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!!
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