With Rain comes Miracles

Well another week has come and come! And it definitely was a different one!

Monday: we had a FHE with the bishop and his neighbor. Irma Queca and Irmao Leonardo. Queca is a less active member and recently married Leonardo and he has an interest in the church. So the bishop set up a FHE so we could get to know them and see what we could do to help you him progress. We tried to visit them again this week but because of the crazy weather, we didn’t get a chance to. They live really far away and we don’t know exactly how to get to their house ha. But this next week we are hoping to!

Tuesday: The day started out with an awesome district meeting! Our district leader is Elder Schinigoski and he is awesome! He is currently training a new missionary, Elder Patterson from St. George and it’s fun to watch them. Definitely reminds me of my first few weeks here. But I’m happy to finally have another American in my district!!! As we were leaving lunch, it started to rain and Sister Alves forgot her umbrella. So we ventured out in the rain for a bit and my whole back side was drenched within 2 minutes! so we waited under the covering of one of the house for a bit, just waiting for the rain to clear up enough that we could see where we were going ha. It was quite the adventure! We met with our investigator Marileny and it was so perfect! We talked about the Book of Mormon and made sure she really understood why it was important to read it. We asked her a lot of questions as well so we could better understand what she were wanting and how much she understood. She told us she has a desire to know if the church is true and to know if this book was true as well. She told us she would read and pray about it. And she even said the closing prayer for us! It was so perfect! We left extremely happy!

Wednesday: We had lunch with Irma Miriam today, one of the investigators of the other Sisters. Her sons were baptized but have fallen away. She has such a strong desire to be baptized and reads the scriptures and everything but her husband doesn’t want to get married. Normally when we visit Irmao Jardis, the husband, doesn’t talk to us and doesn’t associate with us much, but lately when me and Sister Alves visit he sits out and talks with us and same with her sons. We've had some great lessons with them lately so we are trying to have them gain more trust in us and slowly slide our way into helping them get back to church and possibly marriage. We have to be really creative ha. But our message for lunch was just with her. I shared a quote about hope and we had a really good talk with her. She is absolutely amazing! I really hope that one day she is able to get baptized! That afternoon we changed our plans. We said a prayer and me and Sister Alves both felt like we needed to go visit Sara and Guiamara, two girls that we were teaching in the beginning but we dropped them because they weren’t progressing. Along the way we were walking through the neighborhood with some super chique houses ha. And I’ve decided that during my time here I want to baptize at least one rich person. Every time I tell this to someone they laugh at me but I am determined! Normally we don’t knock on doors because Sister Alves really doesn’t like to but I decided to change that. So we started knocking and we came across a lady named Arlete. She is a journalist and asked us so many questions ha.  But we set up a day this week to visit her again. When we got to the house of Sara and Guiamara we understood why we were prompted to see them. They have been living with their Sister for the past couple of months and for things going on they are moving out and living with a friend in another city. We talked to them for a bit and I shared ether 12:4 with them. They were in need of a little hope. We were also able to write down their information and pass it to some missionaries in their new city because they were telling us how much they loved our messages and they wanted to have them again so hopefully the missionaries there will be able to help them. We also visited some members in our ward that night. The wife and daughter are members, but the daughter doesn’t live here anymore. The son is inactive and the dad was never baptized. So we talked to him and found out why but he is very open to having us over more often and having FHE’s with us! So hopefully we can help him out!

Thursday: None of our investigators were in their homes so we just started walking. We found a rich part of one of the neighborhoods near our house and I got real excited ha! So we started knocking. We came across a lady named Lucianna and we set up an appointment with her for this week! It was sprinkling a little bit but not too bad so we continued on. We had an appointment with Val and a member, Amancay so we started to head in that direction. I remembered that Val wanted my recipe for pancakes and the quadrant which Val lives in is right next to ours so I suggested we stop by our house on the way to Val's to get this recipe. Like five minutes after I decided this, it started to pour! When it rains here, it is not like Utah rain. The rain comes down all at once! It was slanted rain just like Missouri! Ha it was quite the adventure trying to walk through it! It took us forever to get to our house but we finally made it. It’s a good thing I had the thought to pass by our house because when we opened our door we found out that our house has a few leaks! But luckily only in our kitchen. So we moved all the books into the bedroom and started cleaning up the water. We spent about two hours cleaning and waiting for the rain to clean up a bit. I also spent this time working on our area book a bit. But the rain was crazy!! We had pots all over the place collecting the water. It reminded me of the movie the sword in the stone ha.

