Tornado Warning!

Well winter is here in St. Joseph Michigan! This week was like a night and day difference in the weather and the way the area looks! It went from fall color explosion to winter wonderland literally in one day. On Monday when we went shopping it was a little chilly but not cold, didn't even need a jacket and then we woke up on Tuesday morning and had just over a foot and a half of snow outside! We almost couldn't get the car out of the parking lot of our apartment because the snow just kept piling on! It was wild, but it didn't stop us, barely even slowed us down. And then yesterday we had a huge wind, thunder, lightning, rain storm. There were tornado warnings all day long. We were all over our area yesterday and there were trees, full grown trees, ripped out at the root and houses getting siding and chimneys torn off. Most places lost power for a couple of hours at least but the city acts quick out here so it didn't last too long.  I thought I had experienced and wind storm but I was so wrong. There are a few places where there is a good amount of damage, but I don't think we had any actual tornado touch down. It was exciting and now there is no snow left on the ground. 

Tuesday we had a Half Mission Training with a General Authority, Elder Golden of the Seventy from South Africa! It was amazing and he was so funny. He taught with so much power, the spirit in the chapel was one of the strongest times I have felt since coming on the mission. He spoke a lot about the importance of being equally yoked with our members as we find and protect our investigators for the influences of Satan. It was everything we needed to hear in St Joseph. There were a lot of positive things that he said to us but he was not afraid to throw down when it came to areas where we needed to improve. I don't think there was one missionary who left that day without feeling a little burn from his fire, which is good and helps us to stay really working and diligent. It was awesome.

 

Wednesday all but one of our appointments cancelled so we had a day full of door knocking, which, after the 17 inches of snow that fell on Tuesday, meant snow boots, gloves and golf balls for knocking the doors. It was really fun to be tracking around in the snow but because of the drifts my poor companion, Sister Greene who is super short, was knee deep in the snow all day. I don't think she thought it was as fun as Sister Jensen and I did. We had a lesson with Chris, who is getting baptized on the 30th of November, and it was the best lesson I have ever ever had. We had planned a pretty simple one and really just talked about writing down and sharing our testimonies and the lesson just kind of turned into a testimony meeting. You could almost see the spirit in the room it was so strong and Chris told us all the things that missionaries pray to hear with the people we are teaching. That this gospel has changed not only the way he thinks, but also the way he feels. That he is finally able to say, for the first time in his life that he can feel his Savior and Heavenly Father's love. He told us about a couple of the experienced he has had with his prayers since he started taking the lessons and coming to church. We were all crying by the end of the lesson. That is what missionary work is about. If I serve the rest of my mission and Chris is the only one we teach and have baptized, it will be worth it for me. Sitting in that room on Wednesday, I got to witness the way that the Atonement not only soothes but actually heals wounded souls. To be able to see a child of God turn into the embrace of our Heavenly Father that is ALWAYS waiting for them has been the greatest blessing I could ever receive, and is a fervent reminder for me just how saving this work is. At our lesson with the chris' family on Friday night, his wife Lori told us that Chris had kept her up half way through the night talking about how strongly he finally had felt the spirit and how he wanted everyone to feel what he had felt.

Thursday we got to do some more door knocking and finding because we had our appointment for service shine us. I don't know who doesn't want service done but such is mission life haha. We also got to visit our mission grandpa, Harold. I don't know if I have told y'all about Harold before but he is literally the sweetest old man ever. We usually see him on Tuesdays but had to switch this week because we were out of town for the training this week. We love to visit him in the nursing home, he will always tell us stories about his life and we read him stories from the scriptures. Plus, whenever we go into the nursing home, it's like we are celebrities! All the old people just wheel out to the hallway and watch us walk by, we have made quite a few friends there just talking to them in the hall or in the dining area. Sometimes, if we are early we have to wait for Harold to get out of dialysis so we will chat with Robert or Bill. Robert is a sad one, he tells us about his wife leaving him whenever we talk to him and we don't really know what to say anymore so usually we just sing to him and Bill tells us about all of the adventures he has been on in his life.Bill is pretty funny except in the mornings apparently. Harold used to be his roommate and told us that he used to wake up super early and yell swears at all the nurses that walked by so Harold requested a room change. We get filled in on all the elderly drama, it's the highlight of our week ha!

