June 2nd, 2014

There is no escaping Snowflake.

Oh goodness, it sounds like you guys just had the best time this week!  Sister Rodrigues keeps asking me what is wrong because I am totally sitting here crying reading about all of the stuff that happened on the trek.  Those are so cool... congratulations for a job well done.  I think that except for my mission, the trek was one of the experiences that changed my life more than anything else.  I love that the Church makes us do hard things to discover better all of the things we are capable of doing.  The Lord gives us trials not to break us, but to make us stronger.  He really does send angels to help us all the time too...I have definitely seen that here.  Awesome job with that theme, I love it!  Oh I am so happy that all of it turned out well!  Mom, you should probably go take a nap now though.  That is quite a lot of effort.

This week was amazing.  So much stuff happened!  We will have to see if I remember it all.

First off, Wilson.  Our volleyball.  Jokes, he is basically the most perfect investigator ever!  He is Ise´s brother and is AMAZING.  Recently left another church because he saw a lot of bad stuff going on there.  Looking for the truth. He understands EVERYTHING that we say and was like, "Oh, Apostasy?  Wow, that totally makes sense!  Hey, can I have a Book of Mormon?  I love that thing so much!"  Basically everything that he does makes my mouth drop open in surprise.  My fave was when he came up to us and goes, "Hello, my blessed sisters.  I have decided to join your ministry."  Yesssss!  He just isn´t baptized yet because he wants to be absolutely sure that it is all true, so...we hope to get that marked for Sunday tonight.  Prayers please!  Oh, and another good story...he was traveling on Friday night and was at some restaurant in another state when two sisters came up to him and started talking to him about the church!  He was like, "Wait, I already have two of you at home!"  So then one of the sisters told him that this was a sign from God telling him that he was on the right path and needed to join up ASAP.  He agreed!  Wow, I really owe that chick.

We also have another person we are hoping and praying to baptize this weekend.   Her name is Nalva, and all 4 of her kids are baptized and 3 are super active in the church.  One is on a mission in Campinas and the other two are preparing to go.  She loves the church so much, defends it, and goes whenever she feels the need.  She has just never been baptized!  I asked her a pretty straight up question in our lesson on Friday:  "Nalva.  If we all died right now, what would it be like for your family?"  She goes, "Well, my kids would all be in the Celestial Kingdom and God knows how I love the church and defend it, so He would let me in too!"  Nope.  We had to clarify that, and she got real quiet.  I was super afraid that I ruined everything at that point when we left.  Basically I am the one who sticks a knife in the excuses of our investigators and then Sister Rodrigues puts some Neosporin and a Bandaid on it to help it heal over.  We are a good team.  But she was at church yesterday, so I don´t think that she got mad. Whew.

Sister Bedke also had a REALLY funny experience this week that I am not allowed to publicate, but if you want to know what it was, shoot me and email and I´ll spill.

We had a lovely surprise this week and got to go to the temple!  Love that place.  Heavenly Father just knows every time that I need to re-charge.  New Rule:  (idk if this is just in Brasil or in the whole church)  Kids can´t just go do baptisms for temple names anymore, it has to be family.  So get on it!  We got to spend the night in...Candeias!  Which is just a hop skip and a jump away from Candelaria!  When we arrived in Jaboatão Litoral that night, we ran over to the church there in Candelaria because I knew they would be having activities there.  And they were!  It was so great!  I got to see all of my old friends and the kids that I loveeee there!  Oh man, I almost cried.  Little blessings.  We ran back to Candeias through some rain that I forgot existed.  Wow.  Don´t miss that part.  Who should be the sisters of Candeias, but Sister McCleve, my MTC pal!  It was so good to see her and catch up!  We talked and talked and talked and she is doing so well.  

Look who is a photographer now....

Our Zone at the temple

Sister Butler!

With the Sisters!

We were up early the next morning to go to Mission Conference.  This was the last time that we will see Pres. and Sister Lanius!  It was so sad to say goodbye to them!  They have been excellent and I am so grateful for all of the things that I was able to learn from this couple.  I got called up to sing in a quartet when we were there and I sang one of the parts as a solo, which was so scary!  But it turned out ok I guess.  Tchau Tchau Presidente!

Our zone:)

With Presidente and Sister Lanius!

The sisters from Boa Vista that live with us also had a baptism yesterday, which was really fun.  I love that things are going so much better for them.  They work so hard and love the people like crazy!  All of the sisters here are amazing examples to me.

At the Sisters´baptism

Welp, that is about it from this week.  I love you guys and hope that you enjoy your summer!  write me lots...with more time on the mish, the inbox gets pretty sad.  Have a good one!

Love,

Sister Dana