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