Friday was TRANSFER CALLS!! Sister Jensen is leaving as expected but Sister Greene and I will both stay here and get a new companion.. which we did not expect. We were both pretty bummed that there wasn't more change but we are excited now. It was funny because when we got off the phone we both just looked at each other and were like "Dang it." But as the day went by we started planning out the transfer and now we are pumped for all of the miracles we are going to see this next month or so. Plus, holidays in St Jo are going to be awesome because the members here are the BEST! Literally, the best in the whole mission.. I may be biased but we go maybe, tops, one day every two weeks without dinner.. The elders have it a little worse.. they have to go one day every week without dinner, it's a hard life out here. not. we are stuffed like turkeys and we love it.

Saturday, more door knocking and lessons, nothing too exciting happened but we did get to go to my favorite place in the whole world, the projects of Benton Harbor. I seriously love that places, we always meet funny people and get good stories and Patrica, the member we visit there, is a hoot and MAN is she sassy!! She is so loving and kind though, to everyone, so there are always neighborhood people running through her doors. Hoodrats and hooligans, she helps them all and so we get to have lessons with all kinds of people. We need more people like her, she is truly amazing. I'm not exactly sure what her condition is but she gets a nasty, debilitating pain in her legs and hips, some days she can't even get out of bed. She is caring for her twin grandchildren who are 8 because her son died of cancer a couple of years ago. She will get up every day to get them food and dressed and off to school, then spends the day playing mother to everybody and their dogs, solving their problems, listening to their issues and even feeding them. When the kids get home she takes an hour with each of them, tutoring them with their homework, making sure they understand. She always gets her visiting teaching done, and she does it all with a smile, never complaining, always grateful for what she does have though she can barely walk most days. I am so inspired by her example every time we go to see her. Her faith in Heavenly Father is unwavering and that is so amazing to me because a lot of people could find things to complain about in her situation. Whenever we ask what we can do to help her, she just shakes her head and says "keep helping others, the Lord is taking care of me just fine." We had to stop asking and just do or she would never give us anyway to serve her. I just think about how important it is to be grateful for what we have. No matter how big or small, they are there. No matter the trials we have, we have infinitely more blessings and if we stop and look at them we will be able to see just how much Heavenly Father is working to support us.

I hope that you all have a great week and really strive, as we are preparing for Thanksgiving this year, to look up and see the blessings that we all have been given. And as we identify the blessings, let us thank our Heavenly Father in our prayers everyday. Like is says in Psalms 92:1, it is a good thing to give thanks to our Lord.

I love you all so much and hope you have a great week!!

te amo

Sister Seagraves

P.S. -Yes it's true my family is moving away while I'm on my mission!  Contact them now via stake directory to find out their new address and such. 

Tudo Bem!!

I cannot believe that we are already more then half way through this transfer. I wish time would slow down a little, the mission is just flying by!  This week we got to work a lot with less active families and members. It is so fun to watch as people start to remember the things they once new to be true. My testimony is growing as we watch their faith begin to restrengthen and they start to make their way back to activity in the church. I just know that no matter how far people drift from the Lord, that He is always waiting with open arms to welcome them back. It is not always an easy path back, but that is what is so great about the atonement, Jesus Christ sacrificed so that He could help them on the way back, and lighten their loads as they put forth the effort!

MONDAY: We did normal p-day things. I finally broke down and bought some snow/winter things and it was not a minute too soon... This week was freezing and we even got snow! Then we headed up to Coloma to teach a less active sister who we have been teaching with the Elders. Sometimes we wonder if we are teaching her or helping her at all because she has served a mission and really does know all the facts that we teach her and on Monday we were able to see that she is really taking to heart the things that we have been teaching her! We had drawn a tree diagram to show how we can grow our faith during our lesson with her last time and when we went up Monday night it was framed in her living room! And she had been refusing to committing to come to church but on Monday night we were finally able to get her to agree to come for a mission farewell. We can see her heart soften and her doubts give way as she remembers why she joined the church in the first place. Then we visited the Hardy family. They are a part member family that we have been teaching; the mom is less active and the dad and kids are taking the lessons with us. Chris always says that he is going to have a ton of questions for us and he does but as we teach him, he is starting to recognize more truths and ask less questions. He always says "I've got to hand it to you, this makes sense."

