Wednesday, December 31, 1969

This evening we visited in the home of Gilberto da Silva, the irmão we baptized a few weeks ago. I am gladdened to see his progress. He is a simple uninstructed man but warm in friendship and love. He reads the Book of Mormon slowly but understands and enjoys it. It is difficult to tear him away from the chapel after meetings (as if we cared to) because he loves to meet with everybody present. His lovely wife, Laura, has not yet been able to attend church and therefore has not yet been prepared for baptism. She cannot read but seems to understand well what we have explained to her. She was not home this evening.

The wick of another year has burned down to its very last. Just a few hours remain before we begin marking time with a new number. The last year has gone so quickly. I call it the best and most fruitful year of my life, hoping the new year to be even better and more fruitful, just as 1969 surpassed 1968 and 1968 outdid 1967. That is progress: the only direction in which I care to travel.

We are teaching right now a wonderful little family that look really sharp. Miguel and Lúcia Fernandes da Silva are the names of the couple. They have a son, Wagner, and a daughter, Silvinia, aged four and three respectively. We encountered the wife on December 23 while tracting in the rain. She told us to return the next afternoon because her husband would be home on Christmas Eve. On the next afternoon, raining still, we returned and were well received, marking a first lesson for Saturday afternoon, December 27. They accepted the first lesson well, came to sacrament meeting the next evening, and received the Book of Mormon two days ago. This afternoon, while working with Elder Knight, zone leader, I stopped by and we thoroughly checked out their lineage, only to find out that she has no idea whatsoever of her family because she was adopted when she was three months old. He is descended from Indian, Peruvian, and Japanese ancestors. He also is an orphan, raised by an American family.

Brazil tonight enters the New Year with noise and festivities. At midnight most of the spiritualists gather on the beaches in their biggest annual orgy to honor their patron saint or whatever.