Friday: After two weeks, we were able to finally visit one of our investigators today and I’m so glad we did! We almost didn’t visit her because we had lunch in the south and she lives way up in the north but we both had the feeling that we needed to so we made the travel in that direction. Our last visit with her she hadn’t read the book of Mormon and was going through some tough things in her life. But when we visited her today she was so happy to see us! She told us she had read the Book of Mormon, we didn’t even have to ask! She told us how much she loved it and how light she feels when she reads it! It was such a dream to hear here say this! She still is going through some tough stuff in her life but she has a lot more hope now! We are so excited for her! She said she wants to get baptized and continue to learn more! It was so perfect! After Leila, we visited some less active members. Elis Angela, the mom, Atanael, the son I think he is 19 and Sofie who just turned 7. The dad is never there when we visit but we are trying to set up a FHE with them. But we talked to them about the importance or reading as a family, having family prayer and going to church. Elis Angela has started reading again so we encouraged her to read with her kids. Atanael was super interested in our messaged and participated a lot. He said he wants to return to church but me and Sister Alves thinks he has other motives for returning to church. He has a class with one of the young girls in our ward, Rita ha. It’s funny because he talks about her a lot. Ha but whatever it takes to get them back to church!

Saturday: We visited Marileny again today. And it was very different. We talked to her on the phone on Thursday and she said she had been reading the Book of Mormon. So when we talked to her about it she said it was really good and felt good reading it and felt good when she prayed about it as well. She told us there is a different feeling in her home when we visit. So we tried to talk to her about coming to church with us and talked about keeping the Sabbath day holy. The spirit just wasn’t there. She wasn’t really focused on what we were saying and didn’t have a desire to read more or go to church with us. It’s crazy how much the adversary works with people in such little time. But hopefully we can get her back to where she was this week. We didn’t really have a whole lot of people to teach so we tried visiting some references we had received. We tried to visit a reference from the elders in the area next to ours but she wasn’t home. So we decided to leave her a little note. As we were writing the note a man pulled up and was like hello Sisters! Ha we had no idea who he was but he knew who we were! He had talked to the same elders that day. He happens to live in the same house as that girl so it all worked out. We had a baptism in our ward that night and it was so perfect! Some investigators of the other Sisters were able to come and it was perfect for them!

Sunday: Leila didn’t come to church but Luci did! But we are starting to think that Luci just comes for us. So once she is done with her tests this week, we are going to sit down and talk to her about things. One of the Irmao's in our ward has some neighbors who are super interested in the church. They’ve come a couple of times, but the husband travels a lot so we haven’t had a chance to talk to him. But last night we were able to have an FHE with them and it was so perfect! Irmao Itomar talked about families and turns out they aren’t married. But they want to be married and baptized on the same day. And they already have a goal to go to the temple in January of 2016. Seriously every missionaries dream! We finally have a family and they already want all of this and we haven’t even started teaching them yet! We are so excited!!

Even though we didn’t have a lot of luck with our investigators this week, and we had lots of rain that prevented some work from happening, the week ended perfectly! We now have a family to teach, we received some references from members in the ward and have some great appointments set up for this week! I’m so excited! And we have general conference this weekend! I’m not sure what is going to happen but I’m so excited! But I have a challenge for you all. Before you sit down to watch it, write down any questions you have or write down the struggles you are having in your life right now. Prayer to the lord for help, and by doing this you will find your answers by watching conference. I know this for a fact. We are so lucky to have such a wonderful prophet to lead and guide us today!  Ha I miss Salt Lake so much but am so extremely grateful that I grew up so close to so many temples and so close to the prophet!

Have a wonderful week and remember to read the Book of Mormon! I love you all!

Sister Steadman

Three Months Down

Hello everyone! Hopefully everyone had a good week! Mine was a little different but super good!

Monday: P-Day was great as always! We also got to talk to Luci and it was so funny! I can’t remember what scripture she read but it was one in the bible talking about only serving one God and not idols or something like that. But the word it uses is close to the word Mormon so she was super worried about that and thought it was bad that she was reading the book of Mormon ha.  But we cleared things up with her and she is actually reading the book of Mormon now!! We are super excited!

Tuesday: President Lundgren came to visit today and it was so good! We had interviews with him and got to talk with his assistants which were so nice! We are struggling right now with trying to find some new investigators and they had some really good ideas so it was perfect and just what we needed! So we spend the afternoon making contacts and trying to get to know more people who live close to the church and our quadrant.

Wednesday: President Jairo Mazzagardi from the 70 came and visited us today and it was so good! He is like a little version of Elder Holland. He gave us a lot of great advice and had some super cool stories! It was the perfect motivation for us! And we even got to eat in a Chinese restaurant with him! But it was so good! We left the chapel around 3 in the afternoon with a little sprinkle, but when it rains here it doesn't stay as a little sprinkle, ha. So for the rest of the night it was on and off rain but it was so nice! It’s so dry here so it was nice to get a little bit of rain!

