March 29, 2014 Refiner's Fire

Hello queridos,

Unfortunately there´s not a whole lot of exciting things to report this week--it´s been one of the harder ones on my mission. Eva and Marcilene´s baptisms had to be postponed. Eva, in spite of her age, has some things to clear up with her boyfriend that we found out yesterday she had, and Marcilene´s still struggling to get over coffee. We´ve been praying, planning, practicing, and following up like crazy. We´re just kind of on stand-by right now with each of them. And patience isn´t exactly my strong suit :) But things will get there. 

2 high points of the week though--first, thanks to a VERY dedicated young women´s president, Wanda and Ana Claudia are back in our teaching pool and progressing. Last night was new beginning´s and Bianca Martins (young women´s president) did everything in her power to help Ana Claudia and her mom feel totally included. It was super positive and we´re hoping to be able to go to the cartório with Ademir and Wanda this Wednesday to get things marked for the wedding, now that her birth certificate finally came in the mail.

Second was a lesson with another one of Marcos´ referrals (Weslei and Andréa). Here´s what I wrote in my journal:

"We taught Weslei and Andréa with Irmão Jean. It was one of those lessons where you know from the way your investigator is beating around the bush that they want out. The conversation ended (almost) with Weslei telling us he was going to stay Catholic unless something bizarre happened, and Andréa saying she was at a crossroads and didn´t know which direction to take. They´re such a good couple (the kind that has that light in their eyes) that I couldn´t let them go that easily. The question came to mind, `Do you think the suffering Christ went through was easy? Put yourself in His shoes for a sec--He never sinned, not once, He dedicated every moment in His life to selfless service and sacrifice, He cast out demons and worked miracles--and yet His final earthly reward was to be mocked, condemned, spit upon, and to take on the sins of the whole world. How do you think he knew He needed to continue, that the injustice of it all didn´t call for Him to stop and ask why it had to be so hard?´ `Because God told Him He needed to.´ `Exactly. And He´ll tell you you need to join the Church if you ask Him. I understand that it may be hard, different, and maybe even a little bit scary at first. But as a representative of Christ with His authority I invite you to ask Him and promise you He´ll answer.´  When I finished Andréa was crying and I knew they´d both received a primary answer. We dropped them (for now), but I´m hoping they wake up and show up at church Sunday."

It was one of those lessons that I felt really guided by the Spirit, and I´m grateful for that. I´m glad I know this work will roll forward, even if it´s (visibly) going a little slower than I´d like at the moment. As a fellow missionary quoted a few weeks back, "shall we not go on in so great a cause?"

Love, Elder Sears 

March 22, 2014 Twinners!

             Elder Nelson and Elder Sears pose in their matching ties and pants.

March 22, 2014 Staying in Castelo and continuing Creative Teaching

Dear family and friends,

Transfers are Tuesday and Elder Sears will be staying another one in Castelo!!! I´ll continue with Elder Nelson, but our ward is also going to get 4 sisters...it´s fun to see the work accelerating up close.

I´ll get right to it then...Eva and Marcilene still haven´t been baptized yet. (grr). BUT, they both have dates remarked for the 30th. We found out that Eva had been taught very little by the missionaries in São Paulo, even though she´d been going to church there for a year. So we just have 2 more lessons to teach and she´s set. Marcilene has been having a tough time with coffee. Her husband has been putting it into her head that it´s not a commandment and that there are billions of scientific reports that show that coffee is healthy, not harmful. Last night when he told us that I looked at them and asked, "how many scientific reports have you seen proving that we can live with God again after we die? None, right? Why then, do you believe in it?" That got their attention and we talked about how everything missionaries teach is spiritual truth, and can only be researched/learned/confirmed through spiritual channels. We invited Marcilene to ask God if the word of wisdom really is His commandment, and she agreed to being baptized on the 30th if she received an answer. So, we´re hopeful.