TUESDAY: We had lesson with Cassandra and she has a lot of good questions. She is a really deep thinker so we struggle with keeping her lessons short, especially because the things she wants to talk about always have to do with the gospel. The biggest things that we need for her is a fellowshipper who she can talk to about her questions and thoughts. We can only be there a little bit and the only other person that she can really talk to is her mother-in-law who is nice but is Jehovah Witness doesn't really want to talk about the things that Cassandra is learning. Mom I wish that you were here, I think that you would be a perfect fellowshipper for her! We also visited a cute old man named Harold. He is a member who lives in a nursing home out here and he doesn't get out to church very often. He just talks to us a lot about his life, I wish I had more time to spend to listen to him, he's pretty cool. And sometimes when he is talking he will just stop and start to whistle out of the side of his mouth and then look around like he didn't know where it came from. It sounds pretty real too, he tricked us the first time. haha he says its something that he likes to do because he thinks its funny. Dad, when you get old, I think you will be a lot like him.

WEDNESDAY: District Meeting! District meetings are usually pretty great, they are so inspired and it is nice to be able to bounce ideas off of other missionaries in our area. It's really helpful! Here is an example of how cold it is...after meetings we usually have district lunch and Elder de la Paz, our district leader, took us all to this outside diner place. While we were waiting  for our food to be brought out, Elder Taylor's whole face turned purple! like solid purple. And we kept telling him that it was changing and he just laughed and said he was just acclimating but then he caught a glance of himself in a window and turned to his companion and was like, "Go start the car." It was funny, its time for us to get golf balls to knock doors with because it is so cold with the lake winds, some of the Elders have already had their knuckles start to split and bleed... This is real mission time!! Bring It!! 

Anyways, Wednesday night was awesome because we had two of our 11 year old investigators come to the girls achievement activity for Halloween and one 8 year old boy got to cub scouts and loved it! Their moms got a chance to talk to the Bishop and Relief Society President and start building those relationships. It was such a blessing!!

THURSDAY: We had trade-offs with the Sister Training Leaders and so Sister Greene and I got to go to Kalamazoo for the day and serve on the WMU campus. It is pretty cool up there, as in cold. It snowed and I forgot my jacket, Oops! I got lucky though because we spent most of the day inside teaching lessons. It is so different to be missionaries on campus, there are people everywhere and you have to try and figure out which one is the one that Heavenly Father wants you to talk to. It seems like most of the students are pretty open to talking though so that is pretty awesome. They have a family in their university branch that feeds the missionaries every Thursday with the purpose of having investigators at the dinners which is probably the greatest thing I have ever heard of! What a great way to help people to feel comfortable, everyone loves food haha. Their church building is so awesome too, it is a building that the church bought just for the university ward and it used to be a baptist church house. Its got all kinds of cool things that you don't usually see at church buildings, like a balcony in the chapel.

FRIDAY: We spent a lot of the day weekly planning, but we did get to teach a couple of investigators with our members. One of our investigators, Cal, is the husband of a less active we had started to teach. She actually isn't even less active anymore, she is preparing to go to the temple and we are so excited. She wanted to take a trip to Nauvoo and didn't think Cal would agree to go because although he supports her 100%, he is reluctant to really apply the gospel to his life or to actually do anything after meeting with us. Well, he ended up going! And he got to go and see and experience the church history sights and feel the spirit there and here the testimonies of those who have given up so much for this gospel to come to us.

SATURDAY: Best Trunk or Treat EVER! Our ward went all out with their trunk or treat. They had it at the Bishops house and there was a bouncy house in their barn, square dancing with a live band, chili and cornbread and a bonfire.. It was so legit. haha AND the members brought so many friends! We were busy all night long just meeting people's friends and getting to extend invitations all over to learn. We got to talk to a family who had just gotten here from Shanghai China. WS (the dad, I can't say or spell his name so he told us to call him WS) told us about how when he had his second daughter he had to keep her hidden and couldn't even tell his close friends because he would get in trouble for having more than one kid. he loved that the people in the church can have and are encouraged to have big families, he wants us to come and teach them about the church and we are so excited to meet with his family. It is going to be so different and challenging to teach them since they have no religious background or understanding at all..  but with the help of Heavenly Father we are up for the challenge. 

SUNDAY:  We are finally starting to have investigators come to church!! That is the thing that we have been struggling with so much in this area. We have people who are willing to have us come and teach, most are even willing to read and pray but then they don't show up to church on Sunday, and without that added spiritual experience, they won't be able to gain a full and sturdy testimony that this is Christ's church restored on the earth. So yesterday, when our investigator Chris walked into the church with his wife, we were so excited! It was such a great day. We were able to watch as he started to become comfortable with the people around him and start joking with the members and he just fit in so well. It is such a miracle that we are able to see the changes and understanding of what Heavenly Father wants for us can make in a persons life.

