The Miracle of Fasting

Well another great week has come and gone! I hope you all had a good week too! Here’s a little bit about my week. 

Last Monday we got to visit the body of Brasilia and it was so cool! Brasilia was built in the shape of an airplane and I work on the north wing so we went and visited the body. We visited the TV tower they have and got to go up and see the city from above. We also visited and art museum and it was pretty cool! We took a lot of cool pictures and it was a lot of fun!

We’ve been teaching an older man named José since the first week we got here and at first he was progressing really well but this past week it’s just been the same thing over and over again. He still wants the approval of his old church in Sao Paulo (turns out they have the same church here and its right down the street from where he lives but I definitely was not about to tell him that ha) and he is still drinking a little bit of coffee. So I told him we are doing everything we can for him but he needs to do things in return. So we told him we would visit him in a week and if he wasn’t improving we couldn’t visit him anymore. So we will see how he is this week. He was in church yesterday which was a good sign but he left right after sacrament. So we will see how he is feeling about things on Wednesday.

We have another investigator named Regis who is the husband of a less active member. He received all the lessons a couple of months ago, had a date for baptism and all but never received an answer so he didn’t get baptized. So we are teaching him again, trying to help him recognized his answers. He’s getting answers, his wife tells us all about the little miracles that have happened since we have started visiting him but he is just having a hard time believing. His biggest struggle is the Book of Mormon. So we are doing our best. During our lessons with him the spirit is so strong! So we are just doing our best to help him and understand his needs. One of our lessons with him, he had me say the closing prayer in English, boy was that hard. I got to the end of the prayer and forgot how to end a prayer in English so I said it in Português ha. It was so hard!

This Wednesday we have a lesson with our president, the president of our stake who is the son of the mission president of our mission president and they will all be in this lesson..... Ha so much pressure! We are going to teach the friend of our mission president. I’m excited because he is already reading the Book of Mormon and knows a lot, but having the president there is a little nerve racking!

This week we also found out what is going to happen this next transfer! Perks of being in the same ward as your mission president ha. He basically told us that he is going to keep me and Sister Brito here to together, but add elders to our ward as well. And he found a new house for us!! So we will hopefully be moving soon into our new house which he says is a little bit bigger and nicer for us. So we are pretty excited that we are staying together! 

This week I learned the importance of fasting. Fasting really can bring miracles. Last Sunday everyone in Brazil fasted for more rain because it has been so dry here. Many parts of Brazil are in a drought and don’t have a lot of water. So we all fasted together, and we received rain every single day this week! It was so cool! So amazing!

Sister Brito and I also had our own fast this week. We’ve had to drop a lot of our investigators this week because some just weren’t progressing and some just plain out didn’t want us anymore. So we kind of had no one. So Friday afternoon we started a fast and just started talking to everyone on the street. I had the thought to go talk to people in another part that we don’t usually work in. so as we were talking to people there a mango fell and hit me on the shoulder ha.  We were both surprised. But right as we were about to leave, a girl came up to us and asked if we were missionaries. So we got talking to her and turns out she has been an investigator for five months. She hasn’t received the lessons for a while though and hasn’t had the guts to walk up and talk to the missionaries but decided to that day..... We also found out that she is the daughter of one of the people in our area book that we were searching for in the beginning of this transfer! But we also found out that she is moving to Rio de Janeiro the beginning of next month. So we went and met her dad and got talking to her and she told us she was planning on being baptized after she moves. We got talking to her and invited her to be baptized here, at first she said no but then accepted! So we have a baptism this Saturday and we are so excited! Seriously a miracle! As we were talking to her I told her that I knew her from somewhere else. Sister Brito felt the same way. I’m convinced that I know her from the pre-existence. And her dad was so familiar too! It was sooo cool! 

Well that’s it for this week. I hope you all have a good week! Remember to rely on the Lord. He will help you get through everything. Sometimes it takes a little sacrifice but he will guide us through everything! Love you all

Sister Steadman

5 Months Down!

Well another week has come and gone here in the Beautiful Asa Norte! The work is continuing on! 

