9 months already!?! Our area doubled in size!; Working with less active members; "I want to come back!"

Hello once again to everyone back there in the US.  :)  Things here in Brazil are as awesome as ever!  As you probably know, the week of transfers is always CRAZY, lots of exciting changes and news.  As I told you last week, Sister Passos and I are both going to be staying in Ibiporã for one more transfer....but this time there's a twist - Sister Marques and Sister Ramirez were both transferred to different cities, and no new sisters were transferred to Ibiporã to take their place.  So yep, Sister Passos and I are taking care of all the investigators and members in TWO areas, which cover the entire city of Ibiporã, as well as Jataizinho, the neighboring city where Igor and his family live.  It is a BIG area.  Last week we had three sisters staying in our house while waiting for the house in their new area to get ready, and they helped us visit our investigators and take care of the area a little bit, so it hasn't been TOO bad so far.  But then their house opened up and they left Ibiporã early Saturday morning... so now it's just me and Sister Passos.  :)  It's definitely different - the first time in my mission that I've been living in a house without another companionship - but there are definitely some positive aspects to it.  More space in the closet.  Less competition for the washing machine.  A shorter line for the bathroom.  Stuff like that.  :)  It will take some getting used to, but I think that Sister Passos and I will have fun together here.

This week we spent a lot of time teaching Iago, the young man that I mentioned last week.  He is a good friend of Lucas', and has been coming to church the last few weeks.  We met his mom and taught the whole family the message of the Restoration, and they both accepted to be baptized!  Iago was baptized yesterday and his mom, Angelica, will be baptized two weeks from now.  It was a really great lesson, and Sister Passos and I are both excited to continue teaching the family.  

Another focus of the week has been working with less-active members.  I don't remember if I've mentioned this already, but there are a LOT of less active members here in Ibiporã.  I think the membership list has something like 400-ish members, and only 70 of them come to church regularly.  The hard part is finding them, as many of them have moved or passed away or lost contact with the church in some other way.  And that's why it was so crazy this week...it seemed like less-active members were popping up all over the place!  We had people stopping us in the street (which does not happen every day), saying "Oh hey!  I'm a member of your church, and I want to come back!"  And it happened not once, not twice, but SEVERAL times this week!  It was a little startling, but exciting, and we have been trying our best to help them make and keep goals that will help them return to full activity in the church.  

 

This week there was a special priesthood meeting in Londrina for our stake, and President Tavares had asked us all to make goals for how many recent converts and less active members we would bring to the meeting.  He promised us that if we got a less-active member to attend, they would be reactivated.  Sister Passos and I definitely didn't want to pass up such a powerful promise, so we got to work visiting and calling all of the people that we had been finding over the last few weeks.  It was amazing how the timing was so perfect, and even though I don't think we had as many attend as we invited, it was really great to see how the Lord is guiding us to the people who need us in the exact moment when we can help them the most.  It was such a special testimony to me that we're here for a reason, and that we're not doing this work alone!  He is with us, and He is leading us every day.  :)

Well, I love you all so much!  Sounds like St. Patrick's Day was great - I actually forgot about it until the day of, and didn't even think to wear green.  Fortunately the people of Brazil don't know about the pinching tradition, so I got off easy.  :P  :)  

OH YEAH, and can you believe that it's already been 9 MONTHS????!  I can't.  :P

OH YEAH, and more good news - President Tavares emailed us this morning to let us know that the email rules have been changed, and we can now email non-family members!!!  Woohoo!!  :)  So if there's anybody out there reading this email who has neglected to write me because of laziness or the cost of postage stamps, I am pleased to announce that you no longer have an excuse.  haha.  Send me an email!  It's faster.  It's easier.  It's cheaper.  And I love it just as much.  :D

I hope everyone is happy and awesome and enjoying the gorgeous spring weather there in Utah.  I hope you are all doing the small things that make a big difference - prayer and studying the scriptures and going to the temple, etc.  And I'm sure that you are, because I have the best family in the whole world.  :)  I am so so so so grateful for you guys and the love and support that you send me every week.  I realized this week that not every missionary in the world has it as good as I do, so I just wanted to send a super big thank you to you guys for all you do for me.  I love you!!!  :)

Com muito amor,

Sister Gee   

Physical therapy; International Women's Day; Lucas' Baptism!!

