"Holey" Shoe

Our elect...Jessica, can´t be baptized until her mom gives her permission...which could take a while. Her mom doesn´t even want to listen to any of the discussions, but she won´t let Jessica get baptized until she learns more about the church.

The Lord blessed us by sending 2 investigators to church that weren´t invited by anoyone. Last sunday we had a fireside about missionary work and as part of the fireside, the youth went out on the streets and handed out pass along cards. They gave one to a guy named Oscar and this Sunday Oscar came to church with his mom! We´re going to visit them this week and we´ll see what the Lord has planned for them! Really...the Lord is preparing this branch to split. This past Sunday we hit the big 100. 100 people were in the sacrament meeting this past Sunday!!! On average we have in the high 80´s or low 90´s so this is huge!

On a side note...today I will be buying some new shoes. Yup...my black pair has a lovely hole in the bottom which is not so great when it rains. We´re going to go looking around today and. . . I´ll buy a cheap pair that will last exactly 3 months :)

these are the prison bars that are on our windows...and all the other houses here in Brasil. I think it has something to do with break-ins.

BIG PATO...our yummy cheeseburger that was super romantic for valentine´s day.

JESSICA

HAPPY VALENTINE´S DAY!!!!! I hope that you´re having a great valentine´s day. Today to celebrate Sis. da Silva and I are going to eat cheeseburgers at a restaurant called Big Patos. I love how creative these brazillians are.

Last night we had a fireside for all of the returned missionaries in the ward and all of the youth. Of course the focus was...missionary work. We as missionaries got to share some experiences of life in the mission field and then the youth got to hit the streets. They knocked doors and passed out pass-along cards to people on the street. This would be a great activity to do on a stake level. I love being a missionary and I really hope that the activity excited some of the youth to serve missions too. They learned in 30 minutes that not everyone wants to accept the gospel, but that doesn´t give your a reason to not share it.

We´re teaching a girl named Jéssica. She´s accepted to be baptized and I really love teaching her. In fact, in every lesson that we´ve left with her, she end the lesson by bearing her testimony. She doens´t realize that she´s bearing her testimony...but she already knows that the church is true and that she wants to be a part of it.

Future Missionary

This week was a rush to get everything going with our "modest fashion show." We were running around confirming with the members who were given assignments and the youth who would be modeling. When Friday night came around, I was excited but also nervous. I´m learning how to delegate responsibilities here on the mission, but I´m still trying to overcome the "if I don´t do it, it won´t get done" syndrome. Apparently Sister da Silva alos has this complex :) Well...we marked for the models to be at the church 6:30 pm to do a quick run through before the activity started 7 pm. Well...the activity didn´t end up starting until almost 8 pm and there were models still showing up 8:40 pm! I was stressed, Sister da Silva was stressed, but in the end, the members really enjoyed the activity. The youth hammed it up on our red carpet and our presentor (who talks about what each model is wearing) was Irmã Sandra, and she stole the show with her witty comments. The missionaries ended up running home, which is nothing unusual with a branch activity because they always go until late.

The branch is setting some great goals in order to accomplish the big goal of dividing the branch into two. They´re focusing on passing more references to the missionaries and reactivating families. We´re going to be super busy this transfer trying to divide our time between less actives and investigators...but good news...Elaine is going to be baptized this Saturday and one of our old investigators...Gilvani (I think in past emails I wrote Geovane). He was traveling the past 3 weeks and everytime we called him to see if we could mark a lesson, he said that he was out of town and didn´t know when he would be returning. For missionaries this response is the response of someone trying to avoid the missionaries. Well...to our surprise he walked into Sunday school yesterday! Not only did he come to church, but while he was traveling, he found a church in the city he was visiting and attended these past few Sundays. Sister da Silva talked with him and he said that he wants to be baptized soon...we marked next Saturday! So we´ve got 2 baptisms marked and we´re excited to be so blessed with such great investigators! What a great way to start of the month!

I love the area, my companion and the work. The mission is without a doubt the hardest but most rewarding thing I´ve done in my life. This is why we´re looking and focusing on sending some people into the mission field. I´ve written my recent convert in Rio Verde, Samuel about serving a mission. He´s going to have his one year anniversary as a member in April. One year after being baptized you can send in your papers, so I´m hoping he´s getting ready!

Eunice, Ezequiel, Elaine, Rita

Another week flown by here in Patos de Minas. This week was pretty exciting because we got ELDERS!!!! Presidente Prieto really wants the branch to split, so he´s sending some help. We ´re hoping that not only our number of baptisms will increase but that we will be able to bring some less active members back to church

Sister da Silva have found some really great people to teach. Eunice and her son Ezequiel are full of questions and even when they have time to hear "a short lesson" they talk a ton and ask some really great questions. Tonight we´re going to give them the invitation to accept baptism. Our golden investigator Elaine. . . participates in the ward choir every Sunday night and even asked to be put on our lunch calendar! Rita, the mother of a missionary who´s serving in São Paulo is coming to church regularly on her own. This past week she turned down an invitation to go out and drink...success!!! She stopped making coffee at home...success!!! She just needs to stop drinking coffee while she´s working and gain a testimony of the gospel. She doesn´t want to be pressured into being baptized, so we´re focusing on reading the Book of Mormon with her every lesson. She has problems with her sight and can´t spend a lot of time reading. We´re hoping that with a testimony of the Book of Mormon she´ll also gain the desire to be baptized. I know that this would be the best news for her son in the mission field!

The members are ready to help with the work. With both elders and sisters both the Irmãos and Irmãs are going to be going on visits. They´ve been approaching us to pass references and offer to show us where some less active members live. I´m loving how involved they are becoming in the work!

