March 11, 2013 Teaching in Portuguese and English

Dear everyone,

It´s only been 5 days since my last email so the updates aren´t quite as many, but I´ll do my best to give you all plenty to read. First off, we´ve been being really blessed lately with a pretty big teaching pool--the biggest that it´s ever been for me in the field. Referrals have been falling from the sky like crazy. And good ones too. We got one referral from two Elders in our district--2 young men that went to church in their ward with their aunt but live in our area and still aren´t baptized. We went there Friday night and they have a baptism marked for this coming Sunday. Super exciting! Their names are Vitor (13) and Ayslã (14). They´re hilarious and have a strange liking for Justin Bieber. So when I told them I knew the rap part to "Baby" they were just about dying to hear it. I gave in and sang it for them while they danced along. Probably didn´t understand any of it but I think they got a kick out of it. Gotta live a little on the mission right? I´m not sure if it´s a good sign or a bad one that I managed to remember the lyrics though...haha. Another family I´m pretty excited about is Antôntio and Gabriela. They´re a young couple with 2 kids that we found knocking doors. Gabriela recently lost her mom and grew up in a religion that taught that after death she wouldn´t be able to remember her daughter. So she´s been really shaken up lately and really needing the gospel. Their curiosity is through the roof and I´d say their potential is too. We´re going to try to teach the Plan of Salvation to them tonight or tomorrow and set a date for their baptisms. I´ll be sure to keep you posted. We´re continuing to work with Almir so that he can stop smoking completely (he´s still hovering around 2-3 cigarettes a day) and be baptized this Saturday and be confirmed Sunday. I´m exciting for when his day finally comes...he´s come so far already and I´m optimistic about this weekend. 

Sunday we had Stake Conference which was an absolute treat for me. There are six wards in our stake and probably a good 400 active members between all of them. The Church has a beautiful chapel downtown where we went Sunday morning to be able to participate. Seeing the chapel absolutely filled to the brim did a world of good for me. Our ward in Vila União only has 65-70 that come everyweek, so seeing so many members gathered together at once reminded me a little bit of my ward back home. The choir did a super nice job and the focus of the whole meeting was missionary work (no complaints there right?). One of the high council members shared a really neat story about how his brother-in-law was baptized and converted. He´d shared the gospel with him for 10 years with no success but decided to go to the temple one day with the intent to have a missionary opportunity spring up in the near future. He left the Celestial Room feeling he should call his brother-in-law again and invite him to hear the gospel. To his surprise the answer was an excited "yes" and his brother-in-law made the 300 mile trip from Rio de Janeiro to Campinas that weekend just so that he could hear more. He did that for 2 and a half months, met with the missionaries and was baptized. Now he calls every week with updates--family home evenings that he´s having, friends he´s bringing to Church, how dramatically the realationship he has with his family has improved, etc. It was a good reminder to me of 2 things. 1, the gospel really does have the power to transform lives. More effectively than anything else on earth--whichever other psychiatrist or religion or whatever it may be. 2, when we ask, God gives. President and Sister Perrotti were also there and shared powerful testimonies about missionary work. I left feeling--I think pumped would be the best word--to be a missionary. 

On the lighter side of things, Wednesday night after the English Class that I´ve been teaching Elder Barbosa and I and 4 other missionaries from the zone that were there bought a MASSIVE pizza--I´d guess a good 2 feet in diameter. We brought it back to the kitchen in the chapel and were about to bless it when an older sister from the local ward who´d gone to the English class walked in. She said something along the lines of "my goodness, what an amazing smell!," took the pizza out of the wrapping and started piling slices on her plate while the rest of us stood staring in disbelief--slightly annoyed but mostly bewildered. How she knew there was pizza in the kitchen I have no idea, and why she felt entitled to start serving herself I don´t know either. She just came in, opened up the pizza, took 3 or 4 slices (and on this pizza the slices were massive), and walked back out the door. We didn´t know what to do so we just laughed. Kind of bizarre. But funny all the same. What else? Oh, Sunday night a drunk man who thought we were missionaries from a church called "A Igreja Universal" started screaming a stream of profanity at us in absolute fury. That was interesting. I don´t know what that church did to him but I feel sorry for him. I just stood there laughing a little bit at how upset he was until he walked away a good 5 minutes later. Something to go in my journal I suppose...haha.

Well, best be going! Our district leader is headed home next week so we´re having a party for him. Better still there´ll be a piano there so I´ll be taking full advantage! I love all of you and miss you.