Thursday: My 3 month mark!! So weird to see how fast time has gone by! But I’m loving every minute of it!! We celebrated the birthday of one of the investigators of the other sisters today. We went to a restaurant with a member in the ward and spent a little bit of time with him. He got baptized on Sunday. We also had a lesson with one of our neighbors today and boy was it interesting ha. The people here are extremely religious, which is great because they are very open to hearing our message. But with some people when we start talking about the book of Mormon and Jesus Christ visiting the Americas they get so defensive and say that the bible doesn't talk about either one of these things all it all goes downhill from there ha. Oh it made me so mad! But we have to remember that people have the gift of agency and we have to respect that.

Friday: Today we did another split and I had Sister Carranza from Peru come and stay with me! Sister Alves was so worried about me ha. I’m not sure why because I know the area now and understand people better now but she made me review my day with her like a million times ha. It was funny. But I loved my time with Sister Carranza! I learned so much from her! We had a lesson with a lady who lives in the apartments buildings across the street from us and it was interesting ha. Sister Alves and I came across her the other day when we were making contacts in the street. She was super friendly and wanted to hear our message, so Sister Carranza and I started teaching about the restoration. The beginning was really good and she was super receptive to our message. Then her friend walked in..... We got the part about Joseph Smith and she had a hard time with the idea of God and Jesus Christ appearing to Joseph, not because they are separate beings. Then Sister Carranza talked about how Joseph got the priesthood from the apostles and she did not like that. In her religion they don’t believe in a spirit world and they believe that when we die our bodies turn to dust and stay here on the earth with our spirits. So I went on to explain how our bodies and spirits are separated but she did not like that and her friend was starting to fight us on this. So we moved on to the book of Mormon. They didn't like either. We tried to show them scriptures in the bible and invite them to pray about it and read the book of Mormon but over and over again they told us the bible is sufficient and they don’t need anything else.... so we left a little disheartened. But I now have plenty of scriptures in the bible to use if this happens again ha. We got Luci to set a date for baptism finally! Now we are just trying to make her feel more comfortable and making sure she understands everything. She has a really hard time concentrating on one thing at a time so we have to work slowly with her sometimes ha.

Saturday: We spent the afternoon at a member’s house having a family home evening with the sisters and their investigators and it was super good! It was exactly what their investigators needed!

Sunday: Today was Bruno’s baptism! The investigator of the other sisters. It was super spiritual and he was so excited! I love seeing how happy and excited they get! He bore his testimony at the end and sang a song. It was so beautiful!

I sure love the work here and the people. It’s hard seeing people not accept this wonderful message but we have to respect there agency and hope that one day they will accept it. I've noticed how strong the spirit is when I testify to people. It’s such a good reminder for me that I know this church is true. I know that we are children of a loving heavenly father. I know that Jesus Christ is our brother. I know that he lives. I know that because of him and his sacrifice, we can repent of our sins. He knows how we feel. He knows our weaknesses, and is here to help us. I know that because of him I can return and live in the presence of my heavenly father. I’m so grateful for this gospel and the role it plays in my life. I’m so grateful for this wonderful opportunity I have to be here, teaching my brothers and sisters about this gospel. I love this church and I know it is the only true church on the earth today!

Sister Steadman

Crocodiles In Our Lives

Not too much has happened this week, but it has been a good one!

We've got 3 investigators that I think have so much potential! I’m so excited to continue to work with them and help them learn more about their savior!!

First we have a lady named Leila. We met her one day when we were just walking down the street. We shared the plan of salvation with her and her mother and they loved it! We've taught them the restoration as well. She is 30 years old and has been recently divorced and is still trying to get back into the swing of things. Our last visit with her we talked about courage. We shared the Mormon message about Esther. If you haven’t seen this video I would highly encourage that you watch it. It’s mainly for women but I love it! It talks about the courage Esther had, then gives three examples of women today. Super good!! But Leila loved the video and I think it helped her a lot. We are hoping to continue to work with her this week.

Next is Luci, we are still working with her and helping her to feel more comfortable with things. She came to church with us yesterday and participated so much! She loves it! She’s progressing every day. She tells us that she shares our messages with everyone at her school and shares the book of Mormon as well. Ha she isn't even a member but is already a missionary! I love it!