Monday: Sister Brito and I spent the afternoon in our house. It was really nice to just relax and bit. We watched the few church movies that we have and we made microwave brownies.... ha it was good :)

Tuesday: We had a lesson with Jose, turns out he is 80 years old ha. He’s a funny old man. But we’ve been struggling a bit with him lately and he finally opened up a little bit more and explained some stuff to us. He has told us about his old church he would listen to on the radio but his radio broke so he hasn’t been able to hear more, this happened right before we met him and started teaching him, if this wasn’t a sign I don’t know what it was ha. But he would keep talking about this church and we didn’t understand why. But he finally told us why. He has a desire to be baptized and wants to, but he first wants to write a letter to this church in São Paulo, saying that he is going to switch churches and he wants to tell them all about us missionaries ha. But hey, whatever works for him. The only problem is that he still hasn’t written this letter and won’t let us help him write it. And he still is drinking coffee...... A bit of a struggle for him. He is willing to stop, he just wants to buy sevada first but hasn’t been able to find it. Sevada is like coffee but its church approved ha. We’ve learned we have to be very blunt with him in order for him to understand why. So now he understands, we are just waiting for him to act. So me and Sister Brito and searching for sevada in every store we pass ha. But he was in church yesterday! He has a date set for this Saturday for his baptism but says he isn’t ready yet. So please keep him in your prayers!

We were also able to teach Lucia today. She is a mom and definitely thinks very differently about things ha. She loves to talk about the profound things of the gospel and asks a lot of questions. But I really enjoy teaching her. She is so curious! We still haven’t been able to really sit down and teach her the lessons yet though. Every time we set an appointment with her she ends up calling and canceling, but she still is going to church. So hopefully this week we can help her a little more :)

Wednesday: We started teaching a women named Dilci and our first lesson with her was so good! She was so receptive and loved it! So I went into our second lesson so excited, all pumped and ready to teach her about the plan of salvation. But turns out she talked to some pastors of other churches and they confused her soooo much. We were so sad to hear this. She didn’t read the Book of Mormon because they all told her it was bad and of the devil. We explained to her the importance of trusting in god when it comes to things of god. And we told her people will talk bad about our church because it is different and they don’t know anything about it. We read part of the Book of Mormon to her and she was surprised. She said she liked the message and felt like it was from god. And not the devil. She realized it really contains the truth and is a good book and said she would read it and pray about it. But she didn’t go to church Sunday so we are going to try to visit her this week and see what happened.

Thursday: We have an investigator named Ingrid and she is interesting ha. She told us she has fear of finding out the truth. So we talked to her about this a bit and helped her understand that she doesn’t need to have fear.

We talked to her about sincerely praying and asking God. But she understands things a little better so hopefully this will help.

Friday: We got caught in the rain today ha. It’s been raining quite a bit here but today it poured! We were in Lago Norte, which is a huge area and is kind of far from everything else, and as missionaries we like to save our money and walk everywhere instead of taking the bus ha. So we got poured on. We were looking for a house and weren’t really sure where to go so we were just walking in the pouring rain. I got the feeling that we needed to stop looking, turn around and catch a bus. We were starting to approach a part that from what I’ve heard is a little dangerous. So we turned around and started to head to the bus stop. It started to rain even harder, but we got so lucky. A member pulled up and gave us a ride. Turns out he was headed exactly to the same area we were headed towards. Truly a miracle because then we were able to arrive in our area and teach some more instead of waiting forever for a bus. Lots of little miracle happened with the rain this week. It’s almost like the Lord was waiting for us to take shelter, then the rain would pour. This happened several times this week.

Saturday: We had an activity in the area of our district leader. So all the missionaries in our zone participated. We all went out proselyting in their area and gave them a lot of references. It was awesome! We met an old lady in the street and got talking to her. She told us that she was sick and her sister was super sick as well. So we went in and met them and Sister Brito had the feeling that she needed a blessing. So we had the elders come and give her a blessing. It was such a cool experience. I'm so grateful for the priesthood!

Sunday: I walked into church and the first person I saw was the mom of Sister Mercer ha! Crazy!! But I was so happy to see her :) We also had Jose come to church with us and it was really good! That night was a baptism of the dad of one of the members in our ward. The assistants of our mission taught him because his daughter wanted him to be taught by elders first then have us teach him after a few lessons with the elders. He’s super sick so president had him be baptized on Sunday. We missed the actually baptism part but it was cool to talk to him after. He was so happy. Now we just have to teach his wife ha. From what we were told, she is going to be a little bit harder. She is extremely catholic but president tells me every time I see him that we need to teach her and baptize her. So I’m hoping and praying that we will be able to say something that will touch her heart.

