Sapos e Baratas (Frogs and Roaches)

What a week we have had! First I will tell update you on a few people and then if there is time I will tell you about the sapos e baratas haha.

So finally Sheila has been feeling better this week. I think the springtime is just what she needed. We were able to go and teach her a couple of times this week and she was up and back to her sunshiny self, which is such a relief to see. We have to delay her baptism just a little because she hasn´t been able to go to church but her testimony grows stronger everyday. We have had some of the most spiritual lessons with her this week. We talked about the trials she has faced in her life and she told us that the best thing she ever did in her life was sit outside of her door the day the missionaries past by. She shared with us the feelings that she has been having and told us that she feels her Savior closer to her now then ever before. These are the blessings of the gospel. There is really nothing sweeter then the moments when people really start to understand what we are teaching. That we have a Heavenly Father who loves us so much that He did not leave us alone, directionless in these crazy days that we are living. That there really is safety for the soul and peace for the heart found through His Son´s sacrifice, and that now, because of the restoration of the priesthood power through a modern day prophet, we have full access to that peace. I wish everyone understood the way that she does. 

We are also teaching a man named Edison who has been coming to church for the last month all on his own. Last week we taught him the first lesson and gave him a Book of Mormon. We were a little worried about leaving a whole week without contact but he could only meet with us on Sunday so we prayed a lot. Yesterday we had our second lesson with him and it was so awesome! He not only read the chapter we left for him but read like the first 300 pages of the Book of Mormon and marked everything up making connections between passages and everything. Every blank space in his copy of the Book of Mormon is filled with notes that he took. He is a perfect example of the real intention, faith and sincere heart that is required to receive a testimony from God that what we are teaching is true! Because of his diligence, he receive a very strong and clear answer. When we asked him if he felt he had received an answer that the Book of Mormon was true he said "Not only is it true, but it holds all the answers to the things that we are missing in the gospel. If everyone would read this they could make sense of the things we need to do to reach God."  I think we could have died in that very moment. He is so prepared it is amazing. We have a meeting with the bishop to figure out how his baptism will work with the elections and conference on this upcoming Sunday but we are so excited.  

It really is amazing because we are struggling so much right now to find new investigators but Heavenly Father isn´t letting that stop the miracles we see. What we lack in quantity He makes up with quality. The few people that we are teaching are better prepared and are searching more sincerely then any investigator I have ever had. I know that God sees our labors and blesses us accordingly, even if at the same time He is sending trials to test our faith. 

Okay, so for the sapos are baratas. First let me tell you that my companion is literally afraid of everything. I have never met someone who says be careful so much ahah. She cracks me up every time we cross the street or see a dog withing a block from us she gets nervous and grabs my arm and says 'Ai Sister, be careful" So on Tuesday night we did our planning like usual and then I went to go to the bathroom. While I was there I hear Sister Vasconcelos making a bunch of noise in the kitchen. I leave the bathroom to tell her to be quiet because Irmão Claudio (who lives in the house behind ours but in the same yard.) and his family are sleeping. I enter from one side of the kitchen to see her on the other side pointing to the sink, now screaming "Ai Sister!!! BARATA!". I look to see what it was and I see a HUGE cockroach run across the counter. So, what do I do? I stand on my side of the kitchen and start screaming too, of course haha. So the both of us stand there screaming for a good 3 minutes and then decide that we have to kill it. She grabs some insect killer but while she was getting it the cockroach disappeared under the sink where we keep all of our pots and pans. We grab a mop and a broom and try to move things around without getting to close, but can´t find the stupid bug. Neither of us wanted to get close but we had to take the pans out because there was no way we were sleeping until it died. So with the broom and mop we start pulling the dishes out of the cupboard and letting them fall crashing to the ground and then attacking them with insecticide. I think we were both secretly hoping that Imrão Claudio would hear the noise and save us but he never came. Finally, after ever pan has been pulled out we find and kill her along with a baby one. We sweep out the area and spray it down and then start putting all of the pots and pans into alcohol to soak because of the insecticide. While Sister V is at the sink she starts screaming again and I look to see that two more cockroaches appeared. After another half hour of screaming we managed to kill them too. And then we loaded up the kitchen with insecticide. All and all we spent 2 and a half hours trying to kill 4 bugs. I am a little ashamed, but hey, at least we did it. 

Then about three days later we wake up in the morning and start our regular morning routine. I was just finishing my morning prayer when I hear "Ai Sister! Vem aqui, Rapido! um sapo!" (come here quickly, a frog) I go to the bathroom to tell her to be quiet because it is early and Irmão Claudio and his family are sleeping and see a huge frog somehow had made its way through the laundry room, kitchen, down the hall and into our bathroom. So she started screaming again and I grabbed a bucket to put over him so that he didn´t run away. This time I didn´t scream but he was a big guy, and super ugly looking. And he was strong so he kept trying to jump and hit the bucket away. Finally I got the bucket over him and put another bucket of water on top of him so that he wouldn´t escape. Then we went together and got Irmão Claudio haha there was no way I was touching that thing. So Irmão Claudio came to save us with a dust pan and broom and box but the frog got loose in the bathroom so we just saw the door stuck and then laughed as we listened to Irmão battling with the frog. After a couple minutes Irmão came out victorious and took away the frog. Also well that ends well but if we find another creature in our house I think Sister V will ask for an emergency transfer haha.

