5th Week with Sister Almeida- Jaú, Brazil- "Too much mango with salt, sugar, and pepper (no, I don't mention this in the email, but y'all should give it a shot)"

You know you're serving a mission when you're going through your bags and find yourself battling to find the gecko that decided to make your luggage a home.

I'm trying something new here. I've kept notes during the week and I decided to make it my email.

(The dates are backwards)

9-17-23

What a blessing. Marcos showed up to church again today. Everything is in order for his baptism this next week. Fernando and Dilma came again as well, and they told us that they like the church more every time we teach them and every time they visit. They're excited for their baptism, but they still need to get married. They did say that they'll get it worked out this week though, because, somehow, they got it into their heads that they, too, are going to be baptized next week. That would be fantastic if that could work out because transfers are next week on the 29th and I would love to be here to see them married and baptized. We'll see what God has in store for me.

Unfortunately, Duda didn't show up because she got the flu, so her date fell through, but, if she really has this desire, we'll mark another and it'll work out.

But we're definitely learning that the spirit makes a huge difference in teaching. Dilma and Fernando said that they've been feeling better and more peace ever since they started meeting with us. I guess therein is the difference between people who always have the spirit and those who don't; they see and feel a huge difference even when maybe we're not sure if we're feeling the spirit.

9-16-23

Woohoo! Hit 8 months today. I never thought I'd get to this point.

Henrique kept his word and we did in fact earn ourselves some coxinhas for free, though he still hasn't even tried to stop smoking.

We worked in the Cidade Alta again, and this time Karol joined us for a "missionary day". She actually does very well when she goes out to the streets with us. She has a powerful testimony, and I firmly that she will change lives while she's on her mission.

On our way home, a man at a bar stopped us and said he had met with other missionaries in another city and he wanted to meet with us. He was very excited to speak to us and even bought us a bottle of soda. Then, out of nowhere, he asked us how marriage in the church worked, we explained, and he ask if I had interest in marrying him. CLARO QUE NÃO.

So we just skidaddled right on out of there.

9-15-23

Our friendship with the old people in the park continues strong. Today Marco brought us white chocolate protein bars, and Henrique got all defensive, so, supposedly, tomorrow we'll earn ourselves coxinhas for free as well.

Once more today we applied the training from Zone Conference to present ourselves to people with our purpose up front and once more we marked another baptismal date with a man named Ricardo.

Then, after a long day of work, we taught Marcos the Word of Wisdom. When we arrived at the little part of coffee being against the commandment, he informed us that he drank coffee, but, seeing that it was against the Word of Wisdom, said he'd stop drinking. We're working with ELEITOS here (I hope).

9-14-23

Planning outside the house is great and all, but when you have 6 old man friends who like to talk to you, it makes things difficult to focus. But it's hilarious, actually. We're trying to help Henrique stop smoking, but, though he says he wants to quit, his actions show something different. We try to remove just a few and he denies our attempts.

But this friendship also pays off because once they all cleared out, one came back and gave us some fresh pão de queijo (it was cold and rainy out of nowhere and he thought we could use a little something warm).

After our little in home lunch, we headed for the Cidade Alta where we visited with Fernando and Dilma to teach the word of wisdom to them. They readily accepted it and to add to it, upon discovering that the drink they were offering us contained black tea, dumped it down the drain. Looks like we're on track with them.

We visited Duda today as well and taught her the plan of Salvation, which she seemed to really enjoy. We're hoping that her health will remain intact for Sunday because she needs to come if she wants to be baptized on the 1st of October.

9-13-23

We had a bit of a scare this morning when we sent a message to Dilma and Fernando and Fernando responded asking us to pray for them. So we called him up to ask if something had happened, and he told us that he and Dilma had been fighting and other such things that only made us more concerned. We again had to remind him that he and Dilma would experience a lot of push back from the devil because of their decision to be baptized, and he agreed, telling us that he really feels this push back. We had to remind him not to let the influence of the adversary be stronger than their desire to enter the Covenant Path.

