I Guess I Have More Time Than I Thought

Well this week was good because we had a lot of really good lessons with our investigators. 

Italo still doesn´t have a desire to get baptized!!! He believes in EVERYTHING, but he says that he just doesn´t want to get baptized.... We taught him almost everyday this week and he just keeps becoming more and more converted.... 

We are helping a few less active families come back and it´s great to see when they too progress, but sometimes it seems harder than even teaching investigators.

Friday was the leadership meeting. It was a greet meeting. I felt the spirit SOOO strong and it made me want to be BETTER than I have ever been. I also got to bear my farewell testimony and of course I cried!!!!! It made me think back about all the experiences that I have had on my mission and think how grateful I am for each person I have met here!!! All of my investigators, recent converts, companions, members!!! EVERYONE!!!! 

Saturday was an emotional day.. First an investigator, who we have been trying to decide whether or not to cut, CUT US!!!! It was weird. He called at 7 am and told me that it was better for him to stay far away from us because he said he was starting to ``like`` me and he knew that it was not allowed. UGHHHHHH it made me sad because I never did anything to make him like me.. I think its just because he is so lonely and we actually cared about him and he felt the spirit and confused the feelings. I don´t know..... I just hope that Heavenly Father gives him humbling experiences that will help him accept the gospel ASAP!!!! 

Then at night we had an open house at our chapel. It was good because 2 friends of a member came and they really liked learning about the church, but me and my companion tried really hard to get people from the street to come and see what it was like, and NO ONE would... :( But one girl that we talked to came to church the next day so that was AWESOME and we´re going to start teaching her on tuesday!!! Woohoo. 

These Last 4 weeks I just want to TRY my hardest and see MIRACLES!!!!!!

Desi 

Road Rage Kindness

THIS WEEK WAS GREAT!!!!!

On thursday we had mission conference with Elder Costa from the quorum of the seventies!!!!! He is sooooo awesome..... He shared so many awesome stories. My favorite one goes like this. He had just moved back to Brazil from são paulo when he got called to be the presiding seventy of brazil and his wife asked him.... you´re going to have to learn how to have patience in the traffic of São Paulo... andddd he said his first day driving to church office building he entered a lane in front of a little red fiat and the little red fiat gotttt SUPERRR mad and started honking and following close behind him. When he came to a red light she pulled over next to him motioned for him to roll down his window and started cussing him out.... He remember what his wife said about patience... Nodded his head and said have a good day... god bless.... and went his way. He said the very next day the very same thing happened with the exact same lady. and he gave the same response. Then a few days later they just happened to be in the same spot again.... And a few days later again.... And before he knew it she was smiling and waving back at him... The next week he decided he was going to give her an invitation to stake conference and a book of mormon. And that sunday she went to stake conference and then was eventually baptized.... Hahah it was great to hear all of his little stories.. It made me realize that heavenly father really puts us in the right places at the right times. And we have to take the opportunities that he gives us!!!!!!!

On Saturday We taught an awesome lesson to our investigator Italo who has been saying that he knows the book of mormon is true and that joseph smith is a prophet, but doesn´t feel ``vontade`` Wich is like will or desire to be baptized. We taught him the plan of salvation again and taught him about the importance of faith and repentance.... He was super interested in the repentance part and  he committed to repent and be baptized on saturday.... but then he didn´t go to church on sunday so we have to move it to after he goes to church one more time, so maybe sunday.

We also taught 6 new investigators this week, and 2 of them went to church. We were super happy about it!! ANDDDDD big surprise they also have word of wisdom problems: cocaine... dang it. But one of them is SUPER smart. He read almost 40 pages in the book of mormon after we left it with him. And he remembers like almost every detail. 

Alexandro and Sandra are doing A LOT better. This week we went to the place to mark their wedding, but unfortunately their birth certificates were too torn apart... So we have to order new birth certificates and go back this week. BUT they will get married, and I hope I´m here to see it :)

Hope everyone has a great week!!!!

Sister Bruno

Persistence in the pursuit of righteous desires can help us develop talents, attain our spiritual goals, and serve others.