Anyways, I am out of time. I love you all! I hope you have a great week and receive tons of inspiration from General Conference this weekend!

This Week Here

Oi Tudo Mundo! 

Things are going well here in Santo André 4. As I said in my last email, my companion is an angel, and that is still true. It´s kind of been a saving grace because this is a super tough area. We talk to everyone and mark tons of appointments but almost never is the person actually there. So we have been doing a ton of walking. This area is more wealthy than my last which means that there are a lot more apartment buildings which make it a little more difficult and absolutely everyone works. Despite all of the hard parts about this area though I am loving every second here. 

I got news from Consorcio (my old area) today that Pedrina was baptized on Sunday! It is a little pang to the heart to know that I couldn´t be there but it is the best news ever to know that she continued progressing and was able to receive the blessings of that covenant.

We are still teaching Sheila, almost everyday now, to help her prepare for her baptism on the 28th of this month. She is so excited to be baptized and even asked us if she can serve a mission too. This week we have been really worried about her though because her health has taken a turn for the worst. Two days that we passed this week we just sang and prayed with her because she was so weak and sick. This week she will have a meeting with her heart and head doctor to see when and if she is strong enough to operate. We are praying that everything will be okay. Even though she is passing through such hard times she has the most grateful and faithful heart I have seen in a long time. She has taught me so much about looking for the blessings that we have in everything that we do. 

Aside from Sheila we are stomping the pavement everyday. I don´t know yet where our pocket of success is but one thing I know for sure is that it is here. We aren´t sitting around waiting for the miracles to come to us, we are out trying to make them happen and because of that I can trust that Heavenly Father will provide. 

​Love Sister Seagraves​

New Area!

Transfer news!

So transfers finally came last week at 330pm. And the novidades.... We both left Consorcio! Crazy, I know but both Sister Rizo and I were transferred. We were pretty sad because we thought we would have at least one more transfer together and we were preparing Pedrina to be baptized next week AND we had an awesome temple trip planned with our recent converts.... BUT this is mission life and I will go where you want me to go dear Lord. So we went!

I am now serving in the Santo André 4th ward with Sister Vasconcelos. She is from Manaus and is really kind, clean and well organized. It´s going to be a really good transfer. There are 2 other sisters in our ward; Sister H. Sousa and Sister Durães. They are all Brazilian so I am pretty stoked. I will get this language down perfectly before the end of these 6 weeks, I just know it! Even though I miss the JD Consorcio people, I am excited to be working in Santo Andre. We have our work cut out for us but this area really has a lot of potential. Sister Vasconcelos is an angel so I am excited to be working with her. We have one solidly progressing investigator right now who is named Sheila. She is so sweet, about 65 years old. She is very excited to learn about the gospel and cried last night when we invited her to be baptized on the 5th and accepted the convite. She has really bad diabetes and had her legs removed about 7 years ago as a result of that. She is excited to have found the Church of Jesus Christ restored on the earth today and told us that she has been searching for this feeling for more then 20 years! It has been really amazing teaching her this week. She found out this week that she had a stroke about a month ago and now has to prepare for a head operation as well as heart surgery in the near future. She really wants to be baptized before all of this because the recovery will be long and the oportunity to be baptized after might have to be quite a while longer and she doesn´t want to wait. So we will be doing all that we can to help her be prepared to be baptized as soon as possible. We are hoping that the surgery will be after the next 3 weeks but we will find out more details about exactly what will happen after this week. Other than that we are finding and following up! This area is HUGE, and I was already serving in a pretty big area but I think this is at least twice the size... which means there are a lot of people which means that there are tons of elects just waiting to hear the truth!

AHHH times up already. I will get better at this timing thing, I swear. I love you all! I hope you have a great week. I sent out a ton of letters so look for those coming!

beijos!

Sister Seagraves

Novidades!

I am so sorry, it has been weeks again since the last time that I wrote. Things are going here in Ala JD Consorcio. In truth, we don´t have much news because Sister Rizo has pneumemia so we have spent this last week or so inside, only leaving when we can manage a divisião which is not often. 

I did have a really cool experience with a less active member that we found a long time ago. About 2 months Sister Oliveira and I had been walking down the street and stopped to talk to a man who was pulling a trash cart through the street. As we talked with him we found out that he had been baptized when he was about 18 years old but hadn´t been to church in over 30 years. He didn´t live in our area but we gave him a Book of Mormon and took his address to pass to the missionaries in his area. This week I did splits with Sister Vieira and we worked half the day in her area and half the day in mine. While we were there we passed by to visit this man, Carlos. It was so amazing to see how much he had progressed since the time that we passed him off. The Book of Mormon that we had given him is now completely marked up. The pages are super dirty because he takes it with him when he is working in the streets so that he can study in the down time that he has. He practically taught himself the lesson that we had to share. I love to see what happens in the lives of people when they realize the value of the message that we are sharing. It was an experience that we rarely get to have as missionaries, passing someone off to other missionaries and then getting to see the difference that one conversation has made in their lives. 

I am already out of time :( Promise that I will write more next week!  Love you so much!

beijos

Sister Seagraves 

Here is a picture of my view. We are waiting for transfer calls right now so I don´t know how much longer I will be in this area!