Chuch-wide missionary fireside; Wet and cold, winter has arrived; Pres. Tavares' last week

Wasn't the fireside last night AMAZING???  I LOVED the MUSIC, the VIDEOS, the TALKS, the SPIRIT!  The choir of missionaries from the MTC was so inspiring to see!  A SEA of missionaries...and you're right, it's looking more and more like a colorful flower bed all the time.  :)  I just love seeing how much missionary work is expanding, all throughout the world.  It really is an incredible work and it is changing and growing and it is so exciting to be a part of it!  Now I'm just wondering if I'll stick around long enough to do proselyting via Facebook!  ;)  And I loved how much the emphasis was on the role of the MEMBERS...it makes such a huge difference when the members are working alongside the full-time missionaries, and it is the BEST way to do missionary work.  Sister Saldanha and I have been planning to give a fireside on missionary work this Saturday, so all of the talks and videos from last night were definitely inspiration for us.  Not too many of the members from our ward were able to make it yesterday, so we're going to pass on the excitement and enthusiasm in our own fireside on Saturday! It's going to be good.  

Well, this week was pretty great!  It has been super cold, wet and rainy this week - I think winter has officially arrived.  I never thought that it could get this cold in Brazil!  We've had to bundle up quite a bit to make it through the week, especially Sister Saldanha - she's from Manaus, one of the hottest parts of Brazil.  I don't think she'd ever felt this kind of cold in her life!  :)  One of my companions said that as the weather gets colder, the people do too....and I'm thinking that just might be true.  It's getting hard to get people to listen to us on the streets - they're all rushing home to get out of the rain!  And bringing people to church at 9 am... well, with the Lord EVERYTHING is possible, but that doesn't mean it's easy.  :)  We had a "multirão" in our area on Wednesday, so all the missionaries in our district worked in our area for a day, helping us contact references and find new investigators.  That was exciting, and it has helped a lot.  Our district leader found one awesome couple, Rosilda and Tiago.  We haven't had the chance to teach them yet, but they accepted our invitation to come to church on Sunday, and while all of our other investigators chickened out because of the cold and rain, they got up and got dressed and CAME TO CHURCH!  I love it when that happens. :)   They are married, LEGALLY, and have an adorable three year old daughter.  :)  We're hoping that they felt the Spirit during the church meetings enough to want to come back next week...and the next and the next and the next (etc.)  :)

Oh, and have you guys heard about all the crazy stuff going on here in Brazil?  This week has been FULL of protests in just about every corner of the country.  There hasn't been too much going on here in Maringá, but on Friday night we were on our way home after a day of work, and the main road was completely packed with cars...a group of protesters were stopping traffic.  Fortunately they were only blocking the other direction, so we managed to make it home without any problems.  :)  But the protests are pretty much all that people are talking about here ... and I was just wondering, what have you guys heard about all that? 

Anyways, that's about all the news from me!  This is President Tavares' last week....crazy!  Hope you guys are enjoying the summer weather there!  Love you ALL so much!  I hope the fireside yesterday left you all as excited about missionary work as I am...I know that it isn't always easy to find missionary opportunities, but I know that everybody has a role to play in this work, regardless of location, position, age, or whatever else.  "Our greatest responsibility, independent of our position or calling, is TO PREACH THE GOSPEL!"  "EVERY ONE is called and commissioned to invite others to come unto Christ!"  It's something we've ALL been called to do!  "THIS IS THE GREAT WORK OF THE LATTER DAYS!"  :D

Love you all oh so much,

Sister Gee

Surprise zone conference in Londrina;

Dear Family,

This week was CRAZY.

It all started in district meeting on Tuesday.  We arrived in the chapel, and everything was normal.  We sang a hymn, said a prayer, recited "Our purpose as missionaries", and everything was normal.  
And then our district leader casually mentioned "Oh yeah, and tomorrow are interviews with President Tavares."
WHAT???
"Oh yeah, and the next day is zone conference ..."
HUH????
"...in Londrina."
WAAAHH?!  