Tomorrow are transfers!!!! and that means.... just 6 more weeks of me... wearing this name tag.. 6 more weeks of me being this cute sister missionary. 6 more weeks to do my best and help as many people as I can!!!! This week was good. After Elder Evans visit, we worked hard and saw some great results!!!! ANdddd this week Elder Claudio R.M Costa is going to come give us another mission conference. Two members of the 70s in Two weeks... WOOHOOO :) It will probably be my last mission conference. We started teaching a few new investigators. We are helping reactivate a few less actives. The family whose dad is a drug addict didn´t use crack this week. He just used marijuana instead.... Not as bad.... andddddddddd HE WENT TO CHURCH!!!! finally :) :) It was the cutest thing ever to see their family sitting on the church bench all together. It truly was a miracle. They called sunday morning and said they weren´t going... and I kept saying yes you are. YES YOU ARE. Someone will be at your house in 15 minutes to pick you up. AND THEY WENT :) and he loved it. and their going to get married this month and it´s going to be great!!!!! Italo went to church as well, which made us really happy!!!!!!! andd the family that we are helping reactivate...which also made us super happy!!! Sunday we had a weird experience.... We were walking home to do our weekly planning and some ladies from another church stopped us and invited us to go into their church to visit and to talk to their pastors... I´m not sure why I accepted the invitation. But we went in... and just stayed for a few minutes, and prayed with their pastor. It was sad. But I shared some pass along cards with them and invited them to come to our church. Who knows? Maybe they´ll call for the free dvd :) What did I learn this week? Righteous persistence pays off. Alexandro always says that were are persistent and that's why he went to church. When I think of persistence I think of Jesus Christ. He persisted day after day to follow the will of Heavenly Father. And he inspires us to do the right thing in our own lives. To be persistent in our righteous desires and actions. Because one day we will receive a reward for it! I´m pretty sure I will stay in my area with my companion for my last transfer, but If anything happens I´ll let you know tomorrow....

"It's not enough to wish, it's not enough to dream, it's not enough to promise. We must do."

TUDO BEM??? This week was an eye-opener. We are still working with our investigators to help them obey the word of wisdom. Unfortunately we made the decision to cut a few of the investigators that we had that were not interested in changing or even wanting to know more about the gospel :( BUTTT we are going tomorrow to mark the wedding of one of the family we are currently teaching! woohoo. I´m so excited for them. Sandra is SO awesome. She has the biggest desire to change. ANDDDDD she is pregnant. So she will be married before the baby comes. Saturday I had the privilege to go to a meeting that had the zone leaders and sister leaders from the 5 missions in the huge city of São Paulo. We got to hear from Elder Evans from the seventy who works on the missionary executive council. It was an awesome experience. He talked so much about our true purpose as missionaries. A lot of the time missions focus on the one thing that is easiest for them to do. Here it is baptism. In some places is less active work. and we forget that we should be helping in all areas of the doctrine of Christ: faith, repentance, baptism, receive the gift of the holy ghost and endure to the end. Heavenly Father has great expectations for our generation. He wants us to be obedient so that he can bless us. He wants us to help him with his Purpose: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of men. He also talked a lot about the importance of families. There is nothing more important than our families. We can only get to the celestial kingdom when we are sealed together and enduring to the end as a family. This morning he came and talked to our whole mission. It was a very humbling experience. He was very inspired and hit the key points that our mission needs to be better at. It was one of the best mission conference I have been to. He also told us that Heavenly Father gives us our desires. If we desire good things and good results he will give them to us. and how do we show our desires? By the things we do. So we have to do GOOD things. I know that this really is the work of salvation. Sister Bruno

And all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones; And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures; And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint. And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them. Amen.

YUP you guessed it : WORD OF WISDOM!!!!!! This week weirdly enough really strengthened my testimony of the word of wisdom.

It seems like ALL of our investigators have problems with the word of wisdom. Two drug addicts that are FIGHTING their addictions. One family being destroyed by the bad drug habits of the dad. One investigator who wanted to become a professional bartender. One family whose parents are chain smokers. I have never seen so many bad effects of breaking the word of wisdom. 

We had an awesome lesson with Italo (investigator who wanted to become a professional bartender)! We taught him about the plan of salvation and marked his baptism date for the 2nd of March. Then when we taught the word of wisdom he ACCEPTED it so well! And has now stopped drinking alcohol and coffee!!!!! 