Hello family!  I'm here in Londrina with Sister Passos, anxiously awaiting the news of the transfers....we're here early today, so the emails haven't arrived yet.  As you know, I've been in Ibiporã for 3 transfers now, so there's a pretty good chance that I'll be leaving.  But then again, Ibiporã is one of those places where you get to stay for a loooong time... so we'll just have to wait and see what happens.  :)

It's been a crazy week.  A crazy, crazy week.  Physical therapy 3-4 times a week, and besides all that, we got to help the Relief Society plan and prepare an activity for International Woman's Day on March 8th.  That was something that I don't think anybody really celebrates in the US, but it was fun to have a special day just to celebrate how great women are.  :)  The activity was AWESOME.  Lots of chocolate and decorations, and the men of the branch put together a little tribute to the women.  They sang songs, gave little speeches, and afterwards served us all refreshments.  Our contribution was a poster board with a picture of every sister in the branch - we spent the whole week hunting down the photos to put it together, and it turned out really well.  :)  (see picture attached!!)

Adventure of the Week - One day, Sister Passos and I were in a neighborhood cleeeeear on one end of the city, and realized that we had to get back to the OTHER end of the city to teach a lesson for Lucas.   We caught a bus (which we usually avoid doing since the bus fare adds up fast) and headed back to the city center.  I'm pretty sure the bus driver was in a hurry too - he drove SUPER fast over the bumps and turns, and I nearly flew out of my seat several times.  We finally arrived in the bus station, got off, and started to walk towards Lucas' house - when Sister Passos realized that our cell phone was missing.  Yep, it had flown out of her backpack going over one of those crazy bumps...and by that point our bus had already pulled out again.  We asked all of the bus drivers in the station what we could do, but nobody really knew.  They all kind of just laughed and wished us luck....eventually we ended up IN THE BUS GARAGE searching empty buses in the hope that we would be able to find our phone.  haha... And miracle - we found it.  :)  So while we lost an hour or so of time searching for our phone, we saved ourselves the R$200 that it costs to replace a cell phone.  Phew*.

We stopped by the chapel Saturday night for Lucas' baptismal interview and to fill up the font (don't worry, we didn't flood it this time), and Natalino was there with Lucas and 3 or 4 other young men, cleaning the chapel.  The funny thing is that all the young men who were there cleaning aren't even members, but they stayed after the weekly soccer game to help clean anyways.  :)  They all helped Sister Passos and I clean and fill the font, and get everything ready for the baptism.  And two of them, Iago and José Henrique came to church yesterday and stayed to watch Lucas' baptism afterwards!  They both expressed interest in being baptized as well, so Sister Passos and I have two more young men to teach this week.  :)  Irmão Natalino is really becoming an awesome member missionary.  

Sunday was Lucas' baptism.  It was such a special day!  He is an amazing kid, and understands SO quickly everything we teach him.  He wanted to be baptized ever since he came to Jean's baptism two weeks ago.  He has been coming to church and spends a lot of time with Natalino, the Young Men's president.  He has been through some rough stuff already in his life, but he doesn't want to follow the same path as his parents and other family members who he's seen make some pretty serious mistakes - he wants to be different, and he's already becoming such a great young man.  We were really nervous that his grandma wouldn't let him be baptized - she's a stern, kind of intimidating lady, and thinks that 2 weeks is WAY too fast to baptize someone.  We talked with her and explained that baptism ISN'T an end point - it's the beginning of a life of learning and growing as a member of the church.  Finally she softened up, and eventually even started to talk about going to church with him as soon as she can get a job with a better work schedule.   

