Dec. 25, 2013 Christmas Zone activity at the bus station

                 Brad performing on baby grand at the bus station with his zone

                      Brad's zone at the rodoviaria (bus station) performing
                     Christmas carols for 2 hours

Dec. 25, 2013 Mission Christmas Picture

               Entire Mission Christmas picture right before attending Campinas temple

December 16, 2013 Teaching and Testimony

2nd Christmas on the mission coming up...that´s pretty crazy when I stop and think about it. Last year I was still in my first transfer in the field, now I´m finishing up my 10th. Time is definitely very strange.

And it continues to fly by in Castelo! For the first time in a while we had a little bit of a slower week as far as the work goes, but every once in a while that´s necessary and I´m grateful for it. It was, as always, full of its small miracles. We´ve been teaching a 20 year-old named Matheus for the past 4 weeks and we´ve had some pretty cool experiences with him as a companionship. He and Elder Elswick get along really well which makes me happy because it´s helping him a lot in his adjustments to Brazil. I really feel like Matheus and I would be college bros if we ran into each other at BYU. Our lessons with him always seem to flow super well, he´s our age, and because of the real friendship the three of us have we´re able to be completely direct with him. Our biggest difficulty with Matheus is getting him to Church. He´s reading, praying, knows the Church is true and has born his testimony several times to us, but every weekend he drives an hour and a half to visit his girlfriend in a different city, complicating his visit to church a little bit. This Tuesday when we sat down and started talking he opened up the conversation with, "yeah guys, I´ve gotta say, church is looking like a plan B for this weekend." We read some scriptures but when I saw he still wasn´t changing his mind I said something like this:

"Alright Matheus, stand up."

"Now?" 

"Yeah. What do you want to happen after this life? Where do you want to end up?"

"With God, like everyone else."

"Perfect. Me too. I want you to imagine God and his kingdom are in the kitchen, okay?"

"Okay."

"So, you´re facing the kitchen. I´m going to stand next to you because I want the same thing you do." Then I turned his shoulders a fraction of an inch away from the kitchen entryway and said we were both going to walk 10 steps. "Did you make it to the kitchen?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because my angle was off at the start."

"Funny how that works isn´t it? We were side by side, basically facing the same place with the same goal, but you wound up half a wall away."

I remembered a talk from Deacon´s Quorum that Brother Flint, our supervisor shared with us. I think it was by Elder Hale (don´t quote me on that), about the decade of decision. We talked about how he probably didn´t see the impact of not going to church just for one week would have down the road. How these next few weeks and months and years are going to determine the course he sets for the rest of his life and eternity. Then we shared President Uchtdorf´s airplane story about the danger of a few degrees. I could tell it sank in, and when we invited him to church he said he´d think about it. But I could tell, he really was going to think about it. We stopped by to visit him on Friday and he said he still hadn´t made the decision. I called him Saturday night and he said he´d be there. Sunday rolled around and both him and his girlfriend Jessica showed up! It made my day. Beyond that, we noticed after Priesthood and Relief Society that Jessica was crying pretty hard. She told us that it was the first time in years she´d been to any church, and that during the lesson she heard exactly what she needed to. We took advantage of the situation and gave them a tour of the chapel and stopped by the font and talked about the Spirit and about baptism. I´m positive lots of steps were taken in the progress of the two of them. Matheus told Elder Elswick that we were right in having insisted that he go because he liked  it so much. So, again, I find my testimony stronger still that this really is God´s church. There´s really no way around it. I´m super excited to see how Matheus responds and how readily he´ll be able to progress towards baptism. A white Christmas would be awesome.

Daniel continues to amaze me. He has 240 talks prepared on every subject imaginable just in case Bishop decides to ask him to speak. He was confirmed Sunday and we visited him during the week with our Elder´s Quorum President and he walked out of Daniel´s apartment amazed, and undoubtedly excited about what he´ll do for the quorum and for the ward. Ricardo and Sheila are on the lunch calendar now, and we ate with them Saturday :) They did a Brazilian style barbecue (which just about killed Elder Elswick he ate so much) and invited over about half the ward. I´ve been blessed to get to know some really special people here in Castelo. That´s what´s carrying me through the difficulties that once in a while spring up.

I hope you all have a fantabulous Christmas in 9 days!! I´m not sure if I´ll be able to get an email off because our time will be spent emailing our families ( :D ) but we´ll see what President decides. Love you!!

