Your Best Can Always Be Better

Me and President Tavares

Beautiful trees in Assis

Cool little bridge

This week was good as usual. Time is flying by super fast. Time flies when you are “besties” with your companion.

Well, the World Cup is over. Parabéns to España! I guess Brazil has to go back to work now.... haha. (parabéns = congratulations)

Right now it is rather nippy, and rainy, I feel right at home – weather is just like in Seattle... granted, nippy here is like 65 degrees.

Sunday was kind of a bummer. None of our investigators came to church! Boo! Agosto is still at the farm. Flavi and Flori had to entertain guests, and everyone else is just lazy. Flavi and Flori are the best though. Flori is pretty active in another church and one of her friends told her that she can’t leave them. Flori told her that she is not in it for friends, she wants to follow the right path, and that this is where Jesus wants her to go. (Yeh!). They are both way cool. After their lesson we taught another lady and I went to open my bag and here was a flippin’ gecko in there! It scared the junk out of me!

We found this sweet creek and I was trying to feed the fish, but it didn’t work because my pen fell in the water and scared them all -- and there was no way I was sticking my hand in there to find it! There could be piranha! I liked that pen, too.

So we had zone conference on Monday and we got to meet President Tavares and fam, and they are waaayyy cool. Completely opposite of the Leals. President Leal spoke softer and slower, and President Tavares is the opposite, and gets way excited. But they are equally spiritual. He got right to it, and talked about pride, because pride leads to most other sins. He talked about the 3 types of pride; looking above, equally and below, and the different forms, ie: comparison, and how that can lead to feelings of hate and covetousness. It was a good little talk.

He also talked about the story of Naman the leper and the Prophet Elijah, and how he had to wash in the River Jordan seven times. Then he talked about how there are seven things that we need to do to have miracles here:

- We need to ask the Lord to open our mouths and speak through us
- We need to have at least 4 people progressing
- We need to follow up with them daily if possible
- 20 quality lessons per week
- Weekly baptisms. This will be the hardest for our mission, but then he shared Alma 26:22 (see below), and said we need to do those and have faith.
- Study with our companions daily
- Obey with exactness

Surely it will work. I know that President Tavares is really an inspired man and I know that he has the capacity to change the mission if we give heed to his words. He then shared Jacob 1:19 (see below), which he used to inspire us to do better. I will do better. Your best can always be better.

Tchau!
Elder Titus

Alma 26:22 “Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentence, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren to repentance.”

Jacob 1:19 “And we did magnify our office unto the Lord, taking upon us the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we did not teach them the word of God with all diligence; wherefore, by laboring with our might their blood might not come upon our garments; otherwise their blood would come upon our garments, and we would not be found spotless at the last day.”