March 31, 2015-Ganzarolli family, and lots of other things...

Hi família!! It was a great week. Maybe one of the best of my mission. I guess I say that I lot, but this mission work can be pretty magical! Let me try to give ya a few highlights...

First, a few weeks ago, a member asked for our help with one of the familiy he home teaches. He explained that it would probably be a bit difficult, that the ward had tried to visit for years but was never very welcome. This family owns one of the very fanciest restaurants in our area called Bananeira because of the huge banana trees inside. Actually, they do lots of weddings and super chique parties and I have been mesmerized for quite some time. But anyway, after weeks of trying, the wife, Rédia finally let us in. I think out of pitty. BUT, we talked and laughed and became instant friends. We invited her to visit church again with her husband and children. (Did I mention her three children are not baptized and should be?!) Saturday night we called and reminded her about church and she told us that they would be going and she had already laid out a dress and everything. 

The ward was shocked. The jaw-dropped kind of shocked and confirmed that good sisters have a special kind of power. 

And last night we planned a super special FHE with them and their home teacher´s family. The husband, Mauricio made an incredible dinner. As you can imagine, he knows his stuff in the food world. We used our handy puzzle to talk about the plan of salvation and left everyone crying. It was wonderful. 

Also, this week we decided to visit our investigator, Mayra, basically out of the blue. Mayra is exremely religious.. so much so that last week at church she created a very heated discussion about whether we should honor Saturday or Sunday... yeah awkward.  But, She lives a pretty hectic, single-mom life with 4 little kids and when we walked in we felt, instantly, that things weren´t right. She was over her head with kids to feed and a house to clean. Sooo, we got to work. We cleaned and organized. And from the other room I heard her little daughter  ask ``mom, why are they helping us?´´ She replied that we were Heavenly Father´s angels who are far away from our mai mai and pai pai to help all the people. After we shared a message about Easter (our round about way of teaching the importance of Sunday without getting into a bible bash with her) and she began to cry. She explained that, she woke up completely overwhelmed, not knowing how she would possibly get through the day. She asked him to send angels to assist her and soon after we showed up. So cool

Carla and Diego are wonderful. Carla will be in New York for the next two weeks taking a professtional make-up class, but as soo as she gets back they will be married and baptized. And we couldn´t be happier. (we being the intentional pronoun. I am walking on cloud nine too.) 

Also, one day this week we worked in front of the temple and had a pretty miraculous experience... We ended up teaching 8 different people inside the temple.. We taught a tattood, pierced Athiest, a mom who recently lost her 22-year old daughter, a mysterious  girl who seemed exceptionally afraid and appeard to be running from something/someone, and others with similar problems.  All came in with all sorts of worries, theories etc. but left feeling a special sort of peace. I left, once again feeling a special sort of gratitude for the opportunity we have to enter the Lord´s house on such a regular basis. 

Our die-hard Presbyterian finally accepted a baptismal date after visiting church for the last 6 months!! He said that he is praying daily to ask for a confirmation and is beginning to feel something different in his heart. But,  pray for Flauvio. Heaven knows that he needs your prayers

 

We also visited Rose and her daughters again and had a different, young women sort of lesson. We read about big, strong, brave moroni, the whole time making a list of the qualities we wanted in our future prince charming. They absolutely loved it, and I just couldn´t help but think about my three darling sisters. So as a special shout out to you girlies, here is my quote of the week. ``You don´t need to be chasing after butterflies; if you take care of the garden, they will come.´´ :) 

So, Have a wonderful week!! Love you all,

Sister Lauren

                                                                                    Foto da reunião de Sisteres

March 23, 2015- A road trip and lots of other news!

Hi Family!!!!

Well, it was another wonderful week!! And very eventful so I have so much news!!

First, I had my first road trip in about a year and a half!!!! Ironically enough, WITH my mission president.. Long story short, Carla, our wonderful investigator needed to get a divorce document from campinas so that she can get married (and baptized). She always meant to get over to Campinas, but never got around to it. I explained the situation to President and he and Sister Del Guerso are basically besties with the Carla and Diego family after our FHE last week so he got super excited and said ``Lets go together!!´´ And that is exactly what we did!! We got the document and after managed to visit the Campinas temple. So beautiful by the way. Carla absolutely LOVED the temple. Actually, when she stepped inside she even gasped. She said that she has seen lots of buildings equally if not more luxurious in her life, but she has never felt such a powerful spirit anywhere. She affirmed, without a shadow of a doubt that she had indeed stepped inside the house of the Lord. She sent pictures of the gardens and things to Diego and seemed all sorts of excited to enter with him in a short while. 

