New Companion

OI TUDO MUNDO!!!! 

Last day of transfer 2 is here, and tomorrow I will be getting a new companion. President Ferrin called Sister Waite this weekend and told her she was being transferred, but didn´t know where. Soooo I´m really anxious to know who will be coming in her place. It´s funny how things work out. Once you finally build a relationship with someone and finally get to really love them and know them, things change and you have to say goodbye.

This last week has been really good. We have so many progressing investigators who are actually reading the Book of Mormon and who are actually looking for an answer. It´s been hard to schedule all the people we need to visit because we have so many. It´s really so much easier and funner to teach people who are sincerely looking for the truth and sincerely want to know about the truths of Heavenly Father. I know that with patience and hard work and lots of prayers this next transfer will be a success!!!!

This week was a lot of fun. Donizete and Adriana´s (Mom and Stepdad of Bruna) divorce from other spouses are finally progressing. And soon enough they´ll be married and baptized and in one year they´ll be sealed in the temple. They are so awesome and they already have such strong testimonies of the church and they aren´t even baptized yet. I truly feel like their my family here in Brazil. One night this week we left their house after dark and they were so worried about us they walked us halfway home. We stopped in a soccer field and played tag for a few minutes, it was awesome. 

I read a talk in an old Liahona this week that really helped me have a more positive attitude and helped build my faith. Hope you all are trying everyday to become more like Jesus Christ and are working hard at achieving your dreams. My dream was always to serve a mission and now that I´m finally here I want to try my hardest to live every moment the best I know how and work hard to help other people have the same happiness and hope that I have. LOVE YOU ALL!!!!!!

``Faith is for the future. Faith builds on the past, but never longs to stay there. Faith trusts that God has great things in store for each of us and that Christ truly is the high priest of good things to come. Keep your eyes on your dreams, however distant and far away. Live to see the miracles of repentance and forgiveness of trust and divie love that will transfor your life today, tomorrow and forever``

 - Jeffrey R. Holland 

Desi

Missionary Split

Hey Everyone!!!

Hope this week is finding you well, and that you share your love with everyone this Valentines Day by sharing the gospel with others. This week was good. Splits were AWESOME!!!!!!! I was with Sister Santana in Caça Pava, and part of her area has Campos do Jordão, PRETTIEST place EVER!!!! Everyone look it up on Google and Google maps. I want to live there!!!!  We went with a member on Wednesday to visit some less active families and some investigators. Campos do Jordão is UP UP UP in the mountains, so the members and investigators usually only go to church once a month when they have a caravan go up and pick them up. I met some really really awesome people. One man, Derrly, we visited lives in a house that he built in the middle of the forest, WAY COOL and he accepted baptism for this Sunday coming up when the caravan comes! I felt the spirit really strong when Sister Santana was inviting him for baptism. It was a really awesome experience WOOHOO. I also met another women, Rachel Carvaljo, that was baptized in the year 1960, and she serves on the city council of her little town, and she's in a book which she showed me called Mormon Women. I seriously want to be like her when I grow up. She´s so awesome and you can see the love that she has for the gospel and for other people! I hope that I get the opportunity to serve in Caça Pava its an awesome area. 

Something really funny happened this week to me and my companion Sister Waite. Last monday after I emailed you we went into downtown Sao Jose dos Campos to have PDAY with Bruna and Adriana. After we finished there we got on the bus to go to our Zone meeting. The bus was really crowded already so I sat down in one of the only empty seats I saw, and while sister waite was paying people with Cameras entered the bus in one door and people with drums and big dresses entered the bus on another and started dancing and playing music. It was for a news program here called Janguarda Mix they were filming for Carnaval, because Carnaval started Friday. I didn´t really think much of it, just like WHOA I wonder if this is what Carnaval is, but yesterday at church everyone came up to us saying AH ARTISTAS, FAMOSAS. They saw us on TV!!! haha. Maybe its on Youtube look up Janguarda MIX 2/9/2013.... 

