One morning a few months ago,Marsh and I drove two hours to a charming little tree-shaded town called Amparo for a baptismal interview with an investigator who hoped to be baptized that afternoon. It is a city of lovely cathedrals, leafy plazas and stone streets.
The branch president met us at a stop along the road and guided us to the rented building where the members meet on the second floor. This young branch president was dressed in a suit and white shirt and tie and had such a spirit of goodness and light about him. I could feel how proud he was of ‘his’ meetinghouse as he led us through each clean and airy room.
While Marsh conducted the interview, I did my best to talk with a little family whose twelve year old son was waiting for a baptismal interview, too. Claudio, a counselor in the branch presidency joined us. During our conversation I asked him if he was a convert or had been born into the Church. He answered that he joined the Church at eighteen years of age against the wishes of his family and today he is still the only member in his family. Then he told me the story of his conversion some twenty years before.
Something very difficult had happened to him, and for the first time in his life he prayed to God for help and direction. He had never heard of the Church. That afternoon there was a knock on his door and he opened it to find two missionaries standing there. They were looking for a referral with the same first name of Claudio but had mistakenly come to the wrong address and had the wrong man.
'Claudio, we’ve come to teach you,’ they said, thinking that he was their referral. He had never seen them before, and was shocked when they called him by name, but he believed that God had sent them to him. He invited them in and listened to the first discussion. At the conclusion of the lesson one of the elders asked him if he would pray to know if their message was true and he said that he would not. Surprised, the elder asked him why not and he answered that he already knew it was true. His father was furious with his decision to be baptized and wanted to stop it, but Claudio knew that the missionaries had been sent to him in answer to his fervent prayer and that their message was true. Claudio is still the only one in his family who has joined the Church.
Claudio is on the left.
This is where the Branch meets upstairs. You can see the Church's sign on the railing above Marsh and the Branch President.
Amparo has a tranquil feeling in it. Love this little town.
This is a little park in the town with phones that are affectionately called 'big ears'. Guess why.
Notice the hand laid stones streets and the intricately patterned stonework of the sidewalk in front of the branch meeting house.
I love the soft colors of the buildings and the flower boxes in the windows. The blue building on the left is another cathedral.
In our mission I hear many versions of stories like Claudio's. So many members are converts and everyone has a story to tell of their conversion. Most of our Brazilian missionaries are converts themselves and often have only been members just long enough be able to go through the temple. They come with a great desire to serve a mission and with much still to learn about the Church.
Marsh and I attended a Stake Conference where a counselor in the Area Presidency, President Godoy, asked the convert members to stand. Most of the congregation did. Then he asked everyone whose parents had joined the Church to stand. It seemed like everyone else got up. He asked all third generation members to stand and a scattering of people rose. Finally, he asked if there were any fourth generation members in the congregation. One man raised his new baby high above his head. The Church is in its infancy here and growing rapidly.
The Church in Brazil began slowly in 1923 when a Mormon mother and four daughters emigrated from Germany with their non-member father who later joined the Church.
In 1928, the first mission in South America was opened in Buenos Aires and two German-speaking missionaries were sent to Brazil. They baptized just one German family of five.
In 1935, Brazil opened its first mission in Curitiba.
In 1937, the Book of Mormon was translated into Portuguese and the next year the missionaries began teaching the Gospel in that language. President Faust was part of that first small group of missionaries. He arrived in Brazil with no language training, just a study guide for learning the language as he went. He found and baptized just one young family in his three years in Brazil.
In 1940 there were only 200 members in all of this enormous country. Ten years later there were 1000. Eight years later, in 1958, there were 3,700 members and from that point on the Church began to expand rapidly.
Eight short years later, in 1966, Marsh arrived in Brazil as a young missionary just three days after the first stake was formed. There were 34,000 members, 1 stake, 2 missions, and no temples. Today, 45 years later (just a blink) Brazil has well over 1 million members, 240 stakes (the most of any country outside of the US), 27 missions and soon will have its 7th temple. I am very grateful that Marsh and I can be part of this great work here in Brazil. It's a special place to be a missionary and to get to know wonderful pioneer Saints like Claudio.