One of our investigators, Val, decided to show more of an interest this week. She is six months pregnant and her husband is away working a lot right now so she gets pretty lonely sometimes. She is neighbors with Luci. We went and talked to her about the book of Mormon again. Ha, it was a funny conversation. I guess there is a group of people that has a name similar to Mormon that did human sacrifices and painted their faces and stuff so she was a little skeptical about the book of Mormon for this reason. She thought we did the same rituals. But we explained everything to her ha. She even came to church with us yesterday and really enjoyed it! So hopefully she will continue to progress!

We have lots of people we've been trying to contact but haven’t had a lot of luck so we just keep trying! We ran into one of the less active members this week which was great! He lives really far out so it’s hard to visit him so it was perfect that we ran into him! He has a really strong desire to return to the church and asked for our help so we are trying out best ha. Our phone doesn’t have any more credits on it right now so it’s a little challenging at times but it’s all working out :)

You’re probably wondering about the title of this email. Crocodiles in our lives. Let me explain. Last Friday we had an activity with the ward. We started off by asking them a bunch or random questions. When they would get them wrong, one person would have to do push-ups to pay for their errors. In the end we talked about the atonement and how Jesus Christ paid for our errors. I told a story that my companion in the MTC told me

One day there was a little boy playing in a swamp near his house. His mom was watching him through the window. When she looked out the window she saw a crocodile on the other side of the lake headed towards the boy. She hurried and ran out trying to get the boys attention before the crocodile got to him. The mother reached the boy the same time the crocodile did. The mother grabbed the boy’s arms as the crocodile grabbed the boy’s legs. She fought for the boy. Not giving up, she was finally able to pull him to safety.

Years later this same boy was on a talk show sharing his story with the world. The host and audience of the show asked to see his scars on his legs, but they boy wouldn't show them. He said the scars on my legs aren’t important. The scars on my arms are what matter. The fact that my mother wasn't willing to let the crocodile take me. My mother fought for me and pulled me to safety. She saved me.

Many times in our lives, we have crocodiles at our legs trying to pull us down and it can be very easy to let him. But we must always remember we have a savior. He is there waiting for us to reach up and take his hand. He is there to pull us to safety. So when life gets hard, look for the scars on your arms. And always remember that there is always someone to help you.

I am so grateful for my savior. I’m so grateful that I am able to repent for my sins and become clean. I know that he suffered for my sins. But he also suffered for our weaknesses, our failures, when we are feeling sad or depressed, when we feel weak and feel like we can’t move on. He knows exactly how we are feeling. He is there to lift us up and get us back on our feet. We should always remember him.

Have a fabulous week!

Sister Steadman

Lead by the Spirit

It`s definitely getting hotter here in Palmas but the work is progressing! We`ve got a baptism this Friday and I am so excited! Irma Zelia. She is the sister of one of the members in the ward here. It’s been so exciting to see the spirit work in the people here. It’s interesting to look and see which people you know were definitely sent in your path by the Lord. I love it!

The spirit has leaded us so much this week! Its presence has been so strong in all of our lessons. We have had some really good lessons this week. We were also able to find some more people to talk to.

There have been a couple of times this week where all of our appointments fell through so we had no one to visit. So we would say a prayer and just walk. One day we just finished visiting some members and went out walking. We walked past a market and decided to go in and talk to the owner. Usually we come up with a question to ask them. Usually something like do you know where this street is, do you know this person or do you know of any apartments for sell here? So we went and asked her if she knew of any places for sell and she knew of one! We had walked past it so many times but it didn’t have a sign or anything. It was a friend of hers that was selling it. So we looked at it and it’s pretty good! Another day we were in a different quadrant and asked someone the same question and once again they knew of a place and it’s a house. It’s pretty big and cheaper than the apartment. So tomorrow we are going to go look at them and hopefully move this week!

Other times we have been walking to go visit someone and we stopped and talked to someone on the side of the ride. One time we were going to go visit some less active members and ended up having a really good lesson on the side of the road with two ladies. They were so nice and receptive to our message. So we plan to visit them this week again.

Also a couple of weeks ago, a lady asked who we were on the bus and asked if we could visit her and her family. And we were finally able to this week! She kind of has a busy work schedule so it’s been hard but the lesson was so good! We sang I am a Child of God for them and then talked about the song. Her name is Fransica. She has two little girls and a 14 yr. boy. She definitely is in need of something good in her life and loved what we had to say. She wants us to visit again so we will try to visit her with her crazy schedule.

Something fun about yesterday, we had lunch on a farm and it was cool to see the animals that they had. Just a lot of chickens and interesting birds. But they also had monkeys! They were so cute! We feed them a little bit and just watched them climb around! It was fun"

Well that’s it for this week. Not too much. We’ve got a baptism Friday and some great people to teach this week! It’s going to be a great week here!

I hope you all have had a good week! Remember to always read your scriptures and that heavenly father loves you!