And, on the way home, we stopped at an incredible sushi restaurant. All I can say is, President knows his missionaries :) 

On a side note, sister Del Guerso even packed some snacks for during the trip. So it was a road trip de verdade. 

Speaking of Carla and Diego, this week, as a goodbye gift to Sister Castro, they planned a little suprise for us. They made homemade burgers, a great passionfruit mousse, and gave us BEAUTIFUL, expensive jewelry. Needless to say, I will wait until I get home to use it. And they even gave Sister Castro a ride to transfers to say goodbye properly and pick up my new companion, Sister Freitas. As a welcome, we went to a light breakfast at a cute bakery with Carla. During our breakfast, a man passed by asking for money. Immediately, Carla stood up and ordered a meal for him too. As we left she offered to buy all kinds of things for us to take home with us. They are so absolutely wonderful and giving. So when President and sister offered to come with us all the way to Campinas she simply could not believe the generosity. She said ``I have spent my whole life serving, but I am not used to being served... No one ever does these kinds of things for me!´´

They will do great in the church of Jesus Christ. Because as I told her, here we take turns. At times we serve. At other times we let people serve us. And everyone ends up winning in the process. 

Also, this week I visited this less active American girl who lives here with her RM/less active husband. She doesn´t speak Portuguese, so as you can imagine, I tried to teach in English. TRY being the key word. I stummbled over my words the whole time, forgetting lots in the process. And in the end she said ``I think it is so cute, you trying to speak my language and all...´´ Yeah so not cool. 

In other news, today I finally got the chance to visit one of my favorite Vila Sonia... Wendy and Marcela. (Eduarda was at school) But it was incredible. Wendy ended up not getting baptized yet. :( Eduarda is a little bit rebelious at the moment but Marcela (9 year-old) is super strong. Actually, she gets herself up every week and goes to church alone. she told me about Daniel, her prayer rock and her nightly scripture study. She even gave me a pine cone to remember her by. 

But, I have been feeling, for a while, like I needed to do something to finish what I started. Because this family is absolutely wonderful. So, I got out my old journal, brushed the dust off, and found every part where I wrote something about them. (there are lots!!) I made a little journal for them full of pictures, precious memories, quotes from prophets, things like that. We got permission to visit and II surprised them. Wendy was so absolutely happy! Thrilled actually. It was wonderful to be able to see them again. 

Oh andddd I heard some other exciting things too... Joyce is now young women´s president and Alexandre is first counselor in the young men´s presidency. (Cotia) And they are oh so excited. Joyce has already made a list of every young women who is not going to church weekly and she has all sorts of plans to visit and reactivate. They were born to be church leaders! 

So, to close, I would just like to say that I am a really happy girl!! And I am loving every minute of my Brazilian adventure. 

Com Amor, 

Sister Lauren

Road Trip with the President and Sister Del Guerso!

Curritiba Temple

Sushi with the President

Old Friends from Campo Limpo

March 16, 2015- Rosana´s baptism & FHE com Presi

Hi family!!! 

It was such a wonderful week!!! For so many reasons!! I will try to give a few highlights... So EDILSON was baptized!! Actually, President Del Guerso took the trek to Cotia to baptize him and said it was wonderful!! Unfortunately, I couldn´t be there because I had to organize another really special event. because ROSANA was also baptized!! And it was such a wonderful day!!  Oh so beautiful! She wanted more of a family gathering so it was basically us, President and sister Del Guerso, and Rosana and her family. Rosana has a sister (actually she is living with this sister right now) named Rosangela. And after 10 years of recieving the missionary lessons, and marrying a returned missionary, Rosangela was baptized a short 2 years ago. But you would not believe that this woman is a recent convert. She is incredible. She was so excited that her only sister was baptized that she helped us so much throughout the whole process... 

She wanted to introduce her sister to the church so badly but was afraid of what she would think. But one month ago she was watching us at church and felt a strong impression that she needed to invite us over to meet Rosana. She suggested that we give a Book of Mormon and maybe read a part with her. We went, and with the help of the spirit, were able to do much more. 

When we taught about the word of wisdom, Rosangela went right out and bought some different kinds of acceptable teas for her sister. 

When we told her that we had created a baptismal goal she simply cried. 

She planned musical numbers, made a baptismal agenda, sent the white clothes to the dry cleaners this week and even surprised us with a special Feijoada dinner one night to express her gratitude. 

So as you can imagine, this baptism was incredibly important for the two ``R´´ sisters. Rosangela cried and cried and in her testimony she thanked the sisters who changed the life of her sister and left such a sweet spirit in her home. She told us that she views us as her daughters and will be forever grateful to us for blessing her family. What she doesn´t know is I am equally grateful for the opportunity Heavenly Father gave me to participate in the process. It was simply an honor! 

