General Conference Fever

Well this week was pretty good! We are continuing to grow and progress here in Cristalina :)

This past Saturday was the baptism of Pedro, :) He seriously is the best!!! This past week we finished teaching him everything and it was so easy with him. He didn’t have any problems and he understood everything really well!! He was definitely prepared by the Lord and we found him in the perfect moment :) So he was baptized and Saturday and he was super excited! Even before he became a member he was out making visits with our other recent converts and participated in the family teachers this week. He was basically already a member, :) But I’ve loved being here in Cristalina! Pedro and our other recent convert, Gilton, have progressed so quickly and so well! They are helping our group so much and are going to make great leaders one day!! I love this church!!!!

Next, we have another investigator, Maciele who was in church the last Sunday. So we went to visit her this week and her daughter Dhiully (Julie), who is 10, came up to us and said she wanted to be baptized!!! We were like of course! So we visited her quite a bit this week to get her ready and she seriously is like the smartest little girl I have ever met! She understood everything so well and was reading the book of Mormon! And Maciele is all for her getting baptized! And Maciele one day will be baptized as well :) but we were so happy!!!! So Dhiully will be baptized this Saturday :)

And now, General Conference!!!! We are super excited!! I can’t wait to hear what our prophet has to say to us :) We are trying to invite as many people as we can and really get everyone excited about it :) Saturday we will be watching the sessions here in Cristalina in a members home but on Sunday, the church rented a bus for us so we will be traveling to watch conference in the church! Our recent converts are so excited! It will be so good for them :)

Well that’s about it for this week :) next week is transfers so we will see what happens :) But I hope you are all preparing for conference! Remember to pray and read the scriptures everyday :) Have a fabulous week! Love you all :)

Sister Steadman

McKell & Sister de Paula

A Week of the Chills

Well it has been really chilly here in Cristalina. It has rained every day, and when it rains, it rains!! But we’ve enjoyed it and were able to keep dry for most of the part, :) But we’ve been doubling up on our clothing and blankets at night! But updates for this week:

First off, our investigator Pedro Henrique is doing sooooo well!!! We are super excited with him! We visited him on Friday and taught him and his family the plan of salvation and they loved it! Pedro has been participating a lot in church and does a lot with the members here. We are always hearing good things about him from some of our members! But we asked him how he received his answer and how he knows that this church is true and every time he simply says “I know it’s all true because I feel a spiritual peace. I feel so good about all of the activities in the church and I feel so motivated with your messages!" so basically he is the perfect investigator and will be baptized this Saturday!!!!

Second, Raiane and Diego. This week we visited them with Gilton and watched the first vision with them and Diego loved it! He was freaking out and was like oh look I’ve got the goose bumps! Then another minute he was getting the chills. And he finally read the Book of Mórmon!! He read the chapter we marked and more, and explained all of it to us after!  It’s a miracle when the people remember what they read, ha! But we were super excited for him! They weren’t in church yesterday so we went to visit them and only Raiane was home. We asked her what happened and got talking to her, and she hasn't really been reading the BOM, she hasn’t really been praying so we asked her why. She told us that she was missing her catholic traditions and was wanting to return. She told us of all the good things that have happened since we entered in their lives and how much things have improved. So we sat there and bore our testimonies and told her why these things were happening. So we invited her again to read and pray and if she was still wanting to learn more to call us and we would stop by. It’s just so sad to see all of these little miracles in the lives of people but they aren’t willing to change. So it was really hard leaving their house last night.

But last night we had an awesome family night with a bunch of our recent converts, Pedro and Ruth!! We shared some conference talks and talked about missionary work. They all loved it! They all of such a desire to help with our work and tell everyone about the gospel! So we wrote down all of the missionary lessons on pieces of paper, then we each took turns pulling one out of a bucket and talking about the subject, but we had to try to link our paper with what the person before us had! It was so much fun! And they loved it!!

Saturday we had a stake relief society activity! And it was so good for our Irmãs here!! They finally got to see what a real chapel looks like and learn a little bit more!  Also this week we were able to find one of our investigators... finally!!! We taught her the first lesson and showed her the Book of Mórmon and she was like, “I’ve been wanting to read this book!!” We were taken by surprise! I guess one of her friends is an investigator of the Elders and showed it to her. So she was super happy to receive it! And she was in church yesterday so we have a lot of hope with her!

Well that’s about it for this week! This next week we are going to try really hard to find new people to teach and strengthen our members! I love you all! Remember to read your scriptures daily!!! Have a Fabulous week!

