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

Staying in Cristalina

Well today was transfers but luckily, I will be staying here with Sister De Paula!!!!! We are extremely excited. :)

This week was pretty good! We were able to find some more investigators, and finally get some to progress a little more! This week we had our first relief society activity and it was really good! It’s fun to finally have enough people to do these activities. :)

We met two young girls a couple of weeks ago, Jessica and Bruna, and this week we were finally able to sit down with them and teach them! They had been coming to all of our activities, and they even came to church! So we were able to teach the about the Book of Mormon and the plan of salvation and it was so good!! When we taught them about the Book of Mormon they were both so excited to start reading it! Then they were amazed with the Plan of Salvation. It was so cool to see them finally have answers to some of their questions and truly understand this plan. I love teaching the plan of salvation! We invited them to be baptized and they both accepted! So now we just need to talk to their parents...... wish us luck, ha!

This week I was also able to work a lot with some of our recent converts; Gilton who was baptized about 3 weeks ago and Aline who was baptized before I arrived. Gilton told me a little more about his life before he got to know the church and it’s truly amazing how the lord works. He’s got a plan for every single one of us and loves us so much! With Aline she got called as the seminary teacher and she is extremely shy! So we’ve been working a lot with her on talking in front of people and this week the classes start! So we are really excited to see how she does. :)

One funny thing for this week - we were looking for the house of an investigator of the elders and were in an area that we didn’t know yet. We were searching for a house that was more out in the farms. So we came to a strip of houses with a bunch of chickens in the front and a lamb. Ha, this lamb really liked Sister de Paula but she wasn’t to fond of him, ha. So he chased us around for a bit and kept bugging Sister de Paula ha. In the end, we found the house and everything was good. :)

Have a fabulous week everyone!!

Sister Steadman

Growing in Cristalina

Well I feel like this week has flown by! Can’t believe it’s already Monday again! But here’s a quick recap of my week!

I’ll start with Gilton. It’s been such a good week with him! He seriously progressed so much! He reads every day and enters the church website and reads from there too. We talked about a mission with him and he wants to serve! So we are going to start preparing him to serve! And he was baptized this past Saturday! He was so excited! And this next week he wants to take us to visit his sister and some of his friends! So we are super excited to get started working with him!

Irma Carmen helped us a lot this week! We don’t have a lot of investigators right now, but when we visited Carmen she went out with us and we visited some of her neighbors and they came to church with her! She is amazing! She is 63 and has so much energy! She is always ready to serve and is so willing to help! I hope I have that much energy when I'm old, ha!

This week we met a women named Maria de Conceicao and she is awesome! We’ve already taught her the first 3 lessons and some commandments and she tells us every time, I know this is all true, I don’t even need to ask, haha she is so funny! But we were able to meet her daughter and are going to start teaching her daughter as well.

This week we tried really hard to find a family and we were praying super hard. But Sunday came around without any luck. So as we were walking to a members house we walked passed a park and bam! There, sitting on a bench was a family. Like picture perfect kind of family! So we talked to them and they were super interested. So we are going to get working with them! So hopefully it all works out well!

Well thank you all for your love and support! I hope you all have a wonderful week and remember to read the scriptures! Love you all!

Sister Steadman :)

Renovations

Well this week sure was a busy one! We started it out traveling to Brasilia and got a little bit of rain this week.

Tuesday: We had our mission conference and it was super good! We watched the movie ‘Get to Know the Mormons’ and it was so good! So inspiring and I absolutely loved it! If you haven’t had a chance to watch it, you definitely need to! Later that night we arrived in our house about 9 that night and we found out that we didn’t have any energy. So it was interesting, ha.

Wednesday: We went and visited Carmen who was recently baptized and she is the cutest! She is learning how to read and ever since she has been baptized she’s been able to read the scriptures and understand them! She was so happy about that! We still didn’t have any energy so we had to have our English class outside, ha. Only a few people showed up so me and Elder Noyes just taught them parts of our body and our clothes and sang head shoulders knees and toes with them in English, ha. It was so fun! We were able to teach Gilton this day and it was amazing. We taught him about the restoration and he loved it! He was so amazed! He is getting ready to be baptized this Saturday and is so excited! He truly was an answer to our prayers. We were praying so hard to find good men to hold the priesthood and we randomly came across him. We were walking down the street one day and we heard the song `The Club Can’t Handle Me Right Now` by Flo-rida and started dancing in the street a little bit so we decided to knock on his house and he walked out. Truly a miracle!

Thursday: We started the day out with a district meeting which was super good and Elder Zampieron talked a lot about patience and persistence and how our area is so different from others so we have to work a little different here. But it was perfect and exactly what we needed to hear. This area truly is one of a kind. It’s going to be an extremely sad day when I leave. But later that night we had a family night with some less active members and it was really good. We had each of them light a match and while the match was burning, we had to quickly say all of the things they wanted to accomplish in their lives. We shared the `Your Four Minutes` talk with them, I forgot who gave it but it was super good! I really love that talk! Also that night we started our renovation in our church. So we got home that night and the elders had knocked down two walls. They made a hole in the wall so we walked into our house and my desk was covered with brick and dust ha. Still to this day I am still trying to get rid of the dust, ha.

Friday: We spent the morning painting and cleaning the church. And that night for our bible study, we just gathered some of the benches in a corner and Sister de Paula gave the lesson that night while the elders continued working.

Saturday: We spent the entire day getting the church ready. We finished painting and cleaning. We had to move our baptism font, pool thingy, ha. So I was chosen as the one to step into the freezing cold water and bucket out the water, ha. But it was fun! That night we had a family night in the house of Carmen and it was really good! She invited all of her neighbors, ha. While we were waiting, the Elders were doing some magic tricks and one of the little kids was so amazed. He left before the message, then two minutes later he came running back in saying that he had discovered the magic! Ha, he was a hoot!

Sunday: Well we didn’t have too many people in church but we finally had all 3 hours. I got to teach young women's and I loved it! I love the youth! We also got to visit some less active members on their farms. The farms are super far from the city here but they are sooo pretty! Just tons of land and nature!

Well that’s about it for this week. This next week we are focusing on finding new investigators and helping Gilton prepare for his baptism this Saturday so it’s going to be a great week! I love you all and hope that you all have a wonderful week!

Love,

Sister Steadman