Love, Elder Sears

March 6, 2013 Alfredo Follows his Mother's Footsteps into the Font

Elder Sears, Alfredo (10), Vania, and Elder Barbosa at Alfredo's baptism

March 6, 2013 Another Baptism!

Oi!!

I´m super sorry if any of you were glued to the computer Monday night wondering why my email wasn´t coming (I´m sure that´s exactly what all of you were doing, right?). Haha. As it turned out Presidente Perrotti called a training meeting on Monday that I was invited to go to rather last minute, so I wasn´t able to send off emails until today. But I´m alive and well, I promise. Unfortunately because of the switch my time is SUPER short this week. So I´ll stop blabbing and get right to it.

Alfredo, 10 years old and Vania´s son, got baptized this past Saturday and confirmed on Sunday!!!!! Chalk up another miracle here in Vila União. As things stood at the beginning of last week, he didn´t want to get baptized because he was pretty attached to the Catholic Church and thought that his baptism there was good enough. He´s a super smart kid which can make it difficult to reason with him when he already has his mind made up--he has a counterargument or question for everything. But we passed by to talk with him last Monday night and Elder Barbosa had the idea to have him write out what he thought of the Church on a piece of paper (he can be shy at times so we were hoping that writing would help him open up a bit). We came back an hour later to find one of the most profound, incredible testimonies I´ve ever heard or read written on that piece of paper. By a 10 year old no less! He had written that he knew the Church was true, that it´d been a really good thing for his mom, and that he loved the missionaries and the work they do (I particularly liked that part). My favorite line went something like this: "I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not A church, but THE church." After having read that and closed our mouths that had dropped wide open in shock and gratitude, we asked him if, based on what he knew, he´d like to be baptized. He got all shy on us, so we wrote out the invitation instead. And in response, he wrote a gigantic "SIM!!!" It was a really neat experience for the two of us, especially for Elder Barbosa because it was his first opportunity to baptize on the mission. There weren´t too many people at the baptismal service but watching him come out of the water brought with it for me a very simple but very real feeling that the work we do as missionaries for the only true Church of God is exactly what I need to be doing write now, and that Heavenly Father is pleased with it. It was a really good feeling for me to have, because beyond Alfredo our investigators have been having a lot of difficulties progressing. 

Really quick, in other news...remember that training meeting I mentioned? I got to see Elder Alcântara at it! I don´t think I realized how much I missed him until I saw him again. I went in for a hug but instead he just about broke my ribs by picking me up off the ground. In short, I was super glad to get to see him. Oh, and last week I weighed myself for the first time in a couple of months. I was quite happy to see 156 pounds staring back at me. I left with 140 and I´ve been at that weight for a solid 2 years or so. So I´m getting fatter or my calf muscles from all the walking are getting bigger. Either way I´m happy. Haha. What else?... Elder Barbosa and I have been playing chess off and on lately just before we go to bed. It´s been fun for me to be able to play (so far I´m undefeated but we´ll see how long that lasts. haha!). Oh, and I´m teaching an English class to a good 30 non-members or so every week. It´s been a fun experience for me (unfortunately it´s not in our area--I´m one of just a handful of North American missionaries that can teach in our zone, so I have to travel to another area to teach in the place of another American that was transferred). But hey, I´m liking it.

Well, gotta go. I´m sorry this email was a shorter one--this week´s been pretty hectic with the meeting on P-day and everything. But I´ll do better next week! I love you all and thank you so much for who you are and what you mean to me. AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE BEST MOM IN THE WORLD THIS WEEK!

Love, Elder Sears

Feb. 25, 2013 Training, tracting, and teaching

Dear family and friends,

How are you all? I hope this past week for you has been the best of the year so far. It´s been, overall, a good one for me. 

Continuing on with training Elder Barbosa has been nothing but a blessing for me. He has a really good attitude and a strong desire to get to work. I told Joseph in an email I sent to him that he has a sense of humor pretty similar to Elder Barbosa. He told me that in the months leading up to his mission he took a technology course at a local college, which he used to build household bombs out of lightbulbs and batteries and such. Fun stuff. I think it was Wednesday night that we got home after a pretty exhausting, frustrating day of work without a lot of visible success. Elder Barbosa, to cheer up a bit, started rapping freestyle (in Portuguese) about how frustrated he was with people that just don´t get it. I can see him making something of his talent in the future because he has a gift--my job now is to help him do the same thing in English so that I can actually understand more than half of the words he´s saying. Anyways, it was really nice just to be able to relax and laugh a bit while we made ourselves some sketchy juice from some lemon/lime/orange fruit-things we´d plucked from a tree earlier in the week. The juice was nasty but I drank it anyway--lots of sugar helped.