Also, we planned a super special family home evening with Carla, Diego, Hannahoor and Iris. It was simply incredible!! President and sister talked about their lives and the difficulties that come with raising children and taking care of a home and everything else. They were so absolutely real and honest and everyone left feeling capable and honored to be on this earth in families. 

It is a good thing too because this week we found out that Carla and Diego are having some real challenges. Jealousy, stress, long distance complications. And as we introduced them to some of the families in our ward who seem to have it all together, they started to compare themselves with the others thinking that they could never measure up.

Hanahoor and Iris are great and happy. (We celebrated one month with them yesterday!! Actually we surprised them because they totally forgot!) But Iris told us that at times it is difficult to be a young mom because she does the exact same thing every single day. I think she started to doubt if she is even making a difference in the world and such... young mom problems. Hanahoor is grateful to be working but I think at times he kind of misses the waves. 

Luckily, president and sister were inspired to be completely genuine and open. Sister talked about how she worked so hard as a young mom to plan family home evenings and read scriptures and stuff, but everythin always seemed to go terribly wrong.  At times wondered whether she was even making a difference. Until, she recieved a letter from her missionary son thanking her everything she had taught and letting her know that it wasn´t in vain. 

(for you mom and dad I say ditto )

Ferreira is not totally easy, but has some real perks! I am learning so much and it never hurts to have a good FHE com Presi every once in a while! haha

But I am very happy and doing great! 

Boa Semana

Sister Lauren

The Zone

Taking the subway to go shopping on Pday

FHE 

P.s. So I am trying to think of all the people I want to visit and how we are going to fit it into one week... I think it´s gonna be hectic... And in a few weeks I will sit down with Paulinho and begin to plan it all out. So many people are excited to meet you!! 

March 15, 2015 RANDOM PHOTOS!!!

Photos we received today by someone in Brazil (Jimmy). Lauren will have lunch at his house on Friday! I love it when people send us photos of our Missionary and I also LOVE to find photos of her mission on Facebook. I have never been too much of a Facebook fan, until I had a missionary!

                                                                  Hannahoor and Iris

March 9, 2015-

Hi family! It´s been another really great week!!

First, Carla, Diego, Henrique and little Valentina all came to church yeterday!!I It was such a wonderful sight!! With the help of our LMA, we managed to pair up every member of the family with someone different. (youth, someone from the quorem/relief society and the primary president) And the absolutely LOVED their experience!! So much so, that after when we visited they said that they were through waiting to be baptized.. they want to enter the waters as soon as possible. This is big news because they have been investigating the church on and off for the last 6 years. So now it is a race to the Cartório to get them all marked and ready for casamento. I am so excited. And the ward is too! It think it has been a long time since the ward has seen a whole family: dad, mom, and kids all come to church in church clothes and everything wanting to be baptized. It is truly a miracle. 

On a side note, Henrique is going to seminary a good amount of the time and actually really liking it. He is participating in our lessons and even said his very first prayer the other night at the dinner table. His parents are thrilled and logically we are too!!

Iris and Hanahoor are so happy! Hanahoor recieved the preisthood, cut his hair, and with the help of the elders quorem has a whole lot of snazzy white shirts. So he is looking great and feeling even better and we are oh so happy with his progress.

Rosana will be baptized this Sunday!!! Yayy!! She is a little nervous about how she will level herself into the water and things, but it´s okay because we have enough faith for the three of us. It will all work out. This week we challenged her to stop drinking coffee, and though she wasn´t really sold (she loves her coffee) she was willing to try. She is a dedicated little thing so I know it will work out all right. 

The two teenage daugthers of another recent convert, Rose, came to church yeterday! We are working hard and creatively with them. We are teaching lots of things that will catch a teenagers interest and we are using lots of audio visuals, but I think it is working and they seem super excited! 

We are happy and working hard. But I promise, next weeks email will be a little bit better. Love you all!

Sister Lauren

                                                           pedicures and milkshakes always make for a good day

Letter from Lauren's companion;

Olá Irmã Neeleman

Bom dia!

Gostaria de agradecer pelo presente que você me enviou. Eu adorei.

Você é muito bondosa.

Sua filha é muito boa também e eu estou muito feliz por te-la como companheira.

Um grande abraço a toda a família.

Atenciosamente,

Sister Castro

Missão São Paulo Oeste

Translation;

I would like to thank you for the present you gave me. I love it. You are very kind and your daughter is as well and I am happy living with her as my companion. A big hug to the whole family. 