Anyways, I've got to run.  Still no email about transfers, so it looks like I'll be staying in Ibiporã a bit longer!  Woohoo!

Love you all so much

Sister Gee

"I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving:  To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, --but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor." - Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Awesome investigators, Nilton and Lucas; 35 new missionaries coming in!

Hello Family :)

It was so exciting to get the pictures of the baby blessing today!!!  You all look great, and Celecta Rose is adorable as ever.  It´s so crazy to see how much she is growing every week you send pictures.  She´s going to be so big by the time I get home.  :) :) :)

Exciting news this week  - 30-something new missionaries will be arriving in Londrina this transfer, 5 of them sisters!  That´s an incoming group quite a bit bigger than average - the group when I arrived had 7 missionaries, and me, the only sister.  :)  So yeah, it´s going to be a crazy transfer.  And that´s just the beginning of the surge of missionaries that will be arriving here over the next few months.  So cool!  :D

This week has been different than usual, as Sister Passos and I have been going in to Londrina 3 times a week for my physical therapy.  It´s nothing too crazy - exercises and stretches and stuff - but it sure takes up a lot of our time and we´ve both been feeling less productive as a result.  But I have to keep reminding myself that if I don´t take the time to take care of my feet NOW, missionary work could get a lot more difficult for me in the future... So I´m following the doctor´s orders, and I´m sure it will make a big difference.  :)

 

The time we´ve been able to spend working this week has been focused on our most promising investigator at the moment - a 9-year old boy named Lucas.  He is a reference from the Young Men´s president in the branch, Irmão Natalino.  He is a great president and you can almost always find him in the lot behind the church playing soccer with the young men.  He´s not exactly young, but he sure acts like it.  :)  He has been a big help to us as many of our recent investigators have been young men, and it is so great to have members who are so good at helping people feel welcome and excited to come to church.  That can be especially hard to do with teenagers, so we´re for sure grateful for Irmão Natalino.  :)  Anyways, Lucas is a neighbor of his who he has been bringing to church the last few weeks.  He is excited about the church and already wants to be baptized, but Irmão Natalino told him that he had to receive the missionary lessons first, haha.  :)  So we´ve been visiting him and trying to help him be able to be baptized.  The only problem is his grandma, who he lives with...she is not too open to the gospel, but has been softening up a little bit because of a lot of things that have been happening to her son, Lucas´ dad.  Apparently he´s gotten in to a lot of problems and she doesn´t want Lucas to follow the same path as his dad, so she´s a little bit more willing to let him be baptized.  We´re still going to have to talk with her and help her to see how much it will bless his life!

We have another awesome investigator that we taught yesterday, Nilton.  He is the husband of a lady who was taught by the elders a loooong time ago, and though she still isn´t too interested in the church, Nilton has been reading the Book of Mormon like crazy.  He loves to read and learn, and he really wants to understand the gospel of Christ.  However, he is a very, VERY devoted Catholic.... We taught him the Restoration yesterday, and it was a great lesson.  I´m not sure he completely understood everything, but we did our best to teach very clearly so he could recognize the truth of our message.  He gave the prayer at the end of the lesson, and it was so sincere...it´s always so amazing to hear your investigators pray for the first time, before they get into the mechanical routine of prayers that we all end up in sometimes.  The first few prayers are completely from the heart.  :)

Anyways, times up again.  I love you all so much and pray for you every day.  I´m always amazed by how fast the time flies here in the mission.  March already!  Is it going as fast for you guys??  :) :P  

Oh, and thank you for the Valentines cards and candy!!!  It was soooo good to get everything, and I felt so loved.  <3  :)   And yes, I already finished all of the chocolate. hahaha.  :D

Until next week!

