This week was awesome! On this Monday my companion and i decided to spend the second half of the day only speaking Portuguese! It was hard but we were super successful and only needed to revert to English to get our point across I think only two or three times. We are planning on speaking only Portuguese the entire day next Monday. So far I've got the First Vision, Doctrine and Covenants Section 4, the baptismal prayer, how to invite people to be baptized, James 1:5, and the missionary purpose memorized in Portuguese. The Lord really helps out with learning the language!
I really liked General Conference. One of my favorite talks was the one where Elder Perry talked about the Articles of Faith and how they teach the doctrine of the gospel in a concise way. It reminded me of the time that he talked to me when I served him a lunch when he was in Fort Collins for a Priesthood leadership training thing; and asked to see if I knew the Articles of Faith. Shortly thereafter he had me recite the thirteenth one :) After that he explained how the Articles of Faith teach the Gospel of Christ in the order that we normally end up learning it. In his talk he shared how the Articles of Faith teach us basic things like the nature of the Godhead, that we are responsible for what we do, and that we need the Atonement of Christ. It was extra cool to hear it in conference since it was kind of like a little spiritual nudge of 'Hey! Don't forget the Articles of Faith, they will help you and others be happier!" The other General Conference talks were really good too, but it would take more than the email time I have to say how awesome they all were!
One thing that I forgot to put in the main letter about general conference that was cool was that in Elder Neil L Anderson's talk the family that he talked about is my mission presidents family! I didn't hear much more than that about the story Elder Anderson said since my district and I were muttering hushed excited whispers to each other such as... " LOOK! its our Mission President up there on the screen in General Conference!" We probably should of paid more attention to what was actually said but it was still really cool to have our Mission President's picture just show up in General Conference! :)
This is an addition put in by Cory's Mom. It is a really awesome story about Cory's future mission president's family. His name is Adalton Parrella. This is from the talk by Neil L. Anderson on Priesthod Power.
"“We lived several years in Brazil. Soon after arriving, I met Adelson Parrella, who was serving as a Seventy, and his brother Adilson, who was serving in our stake presidency. Later I met their brother Adalton, serving as a stake president in Florianopolis, and another brother Adelmo, serving as a bishop. I was impressed by the faith of these brothers, and I asked about their parents.
The family was baptized in Santos, Brazil, 42 years ago. Adilson Parrella said, “At first, Father seemed very excited about joining the Church. However, he [soon] became less active and asked our mother not to attend church.”
Adilson told me that his mother sewed clothing for the neighbors to pay for her children’s bus fare to church. The four little boys walked together over a mile to another town, boarded the bus for 45 minutes, and then walked another 20 minutes to the chapel.
Although unable to go to church with her children, Sister Parrella read the scriptures with her sons and daughters, taught them the gospel, and prayed with them. Their humble home was filled with the rich blessings of priesthood power. The little boys grew up, served missions, were educated, and married in the temple. The blessings of the priesthood filled their homes.
Years later, as a single sister, Vany Parrella entered the temple for her own endowment and, later still, served three missions in Brazil. She is now 84 years old, and her faith continues to bless the generations that have followed her.”
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