We also reached out to Duda to ask her how she was doing, and she told us that she wasn't doing well because her baby isn't growing. So we offered to work out a time for a Priesthood holder to give her a blessing. At lunch, we asked President Thiago if he would be willing, but he seemed a little flaky about it to be honest.

Today was freaking hot, and we nearly died, I swear, because of how hot the sun was. But then, that night, after a lesson with Katia about the plan of Salvation, a ridiculous wind kicked up out of nowhere and pelted us with sand the entire walk home. During our walk home, we called up Dilma and Fernando again, and they seemed to be doing a lot better, so we'll be continuing with daily contact.

9-12-23

Tuesday; after lunch with Cléo yet again, we traveled once more to the Cidade Alta to meet with Fernando and Dilma. Out plan was to talk about the Word of Wisdom, but upon arriving - and finding Fernando alone, waiting for Dilma - Fernando expressed a few thoughts with us about how he's not super sure about marrying Dilma. After 7 years together and the man's getting cold feet at the idea of making it permanent. So we sat them down and had a talk about how the enemy always attacks with doubts after inspired decisions. We reminded them of the blessings of baptism and the temple and told them to remember how they felt the first time we met with them. They both acknowledged that they had felt so much peace the first time, so we encouraged them to remember that always; doubt their doubts before they doubt their faith.

Backing up a little...just before this visit, we got a text from Duda - Sister Souza knocked on her door during our division and Duda expressed interest in being baptized, but she didn't set a date. In this message from Duda, however, she straight up told us, "Girls, I made my decision. I want to be baptized as soon as possible." Naturally we went to visit her. She told us a little about her story; she made a few wrong choices, fell away from the church, made other wrong choices, and now she's pregnant at 16 years old. She expressed a strong desire to return to God and change her life. She said after her fist visit with us, she couldn't stop thinking about baptism, and she took that as a sign that it was God calling her back. For this reason she sent us that message.

After our lesson with Duda, we went to the Come, Follow Me study with the branch, and once more Vinicius came. While we were eating the refreshments, Antônia just straight up asked Vinicius if he was going to be baptized. He got a little flustered and began to express why he wasn't quite ready yet, but slowly he began to talk about how it really was something that he wanted. So André took him on a little tour of the baptismal font, explaining to him how baptism worked. That seemed to increase Vinicius' excitement about the idea, and when we asked again, he didn't seem quite as closed off to the idea of setting a date.

A few pictures Miriam sent later in the day 👇:

(Miriam and her companion stumbled upon a Space Museum on the way home from the grocery store.)

4th Week with Sister Almeida- Jaú, Brazil - "I won't miss the mosquitos."

"It's such a beautiful thing when you wake up with a solid dozen mosquito bites all over your legs and feet, including in the dead center of the arch of your foot. It really makes you wonder why they went through all the trouble to such your blood through your blankets and pajama bottoms and didn't go straight for you face.

I express gratitude that they didn't choose to do that, but it's still a legitimate question in my opinion.

Well, this past week I passed exactly one year since I opened my mission call. It’s pretty wild that it's already been that long. One year from now I'll be home again, and that's pretty mind-blowing as well.

Remember that couple that accepted to be baptized that I mentioned in my other email? Well, we've been maintaining daily contact with them, teaching the lessons and leaving scriptures for them to read. They're progressing extremely well; they read everyday together, they came to church on Sunday and they loved it, and they're completely open to our daily phone calls. We taught them a pretty direct lesson on the Law of Chasity, and, along with agreeing to get their wedding in order, they invited us to be the witnesses.

They came to church yesterday as well, and they loved everything they heard, and after a lesson on the plan of Salvation, they told us that they were willing to do anything to get to the Celestial Kingdom.

Also, just a side note, we invited Vinicius to yet another Bible study, and his poor little head was a little confused about all the talk of baptisms for the dead and kingdoms of glory in Paul's letter to the Corinthians.

