Week 34~"São Paulo Oueste, missão essencial"

Hello my friends!

First off, sorry for not writing yesterday. Yesterday was a holiday because São Paulo celebrated it´s 462nd year of being a city! So naturally, everything was closed. But never fear, I am here!

This week was a week of miracles! We found a couple who appear to be eleitas! Rafael and Julia. We did a contact with Rafael a while ago, but everytime we tried to contact them, they were always traveling or working. But this week we met with them and taught the Plan of Salvation and eternal families. Everyone cried and the spirit was strong. Afterwards, they told us that it was eactly what they needed because apparently they have been having some troubles in the family, but that they liked the spirit that we bring in their home. We taught them the Restoration a few days ago which was great too because they told us what a coincedence it was that we found them because they had been discussing about looking fo one religion for the whole family. Unfortunately they couldn´t come to church this week because Julie went to the United States to work for the week, but! they said that they would come this week! Whoo!

We also brought Regiani and Wellington to church this week. Regiani is the sister of Clebson that I think I talked about last week. They´re not married, but they have been talking about marriage, so we´ll see with them!

This week we also had a broadcast for all the missionaries in the world. It was pretty cool. We heard from Elder Bednar and Sister Oscarson and a few other people whose names I can´t remember. They talked about how we need to teach repentance and baptized converts, which is kind of a problem here in Brasil because eveyone gets baptized, but then goes inactive. But the good news is that our mission, São Paulo Oueste, has the most preisthood holders in all of Brasil! Whoop!

Let´s see what else? Looks like we are going to start this english class after all starting the 13th of February! I´m also teaching piano to a lady in the ward here which is kind of fun. 

Until next week,

Sister Lockhart

...These pictures are from a cool park we went to for P-day which is actually in the mission São Paulo Interlagos (don´t worry we got permission)

Week 33~Bom Dia Brasil!

Twinning with Sister Hall

Bom dia America! 

So this week was kind of interesting!

​

First off, I talked about Pedro already and how the sisters have been teaching them for about 2 years, but he couldn´t go to church because of his job. Anyway he told us he got a new job and all that so we went to his house to have a lesson with a member and he told us that he would be leaving for Salvador the day after and would stay there for a month because that new job he got he didn´t like and is now working for events. So that was a bummer.

In other news, a recent convert in our ward, Duke, asked for Mario´s number (our investigator who´s mom told us not to come by anymore) so that he could keep in contact with him. Turns out Duke called him up and offered him to live with him and offered him a job so that he could work. What?? We were very surprised when the Elders called us up and told us what happened. I don´t know if Mario will accept, but we´ll see!

We found a lot of new people to teach this week, but none of them are married unfortunately. We started teaching Pedro´s neighbors and we taught them the Restoration. After we explained the great apostasy, one of girls asked ´´Wait, does this church exist today?´´ which made me feel good inside. After, we explained the restoration and the spirit was strong, and afterwards Clebson said ´´We´ll go to church tomorrow´´ But when we stopped by there everyone was sleeping and Clebson went to Osasco to work. Phooey. But there´s always next week!

What else? Oh it looks like we´re actually going to do this english class thing. They want to start it at the end of January, but I´m going to try and convince them to wait until after Carnival, since no one is going to be here during that week. But it should be fun! 

Thank you for everything! Until next week!

Love,

Sister Lockhart

We made a cake 'cause us three have seven months!

Week 32~Ready, Set, Go!

Perdizes

Oi gente!

This week we worked our tails off! We made a list of all the members who live in our area and showed it to the bishop. Turns out that almost all the members that live in our area (which isn´t a ton) are less active, so we have been trying to contact them to find some new people to teach. We also talked to the bishop about starting a geneology class or center in the church that people can go to to learn more about how to find their ancestors. It´s really cool here in São Paulo because there are a lot of immigrants here so people like that kind of stuff. Hopefully it´s something we will actually do and not just say we´re gonna do lol

In other news, our investigator Pedro has been meeting with the missionaries for two years. He LOVES the Book of Mormon, but the problem is he always works on Sundays so he could never go to church. But this past week he told us he found a new job that allows him to work only Monday through Fridays and that he would be able to go to church now! Yeah! He also told us he wants to bring his friend and that her dad wants to come too! 

Also this week we found Mario who is 24 years old. We taught him the Restoration and he doesn´t understand a lot, but we marked him for baptism and everything was find until he told his mom about it. She didn´t like that. But the two came to church with us and Mario loved it, but after church they told us to give them some time and that maybe they´ll visit the church some other time. Sad.

We also found a really cool family who´s dad is a member but less active and his two daughters. They´re awesome. The dad produces music from artists and the one daughter is going to study music and sings like no other. Unfortunately, Natalia (the daughter) was throwing up this week so they couldn´t make it to church. But one thing I´ve learned here is that you just have to give it your all and do your part and the Lord does the rest.

That´s about all for this week. This area is really good for Americans because the whole world wants to speak english with us so its easier for us to get addresses. It´s also strange because Americans live in our ward haha but I actually really like it here because it gives us a chance to be creative in finding people. Thankyou all for everything! Love you!

Love,
Sister Lockhart

Cool Park

New Year's Eve Festa

Week 31~Ano Novo!

Happy New Year!

Hello people!

 I´m in my new area now and it looks like I´m here to stay! It´s pretty cool to be here since I already passed 2 weeks here, so it´s easier to develop a relationship with the members which is kind of essential here. Perdizes is RICH. Everybody lives in sky high apartments and think they don´t need Jesus because they have money. So it´s kind of hard to find new investigators here. Also this area might be the biggest area in the mission other than Ibiuna, so we do a lot of walking which is probably good since I probably need to lose the 40 pounds I gained in Caucaia. Hahah, just kidding.

My new companion is Sister Haggard, an american! My first american companion. We have the same amount of time on the mission except she got her visa on time so she´s actually been in Brasil longer.And I´m also living with Sister Hall, my companion from the MTC. I literally don´t know what the Mission President was thinking when he made that decision. Her companion is brasilian and is waiting for her visa to serve in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It´s pretty great.

On New Year´s I got to talk to my family, yay! Everything worked out, thank goodness. New Year´s day was unique in itself. Literally no one was in their house and no one was on the streets because everyone is traveling. So we just walked and walked and walked. Then it started to rain, but we forgot our umbrellas and I don´t think it´s ever rained that hard since I´ve been here. We got soaked!!!!!!! I found it pretty funny actually. 

Those are pretty much the highlights for this week. We did have a miracle yesterday. We struggled this week to find new investigators so we said a prayer that we would be able to find one of the contacts we made in their house. So we went ther, but she told us she was leaving. But I had to use the bathroom really bad so I rang someone´s doorbell and we met a woman named Maria who let us in which was a miracle because we knocked on many doors that day and no one let us in. She received us warmly! After that we found another person who let us teach him, but he was kind of strange because he told us he doesn´t have faith in Christ, but he has faith in Christ´s faith. Also that we are actually equal to God because we can take away lives. So that was kind of weird. But it turns out he´s already read all of the Book of Mormon and he believes it so yeah. I´ve found that miracles never really come in the way we expect.

I forgot my camera today so no pictures :( Até próxima semana!

Love,

Sister Lockhart