We started teaching another drug addict who is truly sincere about changing. He has cut down so much. He went from using drugs almost every day to once a week. And he told us that when his dad told him to have a beer at the bakery (yes here the drink at bakery´s...) He ordered a COKE!!!! 

Shout out to all of you for being such great examples when it comes to the word of wisdom. I have luckily NEVER been tempted to break the word of wisdom. But up until this week I also had never realized how big of a blessing it has been in my life. I AM SO GRATEFUL FOR THE WORD OF WISDOM!!!!! It truly blesses us in all aspects of our lives. Health Wise, Knowledge Wise, Safety Wise... ALL ASPECTS even money wise if you think about....

If anyone has any good ideas on how to break an addiction let me know!!!

Desi

"Our destiny is not determined by the number of times we stumble but by the number of times we rise up, dust ourselves off, and move forward."

Dear Family,

We had a great week!!!! A LOT went on. We stayed pretty busy throughout the whole week. 

We taught a lot of Restoration lessons! It was great! We had 11 new investigators and we have started to teach 2 new families :) 

One of the familys we are teaching is really accepting! One problem. The dad of the family is addicted to CRACK. We taught the first lesson with him drugged up. It was an interesting experience because his week is SUCH A GOOD INVESTIGATOR. She had so many good questions, and she is so sincere in her desire to know. She felt the spirit so strongly. The dad wants to stop he told us that he did. He recognizes that its destroying his life... It was really sad to see what he was giving up, and to see the pain that he caused in the life of Sandra, his wife. I know it will be HARD, but I know that he will be able to!!!! 

Saturday was the baptism of Megara!!!! It was SO SWEET. I am so happy for her. She had been waiting for this day for so long, and her mom who isn´t a member went and really liked it as well. She may still be saying that she is not interested, but I KNOW that Meggy is going to help her whole family through her example. 

We taught Italo again this week and he accepted the invitation to be baptized :) He is SOOOOOOOO AWESOME. He works so hard in life, and he really just wants to know peace and wants to know how he can get rid of the guilt that he feels. He read the chapter we left him in the book of mormon 2 times, and he said that he felt good when he prayed!!!! 

Happy Valentine´s day this week to everyone!!! LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Desi

Mission: Resgatar

Me and my companion have been working a lot with the ward list. Visiting every single person that we don´t know. Sometimes the address doesn´t exist or the person moved more than 10 years ago, but this week we saw some awesome results because of it. First we visited a family and got them to go to church two weeks in a row. Come to find out the youngest never got confirmed, so she has to be baptized again. So now we are teaching her the missionary lessons and helping her prepare for baptism.

We also found a family that has been half inactive half active for about 2 years. They got offended and started going to their moms ward, and slowly became inactive. Us visiting Tatiana, the wife, got her super excited to try out the ward again. She misses going to the TEMPLE, so she is going to go to the ward on Sunday!!!!!

I call it Mission:Resgatar. Resgatar means to Rescue :)

We also found an ELECT this week. We were walking down the road and a lady called out SISTER and we went back and talked to her. She told her that her daughter had recently moved to the area and is ``from our church`` She told us that she however had her own beliefs and that did not want to visit our church. We wrote down the address to visit her daughter and let her know how to get to the chapel. When we got there we sat down and talked to her for a bit, and come to find out she was NEVER baptized. She lived with her Dad for most of her life in a place called Juquitiba and was introduced to the church by her aunt. Her dad, however never let her get baptized. BUT now shes living with her mom and her mom told her that its her choice. SHE is awesome. She has been going to church for 10 months now and she pretty much taught US the first lesson. When we asked her if she knew what the priesthood was she asked if we wanted to know about the aaronic or melquesidique... :) We will see how long her mom will stay with her ``own beliefs`` 

Tomorrow we have transfers!!!!! I am going to stay in my area and TRAIN. I will probably finish out my mission here in Vila Esperança. My last 12 weeks will be my companions first 12 weeks. I´m super excited to be able to help my new companion learn how to be a missionary. I hope I can teach her how to be a GREAT missionary.