Anyways, everything is good here on this side of the world. Sad that they don´t celebrate Valentine´s Day, but I hope you all have a good one. I LOVE YOU ALL

Sister Bruno

Miracle Baptism First Week in the Field

Hey everyone!!!!

First week in the mission. Wow. Not what I expected at all! It´s been a lot harder and humbling than I thought it would be. The first few couple days were really hectic!!! I left the MTC and took two metros and a bus ride to Sao Jose dos Campos (about 2 hour travel). My companion has only been in the field for 3 transfers, so she was really scared about being a trainer and having two Americans in the same area. The next day we had a zone meeting, so I met all the missionaries in my zone. Everything of course in Portuguese and even though I feel like I´m understanding everything fairly well, it was hard to keep concentrated. After that we went around to houses of investigators and recent converts and just my luck not one person was home and it started pouring down rain. Man it was really hard not to get discouraged. After about 4 hours of that we had to travel back to Sao Paulo because I still didn't have my official documents we stayed the night with some other sisters and then went to the Polizia Federal the next morning with everyone that I got to the MTC with. It was good to be able to see my MTC companion and all the familiar faces from the MTC!!!! Anyways all the details aren't important. The important thing is that we were out of service for 2 days and when we got back to our area it was hard to get in contact with all the progressing investigators. It seemed like all of their lives where falling apart. One family wanted to get baptized but the parents had to get married first. They had a wedding planned for this month and now they decided to cancel. One family is going through a really hard time because they live in the back of their grandmas house, but she doesn't like us or them and she keeps telling them they have to move out. We kept visiting them everyday this week because they had a baptism planned for Sunday, but come Sunday we called them about 20 minutes before sacrament meeting and they said they weren't coming because they didnt have clothes, but my companion explained that it wasn't about clothes it was about their desire to serve. We thought for sure they weren't coming, but GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS!!! All I could do was pray for them!!! And about 10 minutes into sacrament they walked in the door, and were baptized later that day. Miracle really!!! In the family there are two boys Adriano and Alan and their mom Ivette, their Dad died a few years ago. They both are really really funny and its amazing how much I´ve gotten to know them in 3 days!!!! The baptism was really really awesome. We had a great show up from the ward. The ward here is amazing we have lunches EVERYDAY and theirs so much support and love!!!! It´s great. Anyways even though its been hard I know Heavenly Father has been blessing me and I know that if I work hard and try to be perfectly obedient I can be a happy successful missionary!!!! 

Sister Bruno

Hitting the Mission Field on the Run

Ola!!!!! I just got to my mission. Right now I´m in the mission office. I just met my trainer Sister Waite, American, and found out my first area!!!!! Sao Jose Dos Campos Morumbi!!!!! She seems really cool. Not sure anything else because I still haven't traveled there yet. Its a 1.5 hour train ride away!! I was really really sad to leave the MTC because I made such good friends with everyone there, but I´m really really really excited to be here :) My companion told me that we have a baptism on Sunday, so I´m pretty excited for that. Last month they had a total of 197 baptisms in the mission. I´m excited to jump right in!!! My last week in the CTM was CRAZY!!!!! We went proselyting in the middle of the city, that was such an awesome experience!!! On Tuesday at devotional I bore my testimony in front of EVERYONE, that was pretty cool, and then on my last Sunday I gave a talk in my MTC branch. It was a really good experience because I really felt prompted by the Holy Ghost in what I needed to say. Orientation for the field was crazy as well because it was all in Portuguese and I could understand most things that I paid really close attention to, but after a little while it got really hard to keep paying attention to all the fast Portuguese!! Some days I feel like its really easy to understand and talk, but some days I feel like its impossible.... funny how that works. Hope everyone is doing really really really good!!! I hope your all being member missionaries and inviting people to church and to take the lessons from the missionaries. I know you are all probably really busy but write me (at least emails) once in a while..... Ok??????!?!?!?! Desi