many useful things that will change my mission and the rest of my life.
We had an amazing experience last week while I was working with two Elders in Campinas during our training. Elder Ficklin and Elder Steck. We had finished our training for the day and we were off to the area of Elder Steck, Costa e Silva. We taught one lesson and then we hit the streets to find new people to teach. As we walked we saw a shadowed figure below a giant tree. I noticed that he was smoking weed, so when I saw Elder steck going there to contact him I said that that might not be the best idea. Elder Steck said ´´Só vai´´, which is probably the brazilian equivalent of ´´just do it.``
So we talked to him. When we started the conversation the man was licking his blunt and preping it to smoke. Elder Steck spoke of how we were representatives of Jesus Christ, sent to help him have more peace and happiness. The man said that he was getting ready to baptized in another church, but that he started smoking again, so he stopped going to that church. He then said that it he will stop in the future, but that he doesn´t want to right now. He said that he was 17 and he already had a child and another one on the way. I asked him what type of example he would like to give to his children, and he said ´´Surely not this one.``
I told him if he wanted to change and bless the life of his children and wife, he needed to stop now. He looked at me and then ripped his blunt in two and tossed it on the ground, he then removed a plastic bag from his pocket filled with weed and dumped it on the ground too. I then invited him to guide us to his house so that we could teach him. He accepted.
As we walked there we reaccounted the story of how that morning, he had prayed asking Heavenly Father to send someone to halp him because he was feeling so weak. He then said that he had already smoked once that day in that exact same spot. He told us that as he was returing to that same spot to smoke again that night, he heard a voice in his head saying ´´Don´t go there! Smoke somwhere else!`` He said that he recognized the voice as Satan. He said he pushed onn to where he felt he needed to go, where we met him.
That is just one of the many miracles that I see daily as a missionary. I am so thankful for this opportunity.
We are also teaching a women named Andea who always has tons of questions about the plan of salvation, which we are finally going to teach her tonight. I can´t wait.
i LOVE YOU NOODLE, YOU ARE THE BEST LITTLE SISTER EVER AND WAY TO GO ON YOUR BAPTISM!!!!!

-Elder Nothum