Elder Sears

Oh yes, almost forgot (not sure how...), but tomorrow the whole mission is going to the temple!!!! I am beyond excited. The last time I got to go was March so I have some refreshing to do.

December 9, 2013 Baptism of Daniel and ward members with missionaries

Daniel's baptism:  Elder Marshall, Daniel, Elder Chagas,

Bradford, Elder Elswick

Elder Chagas, Brad, Serena (Chinese friend), Sister Muchado, Elder Marshall

Elder Elswick, the Muchado's daughter, and Kevin (Chinese friend)

December 9, 2013 Daniel's Baptism and Cantada at the Temple

Well, not really in Brazil, but that´s okay. This weekend was a white one so I´m all smiles :) I really can´t say enough about Daniel. He really knows what it means to feast upon the words of Christ. It´s remarkable for me to see what God´s done for him in his life. He told us this week that, while serving as a theology professor, there was an entire section of the manual devoted to anti-Mormonism. It´s Saul to Paul and the transformation of Alma the Younger all over again. He has a notebook of talks ready in case Bishop decides to call on him in the coming weeks. He´s on to "The Teachings of George Albert Smith" in the teachings of the Presidents of the Church series, and he´s taking every gospel topic imaginable and finding two scriptures confirming it in the Bible and in The Book of Mormon. His baptismal service was packed, as it always is in Castelo. Honestly my biggest worry with him is not with him but with me--that I can have gratitude sufficient enough to say and show a thank you as big as the blessing it´s been to get to know him and watch his conversion happening first-hand. He´s just so humble! It´s amazing to me. I´ll send along a picture in a sec...

Other cool experiences this week...Thursday night. Ricardo and Sheila hosted what basically wound up being a ward family night. Their family was there, Igor and Daniela (who came to church with their family of 5 yesterday--that family that we randomly knocked on their door and invited us in), Gilbert and his family, Lucianno (assistant to the ward mission leader) and his wife, and us 4 missionaries. Quite the party. Ricardo and Sheila have been going through a lot of difficulties and they asked us to talk about patience. So we started out like this: "tonight we´ve got a really cool message prepared. We´re convinced you´ll be able to get something out of it, so pay attention!" .........................................silence for 90 seconds (literally).........................................................

They lasted about 10 seconds before asking what we were going to talk about and what they wanted to do and why we weren´t responding to their questions and such. Until finally Igor said, "got it! You´re going to talk about patience." So that was pretty funny. We showed the mormon message video with the 4 year-olds and the marshmallows and President Uchtdorf narrating (if you haven´t seen it, I recommend it). Then we had them write out 10 of their biggest blessings, only 2 of which could be material ones. Then they had to write down how long it took for them to receive those blessings--it varied from 5 to 14 to 68 years. So everyone was like "ohhh, the bigger blessings take longer to come." Then it kind of spontaneously turned into a testimony meeting which was really special because lots of people talked about the difference we´ve made as missionaries in their life. I came home that night really happy.

Saturday we had the annual Christmas cantata at the temple. Super stressful but the music was incredible. We got to help coordinate reception and the display of a bunch of mission materials. The secretaries collected tons of referrals for all the nearby areas. They were expecting 700 there at the temple that night but we got up to over 1,000 members and visitors. Several of which were members and recent converts and former investigators from all the areas I´ve passed through (that´s one benefit of serving in the same city for over a year).

Sunday after church and Daniel´s baptism we ate lunch with the Machado family who spent 9 years living in Utah. They had 2 Chinese friends over, 1 of which spoke no Portuguese but pretty good English--so everything was in English! Which was nice but weird for a change. I´d definitely say Portuguese is more comfortable for me, at least as far as gospel language goes. It was a cool experience though--a Brazilian family, 3 American missionaries, and 2 Chinese investigators all speaking the same language about the same person and the same gospel, independent of culture or race or religion. That´s what the gospel does for people.

Gotta go...16 days left till Christmas!!

Love, Elder Sears

December 4, 2013 Pictures

Baptism of Adrianna:  Bradford, church fellowshippers Marcos and Isabel,

Adrianna and Elder Chagas

Baptism of Gabrielly: Dimas (Gabrielly's member neighbor and friend), 

Gabrielly's dad (from another stake), Gabrielly, Elder Chagas and Bradford

Thanksgiving Feast at Pres. and Sister Perotti's home:

Brad with other AP and office elders

December 4, 2013 The Influence of Good People

Alright, I´ve got maybe 15 minutes. Life around here is CrAzY. But crazy good.