Love,

Sister Gee

Citação da Semana!  - This is from the monthly email I got from the Edgemont stake presidency, a SUPER awesome quote from last General Conference :)

"'If ye love me, keep my commandments,’ Jesus said.  So we have neighbors to bless, children to protect, the poor to lift up, and the truth to defend.  We have wrongs to make right, truths to share, and good to do.  In short, we have a life of devoted discipleship to give in demonstrating our love of the Lord.  We can’t quit, and we can’t go back.  After an encounter with the living Son of the living God, nothing is ever again to be as it was before ... To all within the sound of my voice, the voice of Christ comes ringing down through the halls of time, asking each one of us while there is time, “Do you love me?”  And for every one of us, I answer with my honor and my soul, “Yea, Lord, we do love thee.”  And having set our ‘hand to the plough,’ we will never look back until this work is finished and love of God and neighbor rules the world.”   - Elder Jeffrey R. Holland

Missionary surge hitting Brazil!; Baptism of Jean; Flooded the church :-(

Oi Família!!!  Tudo bem?? :D

Got lots to report this week, so get ready for another super long email... :)  This week the mission had a telefone conference with President Tavares.  Unfortunately we missed the conference since our phone doesnt get service in our house (:P), but our zone leaders called us the next day to fill us in on what had happened.  There were a LOT of exciting announcements - SEVEN new missions will be opening here in Brazil, which will tweak the mission boundaries a bit but wont really affect the Londrina mission too much.  We also found out the name of our new mission president - Presidente Carlos Alberto de Genaro.  He is from São Paulo and is a stake president right now...He will be arriving here to take the place of Presidente Tavares in July.   I'm sending the photo that we received today.  I cant believe that President Tavares will be leaving...its going to be so strange to have to adjust to a new president and everything, but I'm excited to meet him and learn from his experience.  I'm sure it will be different, but I'm excited for the opportunity to learn from a new perspective - Im sure I'll learn just as much from him as I have from President Tavares.  :)

We celebrated Justin's birthday on Saturday with a BAPTISM (woohooo)!!  Jean was actually an ex-investigator for a long time.  He had started coming to church with a friend of his who is a member, and the sisters taught him for a while, but stopped visiting because he hadn't progressed much.  But he kept coming to church every week with his friend, even going to all of the activities and youth camp.  Last week, when the zone leaders were at the chapel here in Ibiporã to interview Igor for his baptism, they asked Sister Marques if there were any other investigators who they could talk to and give a little push towards baptism...and she pointed them straight to Jean.  :)  Luckily he was already there at the church, playing soccer with the other young men, so they interviewed him right away and he agreed to be baptized the following week! 
Sister Passos and I got to finish teaching him all the lessons and get everything ready for the baptism Saturday.

We seem to have a talent for getting in to crazy situations, too - Saturday morning we stopped by the chapel to fill the font, and decided to leave the water running while we went to our lunch appointment since it would take a few hours to fill it completely.  Of course that was a horrible idea, and by the time we got back to turn off the water the chapel was FULL OF WATER.  The Primary room, the kitchen, the classrooms...completely soaked with about an inch of water.  :P  Fortunately for us, carpet is practically nonexistent here in Brasil, so there wasn't very much damage done - just a few books in the library that got a bit wet.  We spent the rest of the day squeegeeing and mopping and drying the church.  sigh*.  It was quite an adventure....and today my arms are definitely feeling it.  Needless to say, we are NOT going to make the same mistake again.  :)  But all of the stress and craziness were worth it - the baptism was great.  There weren't  TON of members who showed up - but just enough to fill up the room and finish off the cake. :)  And it was awesome to see Jean finally get baptized.  He is an awesome young man and he is definitely going to be a great example for his family and friends.  Its so amazing to see how much the youth of the church are moving the work forward here in Ibiporã, and it is a blessing to be able to work with them.  :)
Sister Passos and I are still doing great together - our personalities are very similar and we have a lot in common.  :)  I'm loving being her companion, and we are both so excited to be able to work here in Ibiporã!!  We´re working and teaching and singing and laughing and having fun and meeting awesome people every day!  Oh the mission is great, gente.  :D
Well, that´s it for the week.  Love you all bunches and bucketfuls and I miss you all so much - but the time is FLYING by here, and I´ll be coming home before you know it.  ;)  Keep working and smiling every day

Love,

Sister Gee


Citação da Semana!!!:

"As pessoas de nobre caráter não apenas suportam as provações - elas o utilizam."  - Elder H.B. Brown

Baptism of Igor and Emanuelly!

