Sunshine From Brazil

Oi Mônica!

Como vai? O que aconteceria se eu escrevesse tudo em Português?! Seria chato né? So anyways, Hello family. Looks like it has been delightful up there. There is nothing better than hearing that my family is having a spiritual summer!! Isso aí! That makes a missionary happy! That’s crazy, I was telling my comp this week about summer vacation, and how in MY FAMILY it’s awesome because we never stop at home. Next summer, right? 

So guess what! I got the Christmas package! Ha, I liked it a lot! Everyone in the Zone thinks I have to be the most spoiled missionary. Ha, I liked the photo album that you sent. I joked about it, how my Mom just sent me a bunch of trunky photos of my last few days in Logan and me saying goodbye to everyone. (I was hoping for some pics of like Lacrosse, karate, etc... things that show my life as before, ya know) Ha, when my comp saw the picture of me saying bye to Mom he said. Wow, that’s got to be the trunkiest picture I have ever seen! Ha, but he liked to see the pics. He confessed, Wow, you have a good life, you actually left behind a lot. Me.... YUP! Ha, he sees me as a super anti-trunky Elder so he probably thinks I didn’t like home or was running away. But we all know that is not true. Thank you family. You all are the best!

Sooo for the week. Well it was the first week of the transfer. One thing I started to do is let my Comp have more responsibility in the work. It was funny because he told me he wants more and I told him, “Alright... today you are senior”. Ha, and he freaked out. But it appears that God wanted it to happen as well because 4 days out of the week I didn’t have my planner because it got locked inside the bishop’s office. So that was good. Also I am responsible for 2 duos of Sisters now, I want to be a good leader so I have been setting District goals with them and following-up every night. The downside is the little free time that I have every night is very little now.

The members this week have been helping us a lot. The baptism we had, Ivanilda, had a lot of help from the members. One night we marked to do an FHE at the house of a member who lived in an area where usually we didn’t work. That night a member flagged us down in the streets and took us to the house of Ivanilda. Earlier that week Ivanilda was talking to this member and asked her which Church she goes to and the member testified about the Church. She wanted to go, but the member said she’d need to talk to the missionaries first. So, we just happened to be there that week and we marked a night to pass by. We passed by her house and turns out that day her sister passed away. Ivanilda already had many problems with depression and especially now she was in a mess. We explained the Plan of Salvation... I don’t think she understood well, but as we left she told us how the whole time that we were there she felt peace in her heart. We took her to church and she LOVED it! She loved the Relief Society and to get to know a group of women for support. Also, one member marked an FHE in her house that week and... Well it just got better and better. So yeah, it was a miracle to be able to help Ivanilda in this desperate moment and now she is inviting everyone (all her depressed lady friends) to get to know the Church. Awesome huh?

Well I got to go. Cya and Love ya!