Sister Castro

March 2, 2015- SIM!!!

Hi family!!

It has been another great week here in Fereira! Let me give you a few highlights...

So remember our inspiration that Henrique needed to start going to seminary?! (Henrique is the 17 son of our investigator family who was previously athiest) Well, we presented the idea to him making seminary sound like the very best thing on planet earth. We talked about the incredible teacher, the daily snack, and the cute girls. We may have been exaggerating a little bit, but we missionaries are known for our exaggerations. And with the help of his ever so insistent parents, HE AGREED!! We asked a member to give him a ride for his first day because it was raining cats and dogs. We called and sensed that he was a little reluctant but didn´t even give him an option. We simply said, ``Henrique, we are waiting for you... just come out´´ The member just looked at us and laughed calling us cara de pau.. But gues what?! He went and actually kind of liked it. So much so that he kept going the rest of the week. Even without a ride!! I was shocked. But we bought him scriptures and now he is even participating and everything. I am so very proud. 

Also, Rosana (the member´s sister/phycologist who is partially paralyzed) accepted a baptismal date!! 15 de Março and we are so very pleased. She grew up Catholic but recently experienced lots of emotional and physical problems which finally made her a little more humble and willing to accept our message. She is so so smart. She loves to read and remembers everything. Her worry is that she won´t be able to endure to the end because she can barely walk and church is extremely exhausting. I helped her a bit and packed a little snack. Crackers and an apple. And I think she was not so absolutely tired this week. Her member sister is helping us lots too, and when we told her that we had marked her sister for baptism she began to cry and told us that we were helping to change her life. 

Also, we got a new ward mission leader and he his amazing. A successful businessdude who treats missionary work in our ward exactly like a company. BUT some amazing things are happing. On sunday he planned a BBQ with half of the ward members. Lots of food. Lots of people. And then, he began calling for referrals from everyone!! Just like that! And he basically planned our week for us including members to help us teach Rosana every day and a FHE tonight with Carla Diego Henrique and one of our eternal investigators, Manuel. I love when see members who are still so excited about missionary work and oh so willing to help us. 

For the last 5 years the Ferreira ward has baptized an average of 5 people per year and Kiko, our WML told us that was simply unacceptable. He created a personal goal of 30.. Maybe he is shooting a little high but I guess if you shoot for the stars and reach the moon, you still end up in a pretty good place, so I am excited to see all the good things that will happen here! What a great last area! I feel blessed. 

And to close, I would like to tell a story that Iris told yesterday in Sacrament meeting because I was very touched. So Iris´s daughter is 2 and though she can say lots of words, she has one favorite.. ``não´´´and it doesn´t really matter the conversation, she always responds the same... ``não´´ Do you love me... não. Do you want a treat... não (as she puts out her hand) So Iris is developing a lot of patience and made a beautiful analogy. That at times we are exactly like her two year old daughter. As Heavenly Father stands with His hands outstreached, just willing and ready to offer so many blesings, such a wonderful path to us, we find ourselves saying ``não´´. That for whatever reason we are content living our lives our way. And he just keeps on offering us more.. more chances, more opportunities, more blessings. But that moment when we begin to say ``sim´´, our lives begin to change. We feel His hand in a very real way. 

At least for Iris and Hanahoor, their recent sims have made all the difference in their lives.

And for me, the ``sim´´ decision that I made about a year and a half ago has made all the difference in my life too. I will be forever grateful that I decided to accept the greatest blessing He was just dying to give me. I am a happy girl. 

How great is it to have a Heavenly Father who knows how to plan things out so perfectly. 

Have a great week!!

Sister Lauren

3/2/15
a cute letter from Lauren's former companion!

oii disculpa por não escrever em ingles para vocÊS mais... eu só quero agradecer vocÊs por ter uma filha tão especial como sister lauren, realmente ela é uma das melhores missionarias que esta missão tem... ela é um exemplo muito grande para mim, de como eu devo ser... eu amo muito ela..

e eu não tive a oportunidade de agradecer pelos presentes de natal que vocÊs mandaram para mim... isso foiu muito bonito, cada coisa que ela faz por mim, eu sei que é com muito amor...

muito obrigada por tudo...

amo vocÊs

sister granados 

in english;

hi sorry for not writing in English for all of you more I just want to thank you guys so special to have a daughter as sister lauren, really she is one of the best missionary that this mission has ..she is a great example for me, for how I should be to others... I love her a lot.

I have not had the OPPORTUNITY to thank you for the Christmas presents you sent to me … they are beautiful. thanks for every thing you gave for me , I know and love them a lot ... thank you for everything