I´m attaching the photos from Adrianna´s and Gabrielly´s baptisms last Sunday. They were both confirmed this Sunday and are extremely well-integrated in the ward. Gabi´s receiving the new member lessons with Bianca, her new young women´s president, and Adrianna went with us and Daniel (the pastor) to a Family History Center activity last night that was pretty sweet. First time in my mission I´ve seen family history be taken advantage of, and it was a good experience for sure. 

Walking home from that activity with Daniel gave me another 50 reasons or so to be grateful to be a missionary. Daniel is unbelievably committed and converted to the restored gospel. I talked to President and we´re going to mark a meeting with Daniel so that we can use him to the fullest as a huge missionary tool in the region. He´s invited LOADS of people to his baptism this Sunday and has already read through The Book of Mormon 6 times, Doctrine and Covenants once, and the priesthood/relief society "presidents of the church" manuals from Joseph Smith to George Albert Smith. That´s what a photographic memory can do for you I suppose. I´m still kinda speechless with regards to the man. It´s one of those stories that you read about in the Ensign but think something like that will never happen to you. I can only repeat, God is so, so good to His missionaries and his elects. We even went out on splits yesterday with Daniel and he´s not even a member yet :) Pretty sweet.

I guess I´ll continue going in reverse chronological order and talk about the mission conference we had with President on Monday. He showed a video that I loved and has given me much more motivation to be an optimist. The video starts out with a parking attendant that smiles at each driver and pays them a compliment. Soon the whole city is going to his parking garage just to hear him praise everything about them. Along comes a girl that he can´t get to smile. He tries everything--flowers, all sorts of compliments, walking her dog--but she won´t smile. So he gives up and stops smiling and stops giving out compliments. One day at an amusement park a couple asks him to take a picture for them. He tells them their smiles are fake and starts complimenting them to get a real smile for the picture. Then he sees a woman in a wheel chair and compliments her and gets her to smile. And the cycle starts up again. By chance he meets up with the only girl he couldn´t get to smile and finds out she´s working as a camera woman--one of the best because of her ability to make people smile and the sincerity of her compliments. He asked her what changed and she said one day her mom came home in a wheelchair saying that after years of a lifelong disease and never smiling and never having been complimented, a young man came up to her at an amusement park and gave her a reason to smile. It helped me see our infinite potential to influence people for good. We really have no idea the impact we´re having when we do missionary work to the best of our ability. Take Daniel for example--I´m sure he´ll be the instrument in the Lord´s hands in bringing dozens of people to the Church that I might never meet. That´s just the way God works.

Sunday--sacrament meeting was lined up for loads of investigators but 90 percent fell through. I was a little bit bummed about that but had no reason to be after fast and testimony meeting got over. So many recent converts (Ricardo, Sheila, Igor, Alzira (Kevin´s mom who came back to activity when he was baptized) bore their testimonies and left me pretty much on the edge of tears. Baptismal services are always super special, but neater for me is seeing conversion in the form of one of your former investigators getting up and telling a congregation of new-found friends that they know the Church to be the only true church on the face of the earth because of the miraculous difference it´s made in their life. It was a really, really special Sunday for me because of that.

Thanksgiving!! President and Sister Perrotti invited us over for a Thanksgiving lunch that was amazing. I´m not sure how or where but they got cranberry juice and pumpkin pie. SCORE :) It was good to be able to take a little breather for a sec. These past weeks have been way way busy. That is in no way whatsoever a complaint though :) Busy is good. 

Keeping with the Thanksgiving theme: a HUGE thank you for everyone who´s been keeping my mailbox (and inbox) full lately. I got a stream of cards last week from Grandma Julie and the cousins, Grandma and Grandpa Sears, Sister Shell (jr. and Sr.), Alyssa, and all the missionary moms at la Parilla. You guys made my week!! Thank you so much for that :)

Gotta run, but know that I love you. I apologize I won´t be able to get off individual emails this week. I read all of them though, rest assured, and hopefully next week will be a little more "tranquilo." How I love you!

Elder Sears