We have a big week in front of us, I am supposed to teach a full lesson in Portuguese tomorrow and I am pretty nervous about that.. it has been so long since I have taught a full lesson in my mission language. It will be good practice, I just hope that the spirit is there! I am going to need it big time. The Lord is definitely blessing the work in St Joseph! Can't wait til I can tell you more. I love you all so very much. Be good, Do good, and Pray hard!!  I miss you.

Ate Mais 

Te Amo Muito

Sister Seagreaves

You Win Some, You Lose Some

Fairy Tale Land where all the streets are magical. 

Alright, we are so pumped to be in St Joseph for another transfer! If I just stayed here for the rest of my mission that would probably be okay with me! I love the members that we are serving with and we especially love the investigators, less active and recent converts that we are working with! Heavenly Father has really blessed us by putting these amazing people in our lives! So this week went as follows...

MONDAY- Monday was a 'lose' day. We had a good p-day, played around with hair dye etc (on my companions haha). But then we went out to do the work. Our first appointment called just before we got there and dropped us because he has been studying Jehovah Witness with his wife and decided to focus on one religion at a time And then our second appointment shined us. It was a sad day, we didn't know what to do with ourselves haha. So we door knocked until it got to late and then went home.

TUESDAY- Tuesday morning we had an awesome lesson with Cassandra. Her daughter Abigail loves us and makes it so hard for us missionaries because we can't pick up kids but she is always trying to climb in our laps. She is so precious. We had planned to teach her about the Plan of Salvation but when we got there we were really not feeling it. We shotgunned a lesson about faith, which felt so thrown together for us because we hadn't prepared at all for that. BUT the Lord knew what Cassandra needed that day and the lesson touched her so much. We have to push back he baptismal date because we are still working on getting her and Damon married but we are really excited for the progress she is making and the testimony we see sprouting. Later that day we had a lesson with Miranda, it was the big Do or Die lesson so to speak. We have felt for the last month or so that she had stopped trying to progress and decided to just lay it all on the table. It was the best dropping of an investigator I have ever heard of. We expressed that we loved her but that since she had gotten as far in the gospel as she could considering what she was willing to work for we couldn't do anymore for her and that we were going to keep in touch but that we couldn't keep teaching her regularly. She said that she was relieved because she had felt that but that she didn't want to disappoint us. Then she gave us some scarfs and sent us on our way. Sometimes, we just have to do all we can for people and leave them to figure out what they will do with the knowledge that they now have.

WEDNESDAY- We spent most of Wednesday knocking doors and chasing down people who we haven't seen in a while. And most of the people we went to visit were gone, better luck next time.

THURSDAY- The work started to pick up on Thursday. We finally got to meet with Stephanie, who was a member referral and had a great first lesson with her! We are just constantly being surprised by how prepared the people we are teaching are for the messages we share. I really should just expect it by now but it gets me every time. Then we got a referral from the elders since we were going to be in an area out of town that day. We went to go visit the family; the wife, Lori, is a less active member and the husband and kids are not members. When we got there it was just Chris with the kids and he invited us in and told us that he had been expecting that we would be coming sooner or later ha. We ended up teaching the first lesson to him. He really believed most of the things that we talked about already and just struggled with believing there could really be a prophet on the earth today. We had a really good lesson and set a return date to teach the whole family.

FRIDAY- Let me just start this day by saying I love Benton Harbor. The elders get all the fun door knocking in that area. So anytime we have a dinner appointment in that area, I try to convince my comps to schedule enough appts to spend the whole day there and we did just that on Friday. We spent a good time in the projects; teaching a group of old men that were sitting around playing cards, and visiting a less active member named Pat. She cracks us up because she just says exactly what is on her mind, doesn't care who she offends. If we ever ask her if we can pray or share a message with her she'll usually say something like, "You fin'a do it anyway" or "Don't care." But then she will listen and answer all of our questions and you can tell she is really paying attention. She will only let us sisters visit her because some elders offended her about 20 years ago so she doesn't like men in the church. When we invite her to come back to church she always says, "I'll go when the Lord sends me a sign right through that door" And we are just sitting there like, "What do you think we are for?" haha she is a tough one but we are making progress.

SATURDAY- More shining, and lots more door knocking. We were at the door of a Brazilian and I realized that I have gotten much worse at my Portuguese then I had thought. I got such bad stage fright, maybe I just won't get my visa haha, I think that would be okay.