As far as the teaching and the work goes, 2 solid weeks of sweat and lots of prayers and planning have given us a pretty decent teaching pool. We´re finally spending more time teaching than finding, which I love. One because it´s less walking for me and two because teaching is what I was actually called to do. We´re working in particular with two men--Almir and Julho--Almir who is preparing to be baptized this Saturday and confirmed this Sunday. Almir was a referral we got from a member in the ward. The first time he went to church (2 weeks ago I think) he smoked a pack a day and had a pretty nasty habit of drinking moonshine whenever he got down on himself. Now he´s down to 3 cigarettes, no alcohol or coffee, and excited for the opportunity he´ll have to be baptized and cleansed from the stains he´s been building up because of his addictions trailing after him basically his entire life. We gave him a blessing to help him overcome his desire and I marvel at the Lord´s power working with him. It´s been really neat to visit him (daily is our goal until his baptism and confirmation) and actually see progress--physically and spiritually. It´s the first time I´ve really had to follow up with the Word of Wisdom with an investigator and it´s fun in a way to always be planning and praying for what we can do next to cut down the cigarettes from 20 to 3 to 0. If all goes well and I have faith it will, Saturday will be the big day for him.

Julho has a similar story, although finding him wasn´t so easy. He was a street contact we did last week and marked to return another day when he wasn´t so busy so that we could sit down and teach. I didn´t think too much of it until Sunday morning. We had confirmed Saturday night  that a man named Rodrigo and his family would go to church with us Sunday morning, only Rodrigo had asked that we call in the morning to wake him up so he´d be ready to go. We called loads of times Sunday morning and he didn´t pick up. So, with just half an hour left before we had to catch the bus to head for the chapel, we booked it over to his house to try to wake him up in person since he wasn´t answering the phone (he lives a good 20 minute sprint-walk away from our house). We stood there knocking and calling his name for a good 5 minutes or so but nobody answered the door. We sprinted back to the bus station but missed our bus by just a couple of minutes. The next one that would pass by the church would only head out in another hour. So we decided we´d take advantage and try to do some more street contacts in the hour we had. We passed by Julho´s street and remembered about him. We knocked and his door and woke him up and invited him to church. He got ready in 10 minutes and we headed back to the bus station just in time to catch our bus to go to church. On the way we discovered he´s had a really rough past and he, like Almir, struggles with smoking. He´s been in and out of a bunch of churches but never really found one he liked all that much. We briefly explained to him about the apostasy and why it is that there are so many churches today in the world. I asked him, kind of on a whim but perhaps being led a little bit by the spirit, if he´d like to be baptized in the very church that Christ Himself organized on the earth. He said yes and we marked March 10 for him to enter the water. Who know where things will go from there...he´s only been to church once and we still haven´t been able to teach him the first lesson (don´t worry, that´s scheduled for tonight at 8:00). But I do think there´s a lot to be learned from the mere fact that he agreed to come to the only true church on the face of the earth--and that our invitation for him to do so was only possible because we missed the bus. God works in mysterious ways, but to me it´s not mystery that He works. Sunday morning was a tender mercy from Him in my life. 

One last piece of rather important news before I go for today...we found out Thursday morning from our Mission President that July 1 the Brazil Campinas Mission is going to be divided in half and the Brazil Piracicaba Mission will be one of 58 new missions announced to start up this year. I don´t know anything more than that--but it´ll be interesting to see which mission I go to/stay in. Either way, I´ll be a missionary all the same.

Love you all!

Elder Sears

Feb. 18, 2012 A Family Enters the Waters and Elder Barbosa enters Villa Unao

Lena and Reobe's baptism
Elder Alcantara, Lena, Reobe, Elder Sears

Baptism of Vania:
Elder Sister with Vania and her family and Elder Alcantara 

Elder Sears with his new greenie, Elder Barbosa

Feb. 18, 2013 Training a Greenie! Elder Barbosa

Oi de Brasil mais uma vez! 

I hope all of you are doing well. Thank you tons for all of the updates via email. It sounds like loads has been happening back home and I wish I could be a bigger part of it! But I´m where I´m supposed to be. First of all, many congratulations to you, Joseph, for getting your driver´s license! I´m thrilled for you. It´s such a cool feeling behind the wheel--something that I miss a lot down here actually. Although maybe it´s a good thing I´m taking a 2 year break. If I´m remembering correctly the last time I drove a car I managed to hit a deer. haha. And of course, loads of congratulations to you Kirsten for being worthy to take out your endowment in the temple. I´m sure that was an incredible experience for you and I really appreciate the pictures you sent. All of them came through, and it´s not hard to tell that that day was a special one. Parabéns!

