Paracatu......:)

Well you’re probably all wondering, "What a strange word that is. Paracatu." Well that would be the name of my new area!!!! And I couldn't be any happier :) I am sad to leave Guará. After two transfers of working our butts off, we were having results and we really had people preparing for baptism. But I´m leaving them in good hands with Sister Alves there. It will be sad not doing splits every week with the sisters, but I´ve got a new challenge to face and I couldn’t be any more excited :)

So Paracatu is more of a smaller town. So I´ll be headed back to the small town life which I´m super excited about! I´m not really into the city life, ha. But it is about an hour after Cristalina. So about 4 hours away from Brasilia and is in the state of Minas Gerais. So after this area I will have passed in all four states of our mission :) But two transfers ago, President opened up the area and started a group there. So my companion and me will be the first Sisters there! So we are opening an area! (Yes, once again, I am opening an area, ha). My comp, Sister Aldana is from Guatemala! And I´m super excited to work with her! I don´t really know her but everyone says good things about her so it should be fun! But in the meanwhile, we will be staying with the sisters in Nucleo Banderante because they have to put all the furniture in our house. So Wednesday, president will be taking us to our new area. So we won’t be stuck on a bus for 4 hours :) But I´m super excited :)

But about this week.... it flew by way too fast! I will try to remember it all!

Wednesday we had the wonderful opportunity to have a mission conference with Elder Costa, the area president here. And it was probably the best conference I have had here on my mission! Never have I learned so much before! He spoke to us for 4 hours but it was the best 4 hours! It went by too fast. He gave us a lot of tips on how to better our missionary work; a lot of good tips that I have never thought of before. It seriously was the best thing ever! Then he gave the leaders of the mission a quick training after which was also really good! I absolutely loved it!

But because of the conference, our week was super short! But here’s a quick update on Ian! So Wednesday he called us to tell us how his reading went in the Book of Mormon. If you all remember, we visited him the Monday before and he answered all the questions in the back of the pamphlet. So we gave him the book of Mormon, marked a part for him to read. So he called us to tell us that he believes that it is all true! ( I couldn’t believe what I was hearing) and that it made perfect sense to him the Book of Mormon and that he always knew that there was more then the bible. Seriously he is unreal! So we went to visit him Thursday morning and he had read all the way to 2 Nephi.... so unreal! And he told us exactly every little detail of what he read. Then we visited him Saturday again and it was another great lesson. And he was already reading 2 Nephi and really liked it! But unfortunately he wasn’t in church because he had to take a test. But I’m sure of it that he will be baptized :)

Well that’s about all I remember that happened this week. Ha, I know I’ horrible but I’ll be better next week!

But I hope you all have a wonderful week! Keep reading the scriptures and saying your prayers! Love you all!

Com Amor,

Sister Steadman

McKell and Amanda

Cristalina

Well my first week in Cristalina has been absolutely fabulous!!! First I’ll explain a little bit about this town.

Cristalina is in Goiás, and I have been told that it is the crystal capital of the world..... So there are little crystals everywhere! So we are always on the look for them. :) We are here with two sets of elders because this town is pretty huge! It’s got the small town look and feel but it’s big! There are farms on the outsides, we’ve got a nice center and there’s a good mixture of a bunch of different people here. But I’m absolutely loving it! The town is a little bit more elevated so everyone told me it would be a little bit cooler here..... Hahaha wrong. It’s super-hot here and the sun is so close to us so it’s super bright. But we have spent most of our time in people’s houses teaching this week. In such a small amount of time, we have met sooo many awesome people! This town is full of miracles!

So to start off with some of the investigators we have. One days as we were walking around with Elder Dias (Sao Paulo) and Elder Noyes (some super small town in Utah) a lady came up and asked if we could visit her dad and say a prayer for them. Her name is Iracema. So we went and visited them and they were super nice and receptive! She has an older lady that helps takes care of her dad and her niece and the niece’s daughter live with her. So it has been really good visiting them this past week. The little girl, Thalita is five and she is the cutest! She loves it when we are there! But they believe in everything we have taught them so far..... Which is good but we are more concerned about them really gaining a testimony about these things and knowing for themselves. So that’s one of our biggest challenges with people here. But some of them were in church yesterday and they loved it!

We’ve also worked with a less active member, Andre and he has progressed so much this week! He made a ton of visits with us and was in church yesterday!

Since we don’t have a ward here we as missionaries kind of run everything ha. Man it is quite the experience but we are loving it! Me and my companion taught relief society and it was really good! And we have 37 people in church yesterday, 17 of them being investigators! So we are slowly getting bigger. We are receiving some help from the stake that is closest to us and they are sending us some people to help us grow a little faster. So it’s going to be so cool to watch this area grow!

We’ve got a lot of activities throughout the week. I’m now teaching English on Wednesdays which was really cool! I have never taught it before so it will be super interesting but I’m super excited :)

Well that’s about it for this week :) I’m loving my comp and I’m loving this area! I’m so grateful to be a part of this work! We always say that we feel like the pioneers, ha. Starting from the ground up :) Of course it’s got its struggles but they miracles are so amazing! truly a blessing to be apart of this :)

Well I hope you all have a fabulous week!