Sister Steadman

Mãos que Ajuda (Helping Hands)

This week has flown by so fast!! And crazy to think that this week I will hit my 9 month mark :( Don’t really know how I feel about that. I try not to think about it ha. First off, I would like to thank my wonderful family and grandparents for the wonderful package I received! I truly am blessed. :) And I know that the lord will bless you all for helping me. :) But thank you so much and I love you all. :)

Well I don’t remember a ton that happened this week but I will try, ha. On Wednesday, we traveled to Brasilia for a zone conference and it was exactly what we needed! We focused a lot on what we need to do to improve as a mission. And being here in Cristalina, it’s kind of hard to get ideas from other missionaries because it’s just the 6 of us all the time. Every now and then it’s nice to get some ideas from outside of our area so we can continue the work here so this meeting was so perfect for us! Our mission president changed a few things which I think will help us a lot! 

Our investigators are doing really well! We got cut by a few this week, but we’ve got some others who are really progressing!

First off, Pedro. He was a reference of Irmã Joice and straight from the beginning he has been perfect! He is reading the BOM and attends church. He knows the church is true and is preparing to be baptized on the 28th of this month!!!!!! We are super excited for him! His mom and sister still have questions but we are hoping to get them progressing as well. 

One of our other investigators, Raiane, is doing really well. We were able to sit down with her husband more this week and teach them together. She was in church yesterday with her son and is reading as well. It was so cute in church yesterday, at first, her son Arthur didn’t want anything to do with anyone! So I did my best. I got some little toys for him and tried to distract him so Raiane could focus. In the end it worked! During sacrament he sat on the front row with me most of the time and we colored together! It was perfect because Raiane was able to really focus and participate during the classes! 

In church yesterday we had 66 people, a new record for us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Now Saturday, we had the wonderful opportunity to do a service project with the church organization, helping hands, I think it is called, ha. So we went to a retirement home and fixed up the walls, painted them and cleaned up the area for them. It was a really cool experience! 

Well that’s about it for this week! Thank you all for everything! Have a fabulous week! Love you all!

Sister Steadman

A Surprise Baptism

SURPRISE!!! Many more miracles have happened here in Cristalina! This week we were able to have a baptism and it was such a special moment! I felt like I could really see the Lords hand in our work this week! It’s truly amazing! So here’s a little bit about my week. :)

So this week we ended with the baptism of Thayná! She is the granddaughter of Irma Carmen, who was baptized about a month ago and she is 14. So she’s been staying with her grandma for about a month now, and every weekend she told us she was going to return home to go back to school, but she never returned. So she sat with us in most of the lessons with Irma Carmen so she basically already knew everything. So this weekend we got talking to her and just asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said yes! So we made plans to have her baptized here! So Saturday afternoon was her baptism and it was so special! It was so cute! She was sooo happy! She had her best friends with her and Irma Carmen was so proud! It was such a special moment! As of today we aren’t sure if she’s going to go back to her house or if she is going to stay here with us. We have been praying for weeks for her to stay, and she stayed long enough to get baptized. So we will see what the outcome is this week.

We had another cool experience yesterday! One of our recent converts, Gilton, received the priesthood yesterday and he got called as the secretary of our group! It was so cool and such a special experience to see it all happen :) Just seeing how the Lord worked in his conversion. The Lord had it all planned out. We met him in the exact moment that we needed to and the rest is history! I’m super excited to see what else the Lord has in store for him! Every week he tells of new people he is inviting to church or moments he has had of sharing the gospel. He is already such a great missionary!

We also had some more progress with some of our investigators this week. Regis and Edivaldo. They are a couple that we met the other week and we have been trying really hard to help them out. They have a lot of problems, but their desire to change is huge! So we taught them the word of wisdom this week and talked about marriage with them. They weren’t too happy with the idea of marriage but they are getting more comfortable with it. Regis has really improved with the Word of Wisdom but Edivaldo is still having problems. But they are progressing! We went and visited them yesterday and Regis was telling us how she was telling a friend about the church and her friend brought her a book. Basically the book was full of churches that are sects or do things against god. And our church just so happened to be there. So we looked at it and the information it contained was correct. It was very interesting. So we taught the first vision and that seemed to calm them down a little bit ha. But the book is just one more sign that this church is true. There isn’t another church here on the earth that is attacked more than The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. From the beginning, from the days of the bible, this church was attacked and continues to be. Just goes to show that this church really is the true church.

Just another quick story. Last night we were doing visits with Gilton, and it started to pour so a lady invited us to take cover in her little garage until the rain stopped. We got talking to her and she told us that she sees us almost every day passing by and she noticed that we were someone different when we would say good morning to her. So she told herself that one day she would talk to us. So we took advantage of this opportunity and taught her and her sister. It turned out to be such a good lesson, more of her family showed up as the lesson went on. In the beginning she and her sister were telling us how her mother recently died. So we asked them what they believed with life after death and so we ended up teaching them the plan of salvation because they didn’t believe in much. It was perfect! It was such a spiritual lesson! So we are going to visit them again later this week :)

I’m so grateful for this wonderful plan that our heavenly father has made for us. He truly loves us. I’m so grateful for this opportunity i have to be here, helping these people find this hope and joy! I love this gospel!

Well I hope you all have a wonderful week! Keep reading the scriptures!

Love,
Sister Steadman