I mentioned last week that I´d be getting a new companion. His name is Elder Barbosa and he now has a whopping 6 days in the field! I was kind of shocked to find out I´d be training a greenie. I´d have to describe my reaction as: "no way! This is awesome and super exciting. Wait, what? I´m training? I don´t know the first thing about training and there´s no way I´m ready for this. Is it really going to be me now answering all the questions instead of asking them?" Elder Alcântara got a kick out of the news. He wouldn´t stop shouting "I´m going to be a grandpa!" which I found quite hilarious (remember here that trainers are "dads" in the mission). He seemed genuinely happy for me, but also wished me the best of luck saying that I was going to need it. I´m sure I gave him a bit of a headache at times as I was learning and I´m sure there will be times with my new companion when I will go through the headaches that I put my trainer through. But I´m very humbled with the responsibility and I´ll be doing a lot of seeking of the Lord´s help. There´s no other way I can think of that I´ll be able to train and find and teach and baptize and stay sane and happy without His help. It´s definitely a lot to take in but I´m exciting for the opportunity. Elder Barbosa is from Santa Cantarina, the southern part of Brasil, which means he´s almost as white as I am. He wasted no time in showing me his personality. As soon as we got home to unpack his bags he pulled out some medicine and told me it was for "uncontrollable rage" that randomly would appear if he didn´t take them. I kind of stared at him uneasily and he just started laughing. I was able to breathe after that. He´s a really hard worker and eager to improve in every area imaginable. I think this past week I´ve worked harder (mentally and physically) than I have in the mission up to this point. I often times feel like giving him advice in response to his questions and concerns is a bit of a guessing game, because I´m still very much lacking in experience myself. But I continue to seek the Lord´s help and I hope I´ll be able to help my new companion grow into the type of missionary God envisions him being. It´s been funny and interesting for me to see so many similarities in the two of us. He´s a bit of a perfectionist as well and the same kind of "worry wart" that I can be at times, stressing out over the things that really don´t matter all too much. I remember the first question I asked Elder Alcântara when we got to our house was "so....where´s the filtered water, or are we just trusting the tap?" I smiled when that was the first question Elder Barbosa asked me as well. He says he plays chess so today we´re going to try to find a cheap chess set and see who comes out the winner. Oh, and he´s only 18. I found that neat. I´ll try to attach a picture of the two of us in a separate email after I send this off.

As far as the work outside of training goes, it´s been a tough but fulfilling week for me. Vania was confirmed a member of the Church yesterday and I think I appreciated the ordinance much more after what happened with Lena and Reobe. Her son Alfredo (10) continues to come to church with her every week but she still seems reluctant to let him get baptized. He grew up in the Catholic church and is pretty attached to it, but we´re working to schedule loads of family home evenings with the 2 of them and some other families in the ward with kids his same age so that he feels more at home and more eager to be baptized. Fingers crossed that it´ll be this coming Sunday. After a week without contact we finally managed to sit down and talk with Lena and Reobe on Saturday. I explained the situation to Elder Barbosa and we both felt it´d be a good idea to fast in preparation for our visit with them. It´s been brutally hot and we walked a lot that day during our fast, but I do not in the least regret it. I felt really guided by the Spirit in talking with the two of them, but much more than knowing what to say I felt that I felt what I needed to feel to really be genuine with them. I feel like I´m coming closer to feel charity for my investigators than I ever have in the past. As I was bearing my testimony to them and promising blessings that will come after their confirmation, I choked up for the first time in a lesson. The tears came flowing--I don´t know why, but probably because I´m learning to love them so much. Lena, who I think has been feeling really pressured by the ward to come back and be confirmed after 3 weeks without coming to church, told me that me getting all emotional like that helped her to know that I wanted nothing but the best for her--that there wasn´t any sort of selfish desire inside of me that wanted her to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. I´m really grateful she understands that and I continue to plead with the Lord every night that He will, somehow, as only He can, help her and Reobe to come back and put the dream that she had behind them. Unfortunately she had to work the night shift Saturday and got back at 7:30 in the morning which made church for her impossible. But I´m hopeful for next week. Cristiane has decided to move back in with her husband and 2 other kids who are living about 4 hours away in Minas. I was pretty sad to find that out because, well, the two of them aren´t married and I´m worried that she´s going to fall off the radar when she gets to a city in which she has no connection to the Church. She was going to come to church this Sunday to say good-bye to everyone--it would have been the first time in a month--but came down sick the night before and didn´t make it. Definitely a bummer. 

