Hello Family!!
I am here in chique Ferreira doing great but am absolutely dead tired... So, if this email does not make much sense, blame it on the cansaço. Why? Because Ferreira is oh so different than any area that I have ever seen before. To give you an idea... Elder Costa (Brazil´s area President) President Del Guerso, and a lot of other reallyy successful people are part of this ward. We have about 3 streets of houses, all of which have been visited by misisonaries so many times. Seriously. The rest of our area is skyscrapers.. Lots of people with lots of money. People who think they dont need God. I wanted to take an honest sample test this first week so I promised myself I would talk to every person I possibly could. In 4 days we talked with 181 people!! A few gave us addresses but the huge majority walked (ran) right past. I have my work cut out for me.. Wish me luck...
But actually, as I look at it, this last area of mine can be an interesting, new challenge for me. An opportunity to develop a lot of faith in Heavenly Father and his grand plan. An opportunity to work really, really hard. An opporunity to become a better servant of the Lord.
Unlike my other areas, we can basically count our investigators on basically one hand. But at least the ones we have are really great...
First, we are planning another wedding! This one will be on Valentines Day! Romantic right? Immediately after we will have a baptism! The first in months her in Ferreira. this story is this... Iris was born in the church but after graduation she decided to spend some time in the beaches up north. She ended up falling in love with her surf teacher, Hannahoor. She told her mom that she had found the love of her life and would not be coming back. A few years and a little baby girl later, she started to feel that maybe that wasn´t the best choice. They decided to come back to São Paulo, and by some miracle, they found the missionaries. They want, so badly, to get their life on track and truly want to change. The wedding will be such a secial event!
We are also teaching an incredible family that was actually the miraculous result of a lot of humble prayers said by the other sisters. After December, where EVERYONE traveled they decided to include in ever prayer the desire to find a family. And after 15 days, a reference came through our phone. Turns out, this familty met the missionaries years ago and have always been impressed with the power and authority those ``young boys´´ had. They lost contact but prayed to find the missionaries again. The husband, Diego, finally found the church website and put requested a missionary visit online. He hoped it would work but did not have much faith. And so they were ohhh soooo happy when we visited. They too, need to be married legally but are oh so willing. But they are absolutely wonderful. They already offer to give us rides to anywhere we need to go. And they asked me what I miss from home. I told them maybe Mexican and Thai food and they are now planning to take us to a chique Mexican restaurant to ``matar saudades.´´
They also have a 16 year-old son named Henrique. At the moment he says he is athiest but completely participates in all of our lessons and I am convinced with enough Nephi/Enos/Ammon power strories he will come around.
Ohh, we are also teaching a man that is basically homeless. Actually he lives in a forrest so we have to visit with members for our safety. But he told us to let him know when we are in the area so he can clean up a bit and get things ready for us. Cute old man. The only problem is when we visit I get completely eaten by mosquitos.
Well, pray that we can find some really interested people here. We need the help. But I am super excited for this area. I know that I will learn so much here. Oh, and I will go on my first division this week and I am a little nervous. We are taking care of a few novinhas and I think the adjustment period is a little difficult for them. So pray for them too!
Please and thank you!!
Sister Lauren
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Christine,
First, I'd love to meet you sometime. Thanks for sending these. They help me "matar saudades", which means something like, "not miss it so much".
I can't help but respond to her thoughts about Ferreira. It's the ward we lived in when we were there. I believe the Sao Paulo West mission president now lives where we lived. We hardly ever attended church there because we visited and spoke in different wards every Sunday but I know the ward if VERY strong and had the same reputation of being a hard place to baptize when we were there. Then we put two outstanding missionaries in the ward, one more experienced and one new. They baptized like crazy and the members supported the work amazingly well. I know that after we left the President who replaced us put the Assistants in that area and they also baptized a lot of people.
The message is one that we've heard many times...that there are no "dead areas". It just depends on the missionaries, and outstanding missionaries will baptize in most circumstances. The thing I learned about the ward is that they will really support missionaries and missionary work. All the ward needs is missionaries to bring the investigators. It sounds like she's turning things around already and I have complete faith that she will have great success.
Please forward this to her to help her maintain the outstanding vision and faith she already has. Thanks much.
Dale
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