Last Transfer!

Oi! Tudo Bem!!

TRANSFERS

It has been a great week but full of goodbyes. We have transfers tomorrow and we knew that someone was leaving for sure this week so we have been working in extra force to strengthen the investigators that we have and prepare them for the changes that were coming up. We got the calls for transfers this Saturday. The news is... Sister Lazelle is going home after 18 months of hard work :) My companion, Sister Vasconcelos is leaving the area. Sister Durães (who has been serving in the same ward as me but in the other companionship) will come and be my companion!!!! and we are getting one more sister.. yay trios again haha. And lastly, they are closing Sister Durãe​s area for sisters and will be sending two elders to work with us in the ward instead. Lots of changes! It will be sad to see the Sisters go but we are also super excited because Sister Durães already knows a lot of our investigators so the transition will be easier. Now for what we have been up to for the last few weeks.

An update on our recent converts, Sheila and Edson. They are both doing great spiritually! Haven´t missed a Sunday since they were baptized. Edson is getting ready to move so he will probably have to leave our ward, but we aren´t too worried. I think that he will be strong where ever he goes. He has been more of a blessing to us then we have to him. For his firmness in the faith he is being very blessed. Last week he received the priesthood and is he sticks around we will try to have him baptize the next convert :) Sheila is doing well as well. She has been getting more comfortable with the people at church which is so cool to see. She has started making comments and sharing testimonies that bring such a special spirit to the classes. It makes me tears when I see the strength of those we teach helping others. Sometimes I feel like a proud mother watching her children grow, even though these people we teach are all much older then me haha.

This week we had our second ward mission activity. We are trying to do one at least every two weeks to help the people in the ward get more excited. So far, I think it is really working. This week was a `bolo macho.`Which means that the men in the ward make cakes and the people eat them and vote on the best decorated, yummiest etc. It was pretty fun. Kids ate wayyy too much cake haha, but we aren´t their parents so we just kept serving. Less people came then we would have hoped but those that were there had a good time! For our message we talked about how just as every bolo (cake) has basic ingredients to make for a successful, yummy cake, every life has basic things we need to do to make for a successful, strong testimony. We compared these basic ingredients to things like prayer, scripture study... etc. And then we talked about how after the basics we don´t have to stop. We keep adding good things in our lifes according to what talents we have or what things we like to do to make for a happy life. It was pretty awesome if you ask me ;)

There is a family here that I love that we teach during family home evenings every week. The mom, Giani, has been a member for 5 years and the dad, Alé was just baptized this year. About a month ago Alé lost his job, and although Giani works selling Mary Kay it is not nearly enough to support their family. This brought a huge problem of stress in their lives but what has happened with them in the last month has been one of my favorite miracles in my mission. We had a family night with them a few days after he lost his job and instead of the crazy anxiety that we expected to find, they were mostly calm. A little worried but, as Giani put it, there was just a peace in their home that everything was going to be alright.

Over the month we did our weekly visits, following up with them and always praying for the Lord to help them. Every week they told us about how they had passed the last week. Together they fasted weekly and prayed for a solution. They had already been trying to sell their house because of debt and so the prayed harder that someone would come to look at it. They dedicated themselves to studying the scriptures and words of the prophets. They were already a good family, sempre trying to do what is best and unite their family more in the gospel but over this month their as their efforts increased so did their faith and in turn their home really became a place of spiritual safety for them. It has been amazing to watch them transform and learn to really trust in the Lord when everything was up in the air. And of course with their faith that Heavenly Father would help them, they did their part. Alé had interview after interview; some seemed to go well, some not as well but he kept working and searching and did not give up, not for a second. After a month, Alé found a job that is much better then the one he lost. What a huge blessing for them! Everything ended up falling in place and because of the money he received when he got let go from the other job, they will be able to keep their home. The best part of all of this, the job, the house, of all of the blessings they have received is the stronger spiritual unity that their family now has... the roots of faith they have grown in the last month can not be replaced for any worldly wealth. It is a miracle de verdade, we can feel and see the difference that this experience has made in who they are.

Something so beautiful about this gospel is that these spiritual blessings can be received by anyone at anytime. It doesn´t have to take losing a job to feel the need to get closer to our Heavenly Father. He wants to help us with whatever problem that we have, big or small. The more that we work to feel His peace and His grace in our lives, the more that we will feel it! It is that simple, the formula is that easy. I am so grateful to see the difference the gospel makes everyday. I know that the things that we teach are true. I know that this is the Lord´s work and that He wants us to know how to navigate through our dificuldades.
Okay I ran out of time. I hope that you are all doing well. I love you all and hope that you have a great week. Até Mais!

te amo, beijos

Sister Seagraves 

Bom Dia!