Yesterday was crazy for me! I had to give the Sunday School lesson on the fly as well as a 20 minute talk that I had zero time to prepare for. But it went well. A visitor from another ward came up to me after my talk and started crying a little bit and told me what I had said had been an answer to her prayers. Just the small miracle that I was needing to boost my spirits a little bit. I literally got up to the pulpit having no idea what I was going to say. It was neat for me to see the very real fulfillment of the promise that as we do our part (in this case, my part was working as hard as I could with our investigators and my companion this week, not necessarily preparing for that talk), it will be given to us what we should say in the very moment that we open up our mouths. God is so good. I probably say that a lot but it´s because I forget it in my impatience and He is always so gracious to remind me.

I can´t think of too much more to say...oh, I got MissionTies letters from Kirsten (January 24--the one you wrote when you were sick :/ ) and my mom (excerpts from Elder Holland´s talk at the Provo MTC) this week. I remember that a few of you mentioned packages were on the way; I´ll be sure to let you know when they get here! Thank you very much for sending them :)

Love you all muitíssimo,

Elder Sears

Feb. 11, 2013 Two very Different Dreams and a New Companion

Hello all,

This week´s been an interesting one for me. I feel like it´s had enough to fill a month, maybe two. I guess it makes the most sense to start at the beginning. Wednesday night we taught Vania and her son, Alfredo, who were our "possibles" to be baptized this week. Vania had before said that she wanted to be baptized but was really unsure about it being anytime soon. Monday night she had a dream that she got baptized, and it was me that baptized her. She had been praying for her answer about the truth of the Church and everything we´d taught her, and without a doubt that was it. I was amazed to see how God had worked with her and prepared her. I´ve heard of dreams being an answer to prayers for the Brazilian people several times, but this was the first time I´ve seen God work in that way personally. People here have such faith and that is no doubt the reason why their answers come in such convincing demonstrations of God´s love and power. I feel very much indebted to Him. We were hardly able to visit her or follow up with her during her conversion process because Elder Alcântara´s asthma has started acting up pretty severely lately and that´s mean a lot more time inside than I would have liked. Perhaps things happened like that so that I could fully realize that I really did very little to help her be baptized and make that covenant. The Lord did everything, and the glory be His. There´s no way that I can take even a percent of the credit. We took her to the temple Saturday with her son and she agreed there to be baptized the next day (yesterday). And, as was in her dream, I was the one priviliged to perform the ordinance. It was a really special day for me, and a really tender mercy from the Lord when I really needed it (I´ll explain why I was needing it a little bit later). We´ll be working with her and her son this coming week so that she can be confirmed and he can be baptized. She didn´t feel ready enough to let him be baptized this week.

Thursday night we had our first ward activity designed to bring investigators. It´s taken awhile to get the ward leadership on the same page and help them plan something. The goal is to have an activity every week for ward members to bring their non-member friends. Elder Alcântara had taken advantage of his time inside to plan a really fun activity and help it be a successful one. It was scheduled to start at 7:00, and we got there an hour early to set everything up. 7:30 came and went and nobody showed up. When the first car pulled in, it was the bishop from another ward here for a meeting, not the activity. Our ward mission leader showed up at 8:00 along with a few members to clean the chapel. So we took advantage, helped them finish early, and started the activity. The two of us were pretty bummed about the turn-out but we decided we´d try to make the best of it and I think it turned out well in the end. Elder Alcântara had prepared a list of trivia questions (about the gospel and otherwise), and he called people up 2 by 2 to try and answer. If you got the answer wrong or the other person answered first, they had the privilege to splatter a mixture of flour, water, green food coloring and chocolate sprinkles in your face (which we´d prepared earlier that day). It was hilarious to watch to be quite honest. Alfredo, 10 years old, was our only investigator there but he was smiling until he couldn´t anymore. I got called up to compete with the first counselor in our bishopric. He answered first and answered correctly, which meant a pie in the face for me. Actually, 2 in the face because Elder Alcântara gave him another one to do me in. It was sticky but fun :) I´d send a picture but I forgot to bring the cord to my camera with me... Anyways, hopefully we´ll have more people (on time) at our activity next week and it´ll be a good way to grow our teaching pool.