Sister Passos and I have still been working hard to get to know the area and find awesome people to teach here.  It's been going kind of slow....but it's all good, and we're having fun.  :)

Yesterday after church we had a BAPTISM!  Okay, so it was technically the baptism of the other sisters, but I was just so excited that it felt like it was "mine" anyways.  You know?  :)  Igor and his girlfriend, Emanuelly, were both baptized yesterday.  It was so wonderful to see them making this commitment to follow the Savior and live the gospel.  It took a while, but he finally made it into the baptismal font!  haha :)   I'm just so grateful that for the testimony that he has.  I know that sometimes it's so easy for people to NOT do the right thing when it's inconvenient or maybe a little difficult, but Igor knows that this is right and he knows that the church is true, and he didn't let anything stop him from following that testimony.  

We stopped by to visit Maria yesterday night because she hadn't shown up to church that morning and we were worried that something had happened.  We showed up at her house and found her sitting by the front door.  We talked with her and tried to figure out what had happened, and she told us that she didn't want to be baptized any more because she just can't quit smoking or drinking coffee.  It was the saddest thing that's happened so far on my mission...we've really gotten to love her so much, and to see her so completely without hope was awful.  We tried to help her understand that she doesn't have to be perfect to be baptized...that repentance is ALWAYS available for us, no matter how many times we mess up, but I don't think she was really understanding much that we were saying at that point.  So, I think we're going to try to go back another day when she's in better spirits...I'm just praying that we'll be able to be led by the Spirit to know what she needs.  It's HARD...but I know that this really is the work of the Lord and that He really does know each and every one of His children... I know that He can help us teach her what she needs to learn, and guide her through this difficult moment in her life.  

Anyways, that's it for now.  Love you all!  Happy Valentine's Day last week, and Happy Birthday to Justin on Saturday!!!!  :D

-Sister Gee

New area, new companion Sister Passos; Maria and Marcio - awesome investigators; Igor is going to be baptized! Water up to my ankles :-)

It's been a rainy, rainy week here in Ibipora, and my companions have told me it's always this way the week of Carnival - that the heavens are weeping, they say.  :P  Apparently Carnival is basically a week of partying and drinking and doing pretty much whatever you feel like.  haha :)  I don't think that it's nearly as big a celebration here in Parana as it is in Rio and Sao Paulo, but it's been raining non-stop since Friday anyways.  I don't know what Jamie's record was in Porto Alegre, but the water reached up to my ankles on the way here to the internet house this morning!  Fun stuff, right?  :)

 

It's been a great week.  Sister Passos and I are both new to our area, so we went out first thing and bought a map!   We have spent a lot of time trying to find streets and getting lost....but it's been an adventure.  :)  Sister Passos is great!  She is from Sao Paulo and has been here in the mission for a little over a year.  She was actually Sister Marques' companion in the CTM.  She is an awesome missionary - SUPER obedient and enthusiastic and very dedicated to the work.  It's been good to work with her this week and I'm sure I'll be learning a lot from her example this transfer.  As we're basically opening the area, we don't have a ton of solid investigators at the moment...so yep, we've been working like crazy to find people to teach.  I'm pretty sure that finding makes up about 80% of missionary work...haha, or at least it seems like it!  