Monday: Yesterday we spent the day in Granja Torta. We finally got to meet some people that we have been trying to meet! So it was really good. There are some great members that live there so we are going to try to work with them more and get them to make more visits with us!

We’ve sure got a lot of work to do and I’m so excited! Things are starting to progress and the work is continuing! Thanks for all the love and support :) I hope you all have a good week :)

Love,
Sister Steadman

Another Week in Aza Norte

This week was really good! We were able to contact a lot of people and have some awesome investigators now! Nothing too exciting happened but I’ll talk about the few investigators that we have :)

Jose: We came across him our first week here and he has really been progressing! He reads all the pamphlets we leave with him and he started to read the Book of Mormon! The only thing we are really struggling with him is having him pray with us. But we finally got him a little bit more excited for his baptism and he is starting to feel more comfortable with things. This week we taught him the word of wisdom and it was so funny! He was so surprised to figure out that coffee is actually bad for our bodies, like so surprised but he jumped right on board and agreed to stop drinking it! We talked about having him come to church with us and our first lesson with him this week he said he would. But when we returned to visit him again he said he couldn't come to church with us because he had to go to the fair in another city. He could only go on Sunday because he works all the other days and doesn't want to go at night because he likes to ride his bike there. So we reminded him about keeping the Sabbath day holy and the importance of going to church. And sure enough he was at church with us yesterday :) it was so perfect! For Sunday School it was only him, us missionaries and the teacher, so we were really able to focus on him and the instructor helped him out a lot! And we got him to say the closing prayer! He really is progressing so well and I am so excited for him!

Ingrid: We found Ingrid in the area book and she is a young girl about 19 years old. She is awesome! She does a lot with her religion so I was a little nervous going into teaching her but she is so receptive! She asks a lot of really good questions and really understands everything so well! We weren't able to get her to come to church with us this week but I think she has great potential. One of the young women in our ward made visits with us yesterday and happens to know Ingrid and was surprised to hear that she was receiving our lessons and was reading the Book of Mormon. So I’m hoping that’s a good sign!!

Cleide: She was a reference from the elders and contacted her this week. She is and older lady and works as a maid in one of the houses right by the church. We started talking about the plan of salvation with her and she opened right up. She told us that she smokes but has tried to stop two times with no success but she is confident by learning more about this gospel she will be able to stop. She also told us a lot about the family she works for and asked if we could help them as well. She loved our message. WE spent a lot of time talking about the atonement and our life here on earth. She was sooo receptive and accepted the invitation to be baptized on the 30th of this month. We weren’t able to visit her again because she wasn't home, but we are hoping to visit her again this week!

This week we visited some other people again and they actually were improving! Our first week here we visited a woman named Maria Madalena and she wasn't too interested. Then we stopped by her house again this week and taught her the restoration and it was totally different. She had a different look in her eyes and actually paid attention.

This week we also visited a nursing home. One of the Elders passed a reference for a man in the home so we visited him. Fransico is his name. We walked in and he instantly took us on a tour. He showed us all the bedrooms and introduced us to everyone. It was a pretty small house with maybe 16 people living there but it was fun! We got to the activity room and he made me play the piano for him... ha I don’t know anything without music in front of me so it was a little hard but I played a little bit and he started dancing then got mad when I stopped ha. At the end we gave him a pass along card and told him he could call the number on the back and receive a free DVD about Christ. So we ran to the phone and called the number ha. It was really fun!

Well that’s it for this week. We are just trying to help these people progress and come to know who they really are. I love teaching them and am so honored to be here. Sometimes I think to myself how lucky I really am. Every lesson I teach, every person I share this gospel with, my testimony is strengthened. As I share my testimony, the spirit testifies to me that these things are true. I know this church is true. I love this gospel. I am so grateful for this opportunity I have to be a part of this great work. I am so grateful that the Lord has trusted me with his children.

I hope you all have a fabulous week! Love you all!

Sister Steadman

District Meeting.  Sister Brito dropped her name tag in the font.

Sister Oliveira made her 9 month mark here in the mish and so this is what us sisters do ha. We had fun with it:)

This is what our companionship study consisted of one of the days this week ha. Sister Brito was trying to be Mia off of princess diaries.

