Week 56~Saint John's Party

Tchau Presidente!

Good morning!

 I hope everyone is well! This week had it´s ups and downs, but overall pretty good.

Isabella decided that she would rather live a life chasing after boys than chasing after Jesus. But that´s okay. We were doing contacts and we met her uncle who told us he was really interested in learning about the church! There is always a miracle hidden in the rough. 

A miracle that happened this week: Renato came to church! After one of the hymns I looked behind us and there was Renato sitting with his family! And he participated during Gospel Principles which was good. Renato used to frequent the church when his ´´wife´´ was baptized, but then stopped because they have been having relationship issues. But he asked her yesterday morning if he could go. So that was a big surprise. We are going to mark a wedding date for them this week!

Also, Saturday was Festa Junina (or Festa de São João) which is a holiday here in Brasil. I don´t know what they actually celebrate, but there was an activity at the church which was really cool. 8 of our investigators came and they loved it! Now the only problem is getting them to church on Sunday..

Let´s see, what else? We´re probably going to start another english class here, which is good because I think it would work out really well and I miss the old english class we taught in Perdizes. Oh yeah, our new President arrives this Wednesday! I´m sure I´ll have more to tell about that next week.

Thank you all for your prayers! Love you!

Love,

Sister Lockhart

Haha... I bought this thing...

My companion told me that I need to take more pictures and this was my reaction...

Week 55~We are Happy and Full of Faith

​Me, Lorenzo, Sister de Oliveira, e Meiren

(Lorenzo is Renato´s son who just turned 8;
 we´re helping prepare him for baptism)

Hello my friends and family, happy father´s day! Actually, I don´t think brasilians celebrate father´s day because nobody has said anything about it. Anyway, this week was pretty good!

Isabella, our investigator, is progressing, slowly, but progressing. She is 12 years old and has a lot of friends in the church and a lot of friends who are investigating the church in the Elder´s area. It´s kind of complicated to explain the situation, but there is a lot of drama in the Young Men and Young Woman´s program in this ward, I feel so sorry for the leaders. I just want to give a big shout out to my leaders that I had, thank you for your patience hahaha So yeah, we´ll see how it goes with Isabella.

This week we were able to see a lot of miracles. One of them was a reference (i think that´s the word) from the Elders. They made a contact with a woman on the street who´s daughter was baptized and lives in our ward, but is now inactive. The woman said we could visit her because she moved and now lives in our area. So we got to the building, which was actually an apartment, ugh, and they let us enter! Which never happens haha And this couple loves the missionaries! The strange thing is that they were never taught by the missionaries. So we talked to them and Rosa seems very prepared to receive the restored gospel. And afterwards they bought us a pizza...I think I´m gaining weight now! lol Sidenote: The pizza in São Paulo is the best pizza in all of Brasil! Not kidding.

I´ve started a project here called ´´Save the Families´´. This project is to help 3 families here in Casa Verde baptize the father of the family. This is kind of our biggest hope right now for baptisms for the upcoming transfer. These 3 future priesthood holders Renato, Geraldo, and Luiz, have received the missionaries for a good while, but we were able to mark Geraldo for baptism this week! And Luiz said he would pray and asked if he should be baptized which he said he´s never done before...And Renato needs to get married. The elders actually baptized his wife who actually isn´t married to him legally, I don´t know how they got away with that, but okay. Everything is gonna work out!

I have been able to see that even though this area has a reputation for being one of the harder areas of the mission, that it is an area of miracles and is helping me build a solid foundation of faith. It´s also cool to see the newbie american missionaries because I can speak portuguese with them and feel smart hahahaha

Thank you for your prayers and support! Until next week!

Love,

Sister Lockhart

This kid is a comedy

Week 54~Casa Verde

Hey ya´ll, don´t haved much to say this week other than it´s so cold here I don´t think I´ve ever experienced cold like this. Apparently it only gets this cold in the south of Brasil. My luck!

So Casa Verde is a strange area. It´s the area of the MTC of Brasil and the area is about the size of an egg, it´s so small. They just opened up this area recently for Sisters and redivided the area. It´s kind of cool because we get to see all the new missionaries on P-day, but also strange because everybody here already knows about the church, which makes it a bit hard to find new investigators. But the ward here is really cool because they all work at the MTC so they´re really willing to help. Actually this area reminds me a lot of Utah. It´s interesting.

That´s all for this week! I forgot my camera so no pictures...

Love,

Sister Lockhart

Week 53~Forget Yourself & Go to Work

Yesterday I got the sad news that I´ll be leaving Maria Rosa and I´ll be going to Casa Verde to be companions with my first trainer Sister de Oliveira. Casa Verde is in Perdizes Zone so I´ll be returning to those days again. Also it´s sad because I was pretty sure I was going to stay in the area because I´ve never stayed in an area for more than 2 transfers. But you got to do what you got to do.

Rita was confirmed this week and we brought Catarina and her two kids to church. It was a miracle because we´ve been having a hard time finding new people who have interest in our messages. But we taught her the restoration and the spirit was strong and as catholic as she is, she really liked the church. Also yesterday we visited a less active and had a great lesson. She wants to come back and her daughter isn´t baptized! It was a miracle!

I am so grateful for the time I spent here in Maria Rosa. I am raelly going to miss it, but a member from the ward gave me some food for thought. She said you´re here on the mission, but there comes a time when you have to make the sacrifice. I liked that. Yeah, I mean, we leave everything behind to be here, but there comes a time when we have to make the sacrifice here on the mission. 

Love you all! Tchau mesmo!

Love,

Sister Lockhart

"Goodbye President"

Tchau Zona Fererria

New Prez and his Wife

Felipe aka The Cutest kid in the World