Well thats about all that is happening here in my new area!!! I hope all of you have a great week and write me!!!! Depending if I have time after I get my greenie from the mission office I might get on again tomorrow for the rest of my time, so WRITE ME!!!!!!!! and I agree with franny: EVERYONE SHOULD READ MY EMAIL :)

Love you all!!!!!!

Sister Bruno

La Cucharacha

Summer is in full bloom here in São Paulo...

This week was CRAZY!!!!! 

I think I got a sunburn 6 of the 7 days this week...

On New Year´s there were SOOOO many fireworks right outside of or window... and while trying to sleep a firework landed on our house... It was pretty intense.. I thought that I was in a war zone. I think Brazil should think about revising their laws about firework use. 

Cockroaches are just having the time of their life... Funny story. We were teaching José this week and he had bug bombed his work office about 2 hours before we got there and there were COCKROACHES EVERYWHERE... I would say I saw at least 100. My companion killed about 20 while we were teaching... Let´s just say it was a hard lesson to get through... and that I may or may not have screamed during the first vision because of a cockroach on my foot.... José is the cutest old man I have ever met in my life.. He just kept laughing and killing them before they got to me.. 

Me and Sister Peart worked HARD this week and though we may have not seen immediate success we are starting to up our pool of investigators :) 

Tomorrow we are going to the Temple as a mission and I am SUPER excited. Me and Sister Peart read a talk by Elder Holland about missionaries and covenants and I loved this quote maybe it will help you Franny and Michael.

It is when an entire mission is united by the strength of every missionary’s integrity, every 
 missionary’s personal covenant keeping,that we move mountains. When there is such unity  
and power, an endowment from heaven, coming to every individual in the mission, nothing can
 “stop the work from progressing.” It is in this way that the“truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, 
 and independent.”

Congratulations Annika and Keith.. I would love to see some pictures ASAP!!!!! Now that Keith is a part of the family someone should tell me his email so I can add him to the list... 

LOVE YOU ALL!!!!

Touched by the Spirit

This week I feel like I have learned a little bit about what it truly means to bear one another's burdens. This week we started teaching a woman named Fernanda. She is passing through a really hard time because she is currently living with the father of her two sons. Who is unfortunately an alcoholic. He can´t even work because he is so addicted to drinking. He is literally drinking his life away. As we have gotten to know her and have talked to her, I can honestly say that we have been bearing her burdens. I feel SO MUCH sadness for her, but I also feel so much HOPE for her. Unfortunately she can not work because she has a little baby of 1 month old and has to wait until he is 4 months old to stop breast feeding him. But she said that every time she prays and thinks about the new years something fills her with happiness and hope. I don´t know exactly how to help her overcome these problems, but I am confident that Heavenly Father does and I hope to be able to continue to bear her burdens and help make them lighter. 

We also taught Josè and he is SOOOO ELECT!!!!! We taught him the restoration and he got really emotional and cried. It was the most tender moment I think I have ever had in my life. This cute little old man so willing to accept the teachings of Christ in his life. I thought about how much Heavenly Father must truly love him. We marked his baptism for the 12th of January. 

I´m so excited for this new year. It is going to be SOOOO Great. I know it. I am a firm believer of New Year´s Goals, so I hope that everyone writes out 14 goals for the year of 2014 and puts them in a visible place so that everyday you can remember and try your hardest to reach them.  

LOVE YOU ALL!!! HAPPY NEW YEARS!!! THANKS FOR ALL OF THE SUPPORT AND LOVE :) 

Desi 

The Pursuit of Happiness

This week was not at all what I was expecting it to be. But it ended up being a pretty good week. 

We were in high gear doing TONS of street contacts. Doing all we could do find new investigators. But yeah that didn´t work out too well. We only got two new investigators out of the 50 contacts that we did. 

But, we worked all week with Alicia (the daughter of the couple who is going to be married next month to be baptized) and she got baptized yesterday. She is so AWESOME. She was so excited to be baptized, and everytime she prays she prays that her parents can get married soon so that they can get baptized too!!! I am SUPER excited to plan a wedding :) Should be happening in about December. I might not get to be there for Annika´s wedding, but at least I´ll get to see a wedding. 