This Friday the missionaries are going to be hosting a fashion show. We´re focusing on the youth, so they´ll be the models of modest clothing and we´re also going to be playing some games that touch on the topics of "For the Strength of the Youth." We´re excited and the members are excited, so it´s going to be a success!!!! (I´ll send photos next week.)



These photos have a great story. I sleep with my bed against the wall under the window. One night there was something banging around in the window and it woke me up 430 in the morning. I shown the cellular´s light but I didn´t see anything, so I tried to go back to sleep. Well...2 days later, the window wouldn´t close and when I looked to see what was blocking the window, I saw...photo number one!!!! Ugh! I couldn´t bring myself to go anywhere near the lizard, so Sis. da Silva braved it and tried pulling him out...until his tail fell off! With a ruler, toilet paper and a plastic bag, she managed to pry him out...so gross!!!! Another exciting adventure on the mission!!!

A Washing Machine!!!

This week was full of surprises! For starters Presidente Prieto visited our little city of Patos de Minas (almost said Rio Verde) and interviewed both Sis. da Silva and I. He also gave us the best news...we´re going to be getting elders this week!!!! He took a look @ the area map and decided that this area is too big for one companionship and that the sisters need to have Elders. This is going to help a ton with the work here in the city. We had 6 investigators at church this past Sunday and this shows that this city has a lot of potential and just needs a few more workers :)

We also got a new washing machine and a new blender!!! We spent our morning reading the instructions for the washing machine and setting him up. He works great and is super quiet that we have to check on him every once and a while just to make sure that he didn´t break.

One of our blessings...after washing clothes by hand for over a month this washing machine is the most beautiful thing we´ve seen.

Our golden investigator, Elaine, accepted a baptismal date for the 5th of February and is solid. We´re going to be teaching her the word of wisdom this week because she drinks coffee (along with the rest of Brasil). But she´s a nurse, so she´ll understand the need to stop drinking coffee. She doesn´t drink coke anymore. She stopped drinking a while ago because she realized that she was addicted. She admitted that she´s addicted to coffee, so we´re going to give her the brazillian substitute that´s called Cevada. It´s a barely based drink that smells like coffee but doesn´t have any caffeine. (I don´t know how to spell that). I drank some of this at a member´s house and it´s basically disgusting

I was reading today in Jacob 5 and it talks about how the servant called other servants to help in the vineyard...but the number of servants was few. Here on the mission, we are seriously seeing the results of few laborers. March 2, three sisters will be going home and not a single one will be arriving until April...our numbers of missionaries are really low here on the mission, so it´s good to hear that there are youth that are getting ready to serve missions. I love being a missionary...I love Patos de Minas...I love Sister da Silva...and I love the gospel of Jesus Christ!

My love for Patos...it´s such a pretty city

This view is close to our house and everytime I walk past it I have to stop a little while and just stare.

Hearing From Rio Verde

This week was really great and the Lord has been blessing us with really great investigators. Two days ago we got a reference from a member...a lady called her and asked where the church was in the city of Patos. Because she was specifically asking for the location of the chapel here, we thought she was just a less active member or someone who recently moved into the city...but when we visited her, it turns out her nephew is visiting the church in São Paulo and recommended her to find a church in her city. We taught her (Elaine) the first discussion and she accepted everything! She was super excited to visit the church the next day, so we arranged for a member to pick her up and bring her to church. She LOVED it! I´m super greatful for the help of members who really included her and helped form friendships super fast. Really, the members make such a big difference in an investigators search for the truth. We´ve marked to visit her again later this week and we´ll be challenging her to accept baptism!

Our recent convert Deise gave her first talk in sacrament meeting this week about Baptism...I received a letter today from Sister Silvera who is still serving in Rio Verde and she told me that my other recent convert, Nuria, also gave a talk about the Holy Ghost. I love, love, LOVE seeing these members grow in the gospel. I know that the gospel moves lives; I´ve seen lives moved. I´m greatful that the Lord is using me to introduce His church to these people in Brasil...I love these people in Brasil!!!!!!

I forgot to write about the pictures last week...Nilziele´s baptism and a street in our area called Pirolito..which means lollipop in english. This explains why we are both holding lollipops :) This week´s photos... Companion love (check out the sweet dress/jumper an Irmã gave me!)

Lunch time!!! feeding the chickens @ the house of one of the members.

NILZIELE!!!!

This week flew by...it seems that all the weeks are starting to fly by. I hope that everyone had a great new years and that you all stayed up until midnight! Sis. Da Silva and I were at home before 9:30 and in bed by 10:30. We only woke up at midnight because of all the fireworks. Brazilians really love their fireworks. It was weird that New Years felt like any other work day on the mission. We did our visits, had our lunch appointments, and then went and knocked doors.

We were really blessed this week and got to see some great results because of our work. This past Sunday we had 7 investigators come to church. All of them we´ve been teaching for a few weeks, but until this past Sunday, none of them had kept the commitment to go to church. It´s such a good feeling when people are finally commited to making changes in their lives. I think this is part of the New Year´s resolutions. But the 2nd miracle has to do with who got baptized this past Sunday!!!!! (look at the 2nd photo) NILZIELE!!!! After 2 months of trying to get her mom to sign her baptismal form, the Lord softened her heart and this past Wednesday she signed it! Nilziele was scheduled to be baptized on the first of January, but because all of the members were traveling or with family, we had to reschedule for Sunday morning. It was one of the quickest baptismal services I´ve attended, but there were lots of members that participated. Nilziele is a special little girl that will grow up strong in the gospel...we just need to teach her to like the Primary. She prefers to sit in Relief Society with us than to sing with the other children :) This is such a great start to a new year and I´m excited for all the things that the Lord is preparing for me!