There has been so much that has happened in this last transfer but I never know what to write. I am sorry that I haven´t kept you all updated at all. I think that the last time that I actually wrote something was before the baptism of Sheila and Edson. Well as you can see, they were baptized. It was such a great day! We ended up having to walk about 3 hours to find a church building that had a baptismal dress for Sheila because we decided that would be the easiest. Sunday was wonderful, almost no problems, almost ha. When it was Sheila´s turn to be baptized she got super nervous. The Bishop and another brother in the ward were in the font with her to help secure her. They ended up having to baptize her 2 times because when they went to submerge her, her hands went flying all over haha but the second time was much calmer and all went very well. They were both confirmed two weeks later because of conference and then this week Edson received the priesthood. It is great to see them both progressing so well.

 

We have been searching diligently as always trying really hard to find people who will listen. We have a few that are promising and that we are excited to keep teaching.

 

One of them is a woman named Rosa, she is senhora já and is the sweetest person ever. I remember when we met her for the first time in the road she was way nicer then the normal person here in São Paulo so we were pretty excited to be go and see her. We started teaching her last week or so and just brightens up our day. She has been through a lot in the 2 years. She found out that she had cancer and almost died. She was able overcome but when she left the hospital she was super sickly and weighed only 85 pounds. From there she went on fighting, and is so much better today. She has a colostomy bag that she has had since she left the hospital the first time. She is just waiting for them to call her any hour to take it out. She has her bag all packed and ready to go and the beacon and call of the hospital. Whenever we go to teach her she calls us her flowers haha. I love her!

This week I had a health miracle. I have made it up until this time in my mission without ever falling, despite rain, ice and snow, so I knew it was bound to happen at some point ha. This weekend we were sitting down to do our estudos and the truck of trash passed by. We had forgotten to take out the trash and Sister V was in the bathroom so I jumped up super fast and ran to grab the trash and then run up the stairs to throw it out on the sidewalk. About half way up the stairs I fell and I fell hard. I am not even sure how I landed but it hurt. We put ice on it and kept studying and then left to walk to almoço. By the time we got to the members house I had a nice sized golf ball forming where I hit my foot and then by the time we finished eating it had doubled again. We went to the hospital to take an x-ray and luckily it wasn´t broken. The doctor said that it would continue to get worse for the day and then hurt alot for the week and that I would need to stay off it for a while. Well that doesn´t exactly fly with our line of work so I said thanks and we went home. After talking to President, we ended up staying in for the rest of the day. I prayed and prayed that the swelling would go down but it just kept growning. By the time we went to bed it had doubled again and I couldn´t double my ankle at all. That night was painful to sleep and I would wake up and then say another pray and go back to sleep. When we woke up for church the next day I looked down at my ankle and the swelling was almost all gone. There isn´t even much of a bruise despite the fact that the day before it was completely discolored. Today it is already practically gone and I didn´t even take a picture haha. I know that it is a simple thing, but I know that Heavenly Father blessed me so that I would able to keep working. We have so much to do and so little time to do it, there is no way we can afford to spend days just sitting in house.

In these last weeks we have made a lot of progress with our work with the members in the ward. They are so importante to everything that we do! I wish it wasn´t so hard to get everyone involved but I guess if everything was easy about mission work, well it would be easy and we wouldn´t learn half as much. we had a really cool activity about the Plan of Salvation that we put together for a missionary family home evening night. It turned out so legal. We will have to do one when I get home. 

This week I found out about a super cool app that there is now that is to help with studying of the scripture. It´s called Citation lds or something to that effect. It takes everything the apostles have ever said about scriptures in all of the standard works and separates it by verse. I don´t know how long this has existed, maybe a while, but it is a novidade for me! I am just amazed more and more with all of the resources that we have today to help us better understand the plans that Heavenly Father has for us. Really we are so very blessed to live in this day and age when we have access to so much, so quickly and easily. Of course everything that comes as a blessing has opposition, that is an eternal principle. It is our responsibility to choose. If we choose to use the technology that we now have to better our lives and the lives around us, to enrich our understanding and strengthen our minds, we will become people much better prepared for the challenges ahead of us. That is a promise that we have received. I read this conference article recently and thought it was awesome. It is from the priesthood session a couple of conferences ago. If you have the chance to look at it, I would highly recommend.

 

I´ve got to go já, mas eu amo vocês MUITO. Eu tenho muito saudades de vocês mas eu sei que Deus está com vocês. Continua fazendo as coisas certas e eu vou escrever mais a próxima semana. 

beijos!

Sister Seagraves

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