We have also been working with Gabriel. Gabriel is the son of a recent convert, Janai. He never was very interested with meeting with the sisters and he just likes playing soccer on the street and getting into trouble. But when I saw him, I was like. We need to teach him!!!! So me and my companion started slowly trying to gain his trust and BAM. Before he knew it he was taking the discussions. And he is super awesome. His biggest concern right now is HAPPINESS. He wanted to know how he could be HAPPIER. We have been making that a key point in all the lessons that we teach him. For the first week we taught him, everytime we extended an invitation he wouldn´t give firm answers. It was always ``maybe i´ll go to church on sunday``  ``Let´s see if I remember to say a prayer tonight``. But when we taught him on saturday he had a great bonding moment with his mom. And talked about the change that he had seen in her after her baptism. She stopped saying swear words, stopped drinking, stopped screaming at him, stopped beating him. And he said ``she does look a lot happier`` This was like the most rewarding thing I have ever seen. It made me think..... man THE GOSPEL TRULY DOES BLESS FAMILIES!!!!!!! And after the lesson we invited him to be baptized and he said YES :) Then he went to church on sunday and saw the baptism of Alicia and afterwards he came up to us and said ``Eu decidi, eu vou me batizar domingo que vem`` I have decided to be baptized next sunday!!!! WOOHOOOOOOO. It made me soooo happy to see him happy and to see him respond with such a firm answer. 

What I have been learning with Gabriel is that the only way to find true happiness is through the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no other way. Heavenly Father wants to see us happy. He wants to see us on the right path to eternal life because he loves us!!!!!! It reminds me of the tree of life. The fruit is what is true happiness. 

10 And it came to pass that I beheld a ^atree, whose ^bfruit was desirable to make one ^chappy.

And how can we get to the tree of life?!?!!? Following the iron rod which is the word of god!!!!! When we follow the commandments and live the gospel we are going to be happy regardless of what is happening in our lives because we will have hope that we will be blessed and that Heavenly Father will fix the bad things that are happening.  

Love you all!!!!

"The more we devote ourselves to the pursuit of holiness and happiness, the less likely we will be on a path to regrets. The more we rely on the Savior’s grace, the more we will feel that we are on the track our Father in Heaven has intended for us." Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Vila Esperança

This week was pretty good. I am finally getting used to my new area and my new companion, Sister Peart. I still miss Vila Prudente and Sister Oborn, but I know that I am going to really learn how to love Vila Esperança. This week our ward made a lot of PROGRESS. 

My companion and her old companion had met a family before I got here and had been working with them. They have a really complicated situation. Raquel, the mom is a single mom. She has 4 kids. So it´s really hectic there. Her daughters boyfriend lives in the same house because his dad is a drug addict and kicked him out on the street and he had no where to go. But they are great people and we worked hard to prepare them for their baptism. Saturday was the big day and it ended up being a really special baptism. They aren´t perfect and they need a lot of help, but I am confident that Heavenly Father will bless them SOO much because of the faith that they have. I also know that the gospel can cure ANY problem. I am hoping that we can continue helping them have less fights and more strong family bonding moments. 

We also have been working with a family that just moved here from the state of Bahia here in Brazil. They are super awesome. They are here in São Paulo looking for a better way of life. In the Bahia it is super hard to sustain a family. They were walking around last sunday looking for a house when they saw the church and saw that the sign said Visitors Welcome and felt like maybe that Jesus Christ was the help that they needed in their lives. And they loved the church and the members loved them. The bishop gave Alison, the husband, (yes its a boy name here) a job at his construction company and Vanubia (the mom) has been hired to help a lot of the members clean their houses. We started teaching them and they have already accepted baptism. But first they need to get married, and of course they accepted as well!!! We are super excited for them. We just hope that the marriage papers will pass soon so we can be here when they get married and baptized!!!!!!! They have two daughters one that is 10 and one that is 2. It makes me happy to know that the gospel is helping them and I hope to be able to teach with the spirit so that they can truly become converted. 

This week we are going to work to find a lot of new investigators especially families, and continue working to help our ward grow and become more united.  

Hope everyone has a good week!!!! Continue sharing the gospel the best you know how.  

Desi