Saturday night, after getting back from the temple with Vania and Alfredo, we went to visit Lena and Reobe to make sure everything was squared away for their confirmation. They had gotten back from their honeymoon Thursday and were exhausted, so Saturday was the first chance we had to visit with them this week. Earlier in the week Lena told us that she had a dream in which she was standing on top of a tall building looking down over a bunch of darkness (very much like Lehi´s dream I think). She told us that in her dream someone she thought to be God told her that she was following the wrong path and that she needed to stop. She was super unsettled after that dream and let some seeds of doubt grow within her--to the point that by the time we visited her she was extremely reluctant to even consider the idea of being confirmed the next day. I think my heart fell down somewhere into my stomach when she told us that. We did our best to follow the Spirit and explain to her that what she had experienced was definitely not something of God. We tried to help them focus on the bazillions of miracles they´d already seen in their process of investigating the Church and all the happy memories, but it didn´t seem to have much effect. I tried to process everything and felt that we should all say a kneeling prayer together asking for God to clarify the situation. Reobe, who had kept quiet the whole time, said it. I marked the first part of Moroni 7 with them afterwards (which talks about the importance of distinguishing between what is of God and what is very clearly not) and they said they´d read. They promised as well that they´d go to Church the next morning so that they could talk with Bishop and work their doubts through. I got home that night and got on my knees and prayed harder than I think I ever have. I don´t think I´d ever wanted anything as much as I wanted them to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost and continue pressing forward toward their temple sealing and, eventually, salvation and exaltation. I started a fast too. We called around to the other missionaries in the district asking them to pray for them as well--that somehow they´d have a different dream or something, anything, to help them understand the importance of completing their baptism with confirmation. I didn´t sleep well at all that night. I´ve never heard of or seen Satan´s power at work like that. We woke up early the next morning and waited at church for them to show up. They didn´t (nor did Crisitiane). Elder Alcântara went to visit them with our Elder´s Quorum President while I made sure that Vania and Alfredo felt comfortable at church and were excited about her baptism. He told me that Lena´s countenance had changed completely and that she hardly wanted to talk to him at all. Her mom had shown her a website with a bunch of garbage and anti-church literature and she refused to come to church. So yeah...it´s kind of a tricky situation with them right now. I know they can use your prayers. 

Still, the Lord is good. I felt miserable learning of how drastically they had changed in just a week and that feeling lasted a good part of the afternoon. But it left and I was able to cheer up for Vania´s baptism later that day. I managed to be genuinely happy for her, and Sunday night I slept well, knowing that I´ve done (and will continue to do) everything I can with respect to Lena and Reobe. I trust them in God´s care, and I´m grateful to know that He has infinitely more power than whatever type of opposition they´ll face/have already faced. We´ll continue to try to visit them and work with them this week. I´m not sure how I feel to be honest about the whole thing, but the level of peace I feel about it is just a much a miracle for me as was their baptism and marriage and transformation over the last 2 months. 

To lighten the mood (and get rid of our hunger) Sunday night, Elder Alcântara and I got creative. We mixed some flour, water, and chopped up bananas in the blender and then fried it. When we finished we put yogurt on top. I highly recommend it actually. It was delicious. We ended the night laughing and high-fiving and in a good mood. 

Oh, almost forgot...that same night we found out about this coming transfer. I´ll be staying in Vila União! And Elder Alcântara will be transferred. I don´t know much about my new companion--I´ll be finding out this Tuesday when I go to pick him up from the Mission Home and next week I´ll be sure to fill you in. I´ve learned a lot from Elder Alcântara--not always in the easiest of ways but probably in the way that I needed to learn. I don´t doubt it wasn´t coincidence he was my trainer. I´ll miss him, but I´m also exciting for a little bit of change in the future. We´ll see how the next 6 weeks go!

Last thing, I got a bunch of letters this last week, so thank you to all responsible! (Kirsten, The Reshetar´s, my family--the Valentine´s Day Card, Sister Helsing, Andrew Frese, Grandma Sears, and Grandma Julie). I´ll be busy responding to them this afternoon! Thank you as well for all the emails. I need and always am grateful for your support and genuine love for me. Unfortunately today I won´t be able to respond to individual emails because there´s a line behind me to use the computer (I´m here in the chapel for our zone´s farewell barbecue--it´s become a tradition at the end of every transfer). And I promise next week I´ll send pictures (can´t believe I forgot the cord to the camera, sorry!)

Much love, Elder Sears