SUNDAY- Church Church Church. We are still struggling to get our investigators to come to church. Its one of the most vital steps and no one will do it! I guess they are afraid that's where we will hook them, they are right. haha.

Anyways, we are running out of time to email so sorry the ending is not very polished off. I love this work, we have had some hard days this week and yet we are still finding so much success here! It just goes to show you that Heavenly Father is mindful of our struggles and is helping in whatever way that we will let him.  I love you! And hope that you all have a wonderful week. Look for opportunities to share your happiness with the people around you:)

Love always 

Sister Seagraves

Week 2 from Lansing Michigan

Hello From Michigan everyone!
So week 2 of the mission in Michigan has been really just awesome.I am assigned to work in the St. Joseph area... which covers a lot of little towns that I don't know the name of yet. It it right on the shore of the lake and everyone says it is the prettiest area in the mission. It is very green and most of the houses in St. Jo are gorgeous, they look like they were just cut out of a magazine. Our area also has Benton Harbor which apparently is one of the more dangerous places in the nation. It is really segregated here, the only white people I have seen in Benton Harbor are my companions, its kind of weird because people say that in the 60s it was really intergrated but over time things just started to separate which is usually opposite of what you would assume. Since it is very dangerous, the Elders do the door knocking in Benton, but we still teach lessons out there, and then we door knock in St. Jo. We do have one investigator who is actually from Brazil! We went to go visit her the other day and I got to speak a little portuguese with her. She said I was good at it, but mostly I think she was being nice ha. Anyways we didn't get to teach her a lesson because she didn't have a lot of time. And she is going to Brazil with her husband for a couple of weeks so I won't get a chance to teach her until october.. I am really excited for them to get back. Also I found out that there are a lot of Brazilians that live around here because its one of the Whirlpool headquarters, another one is Brazil I guess and so a lot of the people move out here to work there. I need to find them all so I can teach them and keep up on the lessons!!

I am learning a lot about how much I have to learn! This ward is so great because everyone wants to feed us all the time! We have yet to go a day without dinner plans which is good for Sister Greene and me because it has given us a good chance to get to know the families in the ward. What is hard is that we haven't gotten very many referrals from the members, which means door knocking... I actually really enjoy door knocking, we always meet the most interesting people and everyone here is kind but it would be much more effective if we were teaching people that had been referrals because we don't get very many return appointments from door knocking. So if I have any advice or favors to ask from you it is to give your missionaries referrals! Do everything you can, PRAY as hard as you can for names of people to give to them, it helps move the work along so quickly. We all know people who are needing the comfort that the gospel can provide we just have to stop being chicken and invite them to learn! Anyways... we spent the first part of the week doing as much finding as we possibly can. A lot of people come to the doors and say that they are busy but they are too afraid to turn us completely away so they will tell us to come back later or a different day. That always makes me smile because you can tell they don't think we will and are usually surprised when we do.This is a very Catholic area.  We finally got an updated ward list and we were able to go through with the Relief society president to find names of less active and part member families that we can go teach, I am so excited to focus on that this next week. I can't wait to watch as the fire in their hearts is rekindled and to be able to help them come back and find strength in the gospel.

We had our first zone training ever this week and it was the best experience of the week by far. We drove up to Kalamazoo for the meeting and I finally got to meet all the people in my zone and the sister training leaders, zone leaders, district leaders, all that goodness. We got a lot of great advice that really helped me find goals to focus on in these upcoming weeks and I am so excited to use some new door knocking approaches and see if anyone will listen to me. I wish I had time to write down all the things that I learned buuuuut I don't so I'll just put one thing that I loved.
Our zone leader talked a lot about having the faith in the Lord that He would lead us to find people to teach. We talked about the Armor of God (D&C 27:15-18 if you wanna read it, which you should, its great) and he told us how the shields that warriors use to carry when they went to battle weighed 60+ pounds. He made the analogy that our shield of faith will be like wise heavy. I loved that he said "Faith is heavy, it requires effort." It really made me think about how I need to be exercising my faith every single chance that I get so that when I go to put on my Armor of God, I will have the strength to lift it. Being faithful is not easy... especially when there are so many distractions around us in this world, but it is not supposed to be easy. It would not be as powerful and strong if it came with no effort.
After all of the training was done we set goals, as companionships for the number of people we would help bring to the gospel and help make and keep covenants before the end of the year. Our companion set a pretty high goal, if you were to compare it to the progress that has been made in the area but I know that if we are diligent and obedient it will be no problem. So here comes the coolest part.... We set our goals and then all headed out to drive back to our areas. After about 20 mins of driving we got a call from one of our investigators that we had almost dropped. We hadn't had contact with her in over a month and had tried calling and going over to visit her with no answer. When she called she asked if we could come see her, so of course we went right over as soon as we got to St Jo. She came out and we had a lesson and she was so excited about reading the Book of Mormon and so sincere in her desire to learn. We even were able to set a baptismal date for her and a return appointment. She was just so prepared that it was a huge testimony boost for me to see that if we put our faith in the Lord, he will guide our footsteps to where we need to be. Since friday, when we made our goals, we have been able to meet with 3 other people that we have had a hard time contacting or that have kept cancelling meetings. It is so exciting to see how quickly Heavenly Father rewards our efforts and I am so excited to continue meeting with them, and finding more and more people that are prepared and needing to accept the gospel into their lives! I hope all of your weeks are going well! Write me letters:)