We were all SUPER surprised and SUPER excited...it was all so last second, and nobody saw it coming.

But it was a week FULL of goodness!

It was exciting, not only because interviews and zone conferences are ALWAYS exciting, but because it's the last we'll have with President Tavares....so we knew it was going to be special.  And it was AMAZING!  We woke up at 3:30 am on Thursday, got all ready, and left the house at 4:30 to catch our bus that left Maringá at 5:00.  We arrived in Londrina about 7-ish...half-asleep, but excitedly greeting all of the other sisters and elders there. They grouped FIVE zones together for this conference, so we got to see a lot of people.  Unfortunately the conference was only 1/2 day instead of a whole day as usual, as President Tavares is super busy trying to interview everyone before his mission ends... but they were somehow able to cram a whole day's worth of spiritual goodness into the few hours we had.  There was such an incredible spirit the whole conference...amazing talks and music and training...my favorite was an amazing talk Pres. Tavares gave about the Atonement.  He talked about how Christ was COMPLETELY obedient to our Heavenly Father...He put God's will above His own, and that's what we have to do as well.  We can be just a LITTLE bit better, do just a LITTLE bit more every day, even if we don't feel like it or think we can.  If we remember the sacrifice that Christ made for us, it's easier to have that desire to be better.  ...and everybody was in tears when President and Sister Tavares bore their testimonies at the end.  The mission is going to be so different without them, and we will all miss them so much.  I keep thinking about what an impact they have had on my mission and my life, and I'm so grateful for the time that I got to serve with them.  :) 

Let's see, what else.... we're still trying to figure out the whole house thing.  I think it'll still be another few weeks before we get to move in, but it's getting closer!

The whole mission is on fire right now, and everyone is super pumped up for the rest of this month. President Tavares has been fighting to achieve a monthly goal of 200 baptisms for a loooooong time, so we're giving it everything we can, this is the last month of his mission and we want to send him off well.  :)  Sister Saldanha and I are hunting down people to teach, and though we haven't had too much success this week, we've found a few people that we'll be working with.  Milagres são reais!!!  :)

Well, that's it for now.  I love you guys!  Sounds like you sure are keeping busy.  Hope everything goes well with everything you guys are doing.   You are amazing!!!

Love,

Sister Gee

Big goal: 10 investigators in church on Sunday

HELLLO from Maringá!  It's been a great week here, I'm really learning to love the area and the members and the sisters and everything.  
This week was a little bit crazy with the house hunt going on here.  The secretaries have been calling us, sending us on errands for them...printing contracts, hunting down signatures from the landlord, mailing documents to the mission office in Londrina...stuff like that.  It's been interesting.  Probably good practice for some day when I buy my OWN house.  :)  I think the process here is slowly coming to a close, and hopefully we'll be in our own house in our own area pretty soon!    It will definitely be a good thing - though we'll miss living in an apartment full of crazy awesome sisters, it will be good to be in our own area.  The apartment here is verrrrrrry far away from our area...we have to catch two buses to arrive in our area every day, and two buses to go back home at the end of the day.  It takes about an hour both ways, and it gets kind of old after a while.  The most frustrating part is the affect it has on our work, as we lose two hours of lesson time every day.  But, we're being patient and making it work.  :)
This week Sister Saldanha and I made some awesome goals and are really working on finding people to teach.  We've been street contacting like crazy, and are meeting so many amazing people!  It's amazing how talking to everyone you meet about the gospel makes a difference in your entire day... It not only helps us stay focused on our purpose as missionaries, but we feel so much more excited and motivated in the other aspects of our work too!  It's been so good!  Sister Saldanha is so much fun, and I have been loving having her as a companion!  
This week our zone leaders challenged every companionship of missionaries in our zone to bring 10 investigators to church on Sunday.  As we usually have a hard time bringing even one or two people, it was a pretty big goal.  But Sister Saldanha and I were determined to do our best, and we spent the whole week inviting everyone we saw to go to church.  :)   On Saturday we called all of our investigators to confirm that they would be able to go, and almost every one of them cancelled on us... :P  We were pretty bummed about it, but decided to keep working with our last possibility - Mary.  Mary is a friend of a recent convert.  She had a motorcycle accident recently and broke her foot pretty badly.  We invited her to church Saturday afternoon and she just laughed and looked at the heavy cast on her foot... but said that she was willing to go if we were able to find a member that could bring both her and her wheelchair to church.   So we spent the night and Sunday morning calling members and praying that somebody had a car big enough for that.  We finally found one irmã that was willing to give Mary a ride, but didn't have room for the wheelchair.... Long story short, Mary ended up going to church on crutches.  We were so happy that she was willing to make the sacrifice to go to church, even despite the inconvenience it caused for her.  That was so good to see, especially since so many other people we invited weren't even willing to wake up early for church... Her humility and faith and desire to put the Lord first was an example to me. 
And in the end, we had THREE investigators at church!  After all our work and stress and prayers, the Lord blessed us....and even though it wasnt the 10 investigators we were hoping for, I still was so grateful for the three that came.  :)
And it was a good week.
Love,
Sister Gee