We do have two super awesome investigators that Sister Gomes and Sister Ramirez had been working with last transfer, Maria and Marcio,  mother and son.  Marcio is 25-ish and really great, and sincerely searching to know the truth.  Maria came to church last week but wasn't able to come yesterday, and Marcio wasn't able to come last week (he works some Sundays), but made it yesterday!  Haha, so they've been taking turns coming to church, but hopefully they'll both be able to come this Sunday!  I love it when people come to church, not because we pressured them into coming, but because they really are interested - and that's Marcio.  We didn't even have to call him or have a member pick him up or anything.  I think he really enjoyed it, so now we're just going to work to help him receive and recognize an answer to his prayers to know if our message is true and if baptism is really something he needs.  I'm so excited about them - they're such great people and I really think they're progressing.  :)  

 

The exciting news of the week - yesterday night Sister Passos and I were talking about Igor, how it seemed like he was starting to feel comfortable being a "member-but-not-really" (he always comes to church, activities, shares the gospel with his friends, etc...), and how I was starting to think he wasn't ever going to decide to be baptized.  As we were heading out to go to an appointment we had set, we met Sister Marques and Sister Ramirez in the street.  They had just gotten back from Jataizinho, and told me that Igor is GOING TO BE BAPTIZED!!!  For reals this time.  :D  He's moving back into his mom's house this week, and will be baptized this weekend.  I'm SO excited!  I know that the Lord is helping him and that this decision is really going to make such a big difference in his life.  He'll be preparing to serve a mission and to go to the temple and I just know he's going to have an amazing future as a member of the church.  :)

Anyways, that's all for now!  Thanks so much for everything you guys do for me!  I have the best family ever!  :)  Good luck with school and work and EVERYTHING.  I love you all so much!

Till next week,

Sister Gee

Sick this week; New companion and new area, but stil in Ibipora

TRANSFERS!!......... and I'll be staying in Ibipora once again.  :)  Not too exciting, right?  But it will be a liiiiittle bit different.  I'll be switching to the other area here in Ibipora, and receiving a new companion, Sister Passos.  I've only met her a few times, and haven't heard TOO much about her, so we'll have to see...  Sister Marques will be staying in our current area with Sister Ramirez, and Sister Gomes will be leaving Ibipora to TRAIN a new sister in a new area,  It's kind of crazy that they're switching things around like that, and kind of random, but I'm sure it's for a reason, and I'm....well, pretty excited to see how it goes.  

This week has been....once again, uneventful, as far as missionary work goes at least.  I started feeling pretty sick-ish last Saturday and when it didn't get any better over the next few days, Sister Marques and I decided to call Sister Tavares.  She was a little nervous that it could have been dengue, so she sent us in to Londrina to see a doctor there.  We spent an hour in a room packed full of people waiting to see the doctor, and when we finally got in, he poked around at my stomach, listened to my breathing a bit.....and informed me that I had some kind of intestinal infection...yay.  They hooked me up to an IV and Sister Marques and I got to wait in the hospital for almost two more hours while the fluid dripped into my veins.  Super fun.  :P  Don't worry though, it really isn't anything serious, and it's pretty much cleared up by now. 

Anyways, ever since I've mostly just been trying to recover, and we haven't gotten a lot of work done as a result.  We finally got out to work again on Friday, contacted a few references and taught a few people.  Saturday and Sunday were pretty much the same deal. 

This week I'm starting a challenge our mission president gave us a few weeks ago - Personal Sanctification.  He invited us to make a list of every thing, every habit you have that takes the Spirit away during the day, and then make a commitment that for 40 days you'll avoid every single thing on that list.  I made my list on Saturday, and for the next 40 days I'm going to do my best to make sure I don't do any of those things that prevent me from having the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.  I'm really looking forward to the experience - I know it's going to be hard, but worth it.  As a missionary, the guidance of the Holy Ghost is everything, and I know that doing this challenge will make a difference in my mission/life.  I'll be keeping you guys updated on how it goes.  :)

Well, that's it from me for now!  I love you guys so much and hope all is well back home.  Keep smiling, serving, studying the scriptures, and writing your favorite sister missionary.  ;)

Love,

Sister Gee