Me and Sister Brito

Update: The Last Two Weeks

Well I've been transferred and so far I'm loving it! But I will go back to my last week in Palmas and go from there :)

Last p-day was our zone activity and it was a lot of fun! We did a talent show and all ate lunch together! In the middle of our email time the assistants called and told us they were headed to our house ha! Sister Alves freaked! We weren't with the other sisters and were far from our house ha. So we quickly got to our house and showed it to President Lundgren. Our house was a mess! Normally we wake up and p-days and clean it and usually it’s a little cleaner then it was today. But we had to wake up pretty early for our activity and didn't have time to clean it and things were everywhere. It was a mess but at the same time it was pretty funny!

On Tuesday we had a training with the assistants and President Lundgren. It was so good and exactly what our zone needed! They talked a lot about just focusing on those who are really interested in the gospel.

We spent a lot of time walking around this week, not finding people in houses but we met some awesome people on the street!

Saturday we got a call at 6:45 in the morning saying we would find out the changes for the transfer in 15 minutes ha. We were all freaking out. But we didn't find out til noon and only I and Sister Alves were in the house at the time so we found out first. I knew I was going to get transferred. In our training on Tuesday, when president was saying goodbye to everyone, he said bye to all the missionaries but when he said bye to me he said see you soon... someday ha. In that moment I knew I was getting transferred. So I spent my last day teaching Jorge and Fransica and it was really good. We were able to answer all of his questions and finish the plan of salvation with them. And as us four sisters, we spent our last night eating pizza and packing together :)

My last Sunday in Palmas was so good! During sacrament meeting I looked out the window because I saw movement in the corner of my eye and saw Eduardo!!! He came to church! I looked back at Sister Alves and instantly teared up! It was a miracle seeing him there! We spent the afternoon saying goodbye to members then caught the bus at 7 that night. The bus ride was a lot better than the first one ha. The ride was 14 hours and we were super late for the meeting with the president. We walked in as they were singing the last hymn ha. But I was able to see Sister Dixon which was awesome! And I am now in Aza Norte or the north wing of Brasilia. My area consists of Aza Norte, Granja do Torto, Varjao and Lago Norte, so my area is huge ha. But the climate is a lot cooler here and it’s a lot more modern. The sisters before us left us with nothing so the work has been a little bit harder but I love it here! Wave spent a lot of time trying to get to know the area and the people. The people here are a little richer so it’s hard to get them to listen to us sometimes, but we were able to come across some awesome people and mark dates to visit them again. We had a couple of lessons and Sister Brito invited every single one of them to baptism ha. I absolutely love working with her! Our areas are really far from our house and in some areas we can’t be there past 5 in the afternoon so we’ve been trying to make a lot of contacts by our house. Which is all apartment buildings so it can be a little difficult but it’s been fun and interesting. Aza Norte is full of apartments, Lago Norte is mainly mansions, and we have yet to travel there ha. Varjao and Granja are more normal homes. It’s been interesting comparing here to Palmas, its soooo different but I'm super excited about it! Last night Sister Brito and I got caught in the rain. It wasn't a strong rain like Palmas, but it was enough to drench us. Luckily we were close to our house so we were able to take cover under the apartment buildings. We were trying to find some people in our area book, so in between apartment’s buildings we would run as fast as week could, clinging on to our purses ha. It was so funny, we were laughing our heads off and splashing each other in the puddles. It was a lot of fun and we were able to finally contact some people!

Church was so good yesterday! I walked in with Sister Cabanilla because the other sisters had to vote. And as soon as I walked in the stake president pulled me aside and started giving me names of people to visit! I'm so excited and am so ready to help this ward get excited about missionary work again!

I'm in an apartment with four sisters and I love it! Sister Brito, my companion is from Fortaleça and has 7 months on the mission, Sister Oliveira is from Sao Paulo and has 8 months, and Sister Cabanilla is from Ecuador and has 3 months. We have so much fun together!

Well that’s it for this week! We are just trying to find some investigators right now and are trying not to get lost ha. Remember to always read your scriptures and now that you’re heavenly father loves you

Sister Steadman

Transferred

Well I got transferred to Aza Norte. I'm with Sister Brito! She was in my zone the last two transfers and I absolutely love her! She reminds me of a cute ballerina, ha! We are living with two other missionaries, Sister Oliveria and the other I still haven’t learned the name of, ha. But I’m super excited! And our house has two bedrooms!!!! Like heaven on earth ha! But I have to go! Thanks for all your support! Love you all :)

 Sister Steadman