CIDADE NOVA (whoops.); Sister Saldanha, is wonderful!!

Hello everyone!!!  First of all, I have an correction to make.  I guess I got a little excited with all of the transfer news....and I confused Cia Norte, a different area close to Maringá, with my REAL new area, Cidade Nova.  whoops.  :)  But the rest of the stuff I told you was all true - I'm back here in my "birthplace", Maringá, living in the same apartment and everything.  It's SO WEIRD to be here.  It almost feels like I'm arriving in the mission field all over again...super deja vu!  But it's awesome, and I am LOVING the new area so far!  The ward is amazing.  AMAZING.  Everyone is very friendly and excited and united.  On Sunday, our lunch appointment was scheduled in the house of an irmã who just happened to be throwing a family birthday party for her father-in-law that day, so we got to crash the party - CHURRASCO!!!!  Chique demais, it was amazing.  Grandparents, aunts and uncles, and a TON of little kids running around...Made me feel like I was in one of our crazy-wonderful Smith Family get togethers.  :)  I've also heard that the ward here throws a LEGENDARY party every year for Festa de Juninha, a traditional Brazilian holiday - I'm praying that I'll stay in the area long enough to catch that too.  :)
My companion, Sister Saldanha, is wonderful!!!  She is 19 years old, and just barely finished her training, but you wouldn't guess it - she is already so good in all of the aspects of missionary work, and is such a huge blessing to me.  Arriving in a new area, learning all the investigators and neighborhoods and bus schedules and streets is rough...but Sister Saldanha has got it all down, and she guides me through every day.  I would be so lost without her.  :)  She is from Manaus and can be super goofy and crazy, but has an amazing spirit and such a pure faith that really is an inspiration to me.  It's going to be a good transfer!
We are living in the same apartment with the sisters from Parque dos Pioneiros (my original Maringá ward, remember?), while the mission secretaries hunt down a house in our area...apparently it's been quite the process, but I think we'll hopefully have our own house in about a week or two.  In the meantime, that makes 6 sisters living in the same little apartment - it's an adventure, and always fun.  The sisters here are craaazy!  Sister Marques, Sister De Moura, Sister Rocha, and Sister Moraes.  I wish I had a picture to send...next week for sure.  :)  
We're focusing a lot on finding new investigators...we haven't had too much luck this week.  BUT we found a few pretty cool people - a man named Marcello, whose brother is a member of the church!  He had already received the Book of Mormon from his brother and kept talking about how much he admired his faith and dedication to his religion.  It was exciting to find him, teach him the Restoration, and invite him to be baptized - and he accepted!  It looks like it might be a tough decision to make, as his 19-year old son wasn't very happy with the idea...but we're going to try to keep visiting him and helping him progress.   
But yep, that's about all that's been going on.  :)  I'll keep sending updates and pictures as they come...  Hope you all are well and happy and excited for summer.  I can't believe it's June already!!!
Love love love,
Sister Gee

Ether 12:12-19  -  FAITH AND MIRACLES!!