Love

Sister Steadman

It’s Never Too Late For A Miracle

This week truly was amazing!! It started out really good with the baptism of Luiz and just continued from there. We spent a lot of time with Jose this week. So Tuesday night we just stopped by his house really quick to see if he was home and to see how he was doing. And as we were talking to him he asked, “So can we have a baptism this Saturday?”, and we were like “Ya!”... then he said, “Well then let’s have a baptism. I’ll be baptized.”, and he said it all calmly. I seriously almost freaked out! For moment I almost didn’t believe him! It was truly a miracle! So he was baptized this past Saturday and it was such a great baptism!!! He was so happy and cute! But it was absolutely amazing to see the light in his eyes. Never before have I seen the light in someone’s eyes change so quickly. It was like the light inside of him was waiting for so long that it just couldn’t wait anymore! It was amazing! As soon has he made the decision to be baptized, his appearance changed completely! He looked so much happier! It was truly amazing!

Jose's Baptism

Teaching Luiz this week was wonderful as well. He also has such a bright light in his eyes now! But we got talking to him about the priesthood and he was absolutely amazed! He was so impressed that he was going to have the opportunity to have the same power that Jesus Christ had here on the earth. It was truly amazing to watch him. We were also able to teach all of his family together...... FINALLY!!!!! And it was so good! We taught them the first message and they all committed to baptism! The spirit was so strong! It was such a cool experience!

Well transfers were today and....... I got transferred! It’s sad leaving Asa Norte, but I am extremely excited for my new area! I’m opening up a new area in Cristalina! My new comp is Sister de Paula who I lived with up in Palmas! But this area is a pretty small city in Goiás. It doesn’t even have a ward, ha. Maybe only 20 members. But I’m super excited to help this area grow and help them progress in this gospel!!

I’m so excited! I absolutely love this work! I am so grateful to be a part of this wonderful work and helping others come unto Christ! It truly is an amazing experience! Remember that your Heavenly Father loves each and every one of you! He knows you personally and wants to hear from you. Make sure to take the time to sit down with him and talk to him. Tell him about your day and all of your problems. He will help you :)
I love you all :)

Sister Steadman

Born in Palmas!

Here in Brazil, your first area is where you are born, the last area is where you die ha. So I was born in Palmas! My mom is Sister Alves! She is the cutest! She is from Sau Paulo. She doesn’t really speak English so communicating has been fun ha! She has been out for 3 months. 

We are both new to the area so we don’t have an investigators. But there are to other Sisters in this area as well, one who was here last transfer and the other came with me from the CTM, so she has showed us around and helped us get to know the members. Sister De Paula is from Brazil and has been out for 5 months. Sister Costancio is from Argentina and is new just like me! She’s super cute!

We have been working a lot with the less active members. One is Eduardo. There’s six kids in the family and he is one of the older ones. That family is so nice! The mom, Fransica is always cooking so it always smells so good!  But we try to visit them a lot. 

The other is Irmao Pedro. He has two kids, Paulo I think then Olivia. From what I understand his wife died of cancer a little while ago. But he is very friendly and nice! He is always giving me tons of food! Last week we went over for lunch and Olivia made the best dessert. It is called ovo duce. So it looked like a fried egg. It was a peach in the middle then she made a cream that surrounded it. It was so good!

We’ve been able to contact a few people on the street. Mostly just by asking for directions because it is so easy to get lost here ha! There maps or so confusing! So we are going to go and visit them again this week! 

We’ve gotten to know some of the members really well. I have the hardest time remember their names though ha. But there’s this one family and I’ve met the mom, her two daughters and her son. I love her two daughters! One is 22 and the other is 12. They try to help me a lot with the language! There is another family we have worked a lot with as well. Its three daughters that live with their mom and grandma. One has a little girl named Marianna and she is the cutest! I think she is 5. But one of the daughters doesn’t come to church a whole lot. They feed us a lot and drive us around when we need them. They are so nice. A friend of this family had us teach one of her friends this week! It as super cool. She is super nice and interested in the church. Her name is Monica. So me and Sister Alves went and talked to her a bit, just got to know her and we talked about the book of Mormon. We are planning on talking to her again this week.

Another time this week, we weren't having any luck with finding people because no one was home. So we decided to say a prayer and just talk to whoever we could find on the street. We passed a house with the gate open so we stopped and talked to them. It was a mom and her daughter. The Sister was over but she stayed in the house with the babies. But we taught her the first lesson, all four of us Sisters, and she seemed really interested. Later this week I and Sister Alves are going to go back and teach her some more. 

Church was really nice yesterday! The people are so nice and friendly! A few of the girls my age sat with me and tried to help me with everything. They were so nice! For lunch we went to Shays house, the family with a bunch of daughters. Then Rita, one of the girls in the ward went out with us. We went to talk to Emily, a girl Sister de Paula talked to last week. She is 15 and is super sweet. We talked about the book of Mormon with her and faith. She seems interested!  After we went to Irmao Pedro’s house and had a little family home evening. Sister Alves talked about the brother of Jared and how he needed light for the boats. I didn’t understand all of it but I’ll try to explain what I understood. She said that when the brother of Jared went to the lord for help, the lord told Jared to come up with an idea then ask. She said that sometimes we need to do a little searching ourselves and then go to the lord. We need to be patient with the lord and stay faithful. I really liked it. Then we talked about the things that are the light in our lives... I think ha.

Well the language is slowly coming. Every day I am noticing that I understand a little more. The people are very patient with me, which is very helpful, ha. So far I've just been following my companion and Sister de Paula around. But once we get to know the area a little better, I and Sister Alves will do the work on our own. 

Have a fabulous week! Love you all!!

Sister Steadman

McKell and her roommates

McKell and Sister Costancio (The other new Sister from Argentina)  

Sister Alves (Trainer) and McKell

McKell, Rita, Sister Alvez in the chapel