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

--