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
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