Sister Seagraves
4419 Red Arrow Hwy Apt C2
Stevensville MI, 49127

Te amo! Ate mais

Sister Seagraves — in Lansing, MI.

Relocating to Lansing Michigan

Okay Err'body, 

The day has come! All my clothes are washed, bags are packed and my whole district has already left! Tomorrow I will be in Lansing Michigan, and I cannot wait. Last night I said goodbye to my companion and the rest of the district and it made me so stressed out for my departure tomorrow morning! What if I get up late? The travel office had given Sister Wilcox the wrong time to depart so we thought she was supposed to leave at 3:30, jokes on us, she was supposed to be there at 2:30..,. AM i might add. We had gotten up at 2:15 to see our Elders off and then gone back to our room and she was going to use that time to get ready. About 20 minutes later she gets a call from the front desk saying that the whole bus was waiting for her and that she was super late... SO its 2:50 and they tell her that the bus needs to be out of the parking lot at 3am and she needed to be there now. Sister Fehlman, Sister Sauer-Davis and I went crazy trying to get the rest of her things packed, dressing her, lugging her bags down the stairs and then sprinting to the bus with her bags while she went to the travel office to check out. We got her from the phone call, packed and dressed and  to the bus in four minutes flat... We should probably work on a runway or something, she is lucky we are pros. Anyways when we finally went back to sleep last night all I could dream about was missing my flight and them sending me home because I was a disgrace haha. No way I am gonna let that happen! I am waayy too excited about going to Michigan. 

This week, we finished with our last progressing investigators and then began practicing teaching in English one on one.. I did not like it! It was so much hard to teach the lessons in English, who'da thunk? Seriously there were times when I could think of what I wanted to say in Portuguese but then when I tried to make it work in English I couldn't. Also, in Portuguese it is okay to be extremely bold with your statements and in English some of the ways I would have said things would have come across really rude so I had to learn how to say things more nicely. I never would have guessed that it would be so difficult but I guess teaching in Portuguese is all I know.  ]

I am so excited to be going to teach in Michigan... I know I have less that 8 hours but I can hardly stand to wait!! Strange to think that this time tomorrow i will be finishing my first day as a real, in the field missionary! Today we spent most of the day getting everything together and I was weird because we literally have like no friends left here. Everyone left this morning and we just walk around and people say "hey aren't you supposed to be gone?" and that's rude lol. And our class is completely empty which is sad and lonely. 

Tonight we had devotional, as usual for Tuesdays, in the Marriott Center AND and APOSTLE spoke! Elder Neil L Andersen, so I guess you could say that we are pretty lucky for being the last ones here. They told us that 4167 missionaries were watching the broadcast live in there respective MTCs and that it was the largest MTC broadcast to date. When the devotional ended they had to hold the all of the missionaries in the building because it was storming so bad and after like 15 minutes we all had to make a run for it back to the MTC (which like a 5 minute walk or so ) and we all got SOAKED!! I guess its just a little taste of the mission life in Brazil, I really didn't mind the rain except that it was the first day in like 2 weeks that I wasn't wearing my crocs, go figure... and all of my clothes are packed and I was planning on wearing the clothes I had on the trip tomorrow but they are now drenched... Ahh well hope they dry fast, It was worth it. I'm not sure what else to write so I guess I will just say I love you all. Please pray for people to be prepared for me to teach... I hope the first week back to school and such went well. 

Eu amo voces!

Sister Seagraves

PS. I can't remember if I have answered everyone's letters or not but lets just call it a clean slate and I will answer new letters starting now ;) hah love ya