We had Zone Conference on Thursday. 

President Card spoke a lot about really working and inviting with our purpose in mind, which is: Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.

We did a companionship split with Sister Dias and Sister Souza immediately after and decided to give this new form of introducing ourselves a shot during the splits and marked a baptismal date with yet another person on the first contact. We'll see if this doesn't make the number of people joining the church doesn't spike.

This email still isn't very long and that's because I'm texting the whole thing so I'm freaking dying of rage, but it's fine. We're all fine here.

I have an invitation for everyone this time around and that's to hunt down and read a talk called Becoming a Consecrated Missionary by Tad R. Callister.

This talk was given to missionaries specifically, but he teaches many truths that I think apply to being a member of the church as well. We can apply it to becoming consecrated disciples of Jesus Christ.

Okay, I'm done with this email and this stupid little excuse for a keyboard."

.........................

Miriam sent this picture of her and her companion's watches to show their ghetto repair job. 

Whatever works! I always say, "functionality before fashion". 

On the left: Sister Dias and Sister Almedia both wearing Miriam's dresses. 

They dress swap quite often out there. 

On the right: Ran into Sister Stott (Miriam's old MTC companion at Zone Conference.)

Sister Almeida celebrated her 21st birthday!

Eating lunch at a member's house. She volunteers to feed the missionaries almost weekly.

3rd Week with Sister Almeida- Jaú, Brazil -"WACK"

How I survived this week is beyond me. 

We kissed the cold weather goodbye last Sunday, and now the sun is trying to destroy us with all the power it posses over this country.

That and also I survived the bizarre world that is the world and life of a missionary.

We thought we found a golden investigator last week. He was so east to convince to be baptized. I told Sister Almeida after our first call with him that we had two options here: this man was crazy or gold. I said crazy. She said gold.

But after he spent all of our P Day sending messages and calling, Sister Almeida began to lean toward my side. We called him Monday night and taught the Restoration and invited him to pray about it. He messaged us three minutes after and said he had prayed. He also said that he saw me in his prayer and I'm forbidden to further share what more he said.

We blocked him.

Last night a drunk man decided I was the most beautiful thing he had seen in his life.

Quote of the night: Eu estou apaixonado por você, coisa linda. 

We gave him - I gave him a panflet; he wouldn't accept it from Sister Almeida- and bounced on out of there.

We've been trying to help Vinicius progress, but he had quite a few reservations because he doesn't want to cause a rift between him and his wife. So we worked out a family night to try and meet his wife and let them get to know a couple in the ward. We decided to do fast because we needed divine help, and wouldn't you know that they both showed up, and his wife ended up really liking us and the couple. They still didn't come to church on Sunday, but we're still trying.

We've been trying to teach a part member family - a grandpa and his army of grandkids. He grandpa is a member, but his grandkids aren't. So we've been teaching them, however they don't seem super interested...

And then we discovered that the oldest granddaughter has been having "chats" with all the kids we invite to be baptized.

Seriously. Sunday a little girl told us that she wanted to be baptized after a lesson she had in primary. We left this girl alone with her cousin for 30 seconds and when the girl spoke to us again, she didn't want to be baptized anymore.

So that's obnoxious.

So after we discovered this stuff about this girl, we were feeling a little...grumpy. But you can't just stop working, so we went to work in the neighborhood. As we were on our way to our first visit, Sister Almeida spotted a house that I had randomly picked on our last visit, but I hadn't recognized. We decided to revisit, and our conversation just started simple. Then we got the subject of the gospel of Jesus Christ - Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Holy Ghost, Endure to the End - and as both of them were crying as we told them about the baptismal covenant, we invited them to be baptized. They both excepted. 

Miracles are real.

BUT we need some prayers, because they have a feeeeew struggles with both The Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom...😬

So that's my week. Maybe I'll write in my journal this next week and have more details.

The group of old men that hang out in the park next to our house
got curious about what we were doing every day.