I had some pretty cool experiences this week that I wrote down in my journal. Here´s what I wrote yesterday:

"I hit a year and 6 months two days ago and forgot to mention it. Yeah...! The challenges continue to be a constant (yesterday we found out Wanda and Ana Claudia from Ademir´s family don´t seem to be interested anymore), but in trying to look on the bright side I have 2 pretty cool experiences to report. Tuesday was exchanges with Elder Batista in Jundiaí. We taught an umbanda lady (a religion that prays to Satan, doing "good through evil") and a really special family--Everaldo, Eliete, Gabriel, and Carol. They have to get married first, but they accepted baptism. It was one of those lessons you dream about as a missionary where the Spirit is so strong that you see the truth sinking into the hearts of your investigators. What´s more, we taught with pasta. Yep. I built a 2-d house with spaghetti and explained it represented Christ´s church. Every component fit in its proper place exactly the way Christ arranged it. When He was crucified and the apostles rejected and killed, the people distorted the truths and perfect organization. So I messed up my pasta house. Than I asked Gabriel (11) to rebuild it. He did a really good job but left a few pieces out of order. I explained that many truth-seekers with good intentions tried to establish churches of their own, but none of them were exactly like the way Christ had shown. When we moved on to Joseph Smith I completed/restored the house and taught them the restoration. Everaldo told us he´d received a bunch of pastors in his house but never felt they were telling the truth. He told us that our message was different, that it clicked. He felt impressed he needed to tell his brother about us too. Pretty cool, I´ve gotta say."

The other experience was with Fabio. We had a lesson with him Wednesday in the chapel and before we could say anything he sat down and said "I have something to tell you but you can´t tell my mom. I´m 98 percent sure I´m going to get baptized. Somewhere between in a week and a month." WOW. I sat there laughing to myself, again, at how good of a missionary God is. We did NOTHING, just invited him to pray about President Monson. Those words, 98 percent sure I want to be baptized, are coming from a 20 year-old who didn´t believe in or acknowledge God a month and a half ago. What a huge change, and how awesome it´s been to be a testimony of it. Fabio, however, continues being Fabio and likes to be difficult. When we reviewed the baptismal interview questions he complained a little bit about the law of chastity and the word of wisdom that he´d already been taught. He said he believe there ought to be certain exceptions, like drinking a glass of wine at his brother´s college graduation ceremony. We talked about the importance of exact obedience but it didn´t sink in, so I took a 5-cent coin and a 20 "reais" bill out of my pocket and put them on the chair. "Fabio, if you saw $20.05 fall out of a man´s pocket in front of you, how much would you return to him." "All of it, obviously." "Even the 5 cents?" "Yeah." "Why? It´s only 5 cents..." "Because it´s the right thing to do." Then Elder Nelson and I had fun playing devil´s advocate :) Fabio, you can fit 5 cents into $20 400 times. There´s no problem in returning the 20 and sticking with the coin. Fabio, you´re doing more than most would. You´re returning 20 more than the vast majority. What´s the problems. And on and on. Then we turned it on him and asked him why he was willing to obey the commandment of not robbing in all circumstances and wasn´t willing to live the law of chastity and the word of wisdom. I think the light turned on and he said he´d be obedient to them both in all situations. Victory :)

Oh, one more thing I haven´t had time to fit in my journal yet...on the way to Jundiaí I started getting pretty sick the moment the bus left the terminal. I went to use the bathroom and it was locked because it was out of order. I got pretty worried because it´s an hour trip and I had no way of making that trip without exploding. I said a silent, pleading prayer and the moment I did my upset stomach went away. I got off the bus and as soon as I did, the nausea came back. But I was able to get to a bathroom and take care of everything downtown and work completely normal the rest of the day/week. God hears and answers prayers, even and especially in the little things.

Well, it´s about that time....until next Saturday!

I´m including a picture of Elder Nelson and me and our matching pants/ties. we´re dorks, I know.

Love, Elder Sears

March 15, 2014 Castelo Zone

                          Castelo Zone Conference with Elder Costa

March 15, 2014 Answered Prayers

Hellooo....!

Just an fyi I´m going to try to get off the email to everyone right now, and I´ll come back in an hour or two to respond to all the kind people that wrote me individually :) Sorry if this isn´t super detailed but I shall do my best.

I forgot to mention something cool that happened last week. Elder Nelson and I were invited to give a pre-missionary training at our stake´s scout camp 2 weeks ago. We went out into the middle of nowhere and basically did a district meeting with role plays and all with all the young men from the stake (Igor and Diego and Sigfried among them). Super cool experience. The stake young men´s president gave us a Castelo hat and water bottle to remember the occasion. I have to say though, I left wondering if I was as wild as some of the Brazilian boys when I was 15. For my mom´s and Brother Barnes´sake, I hope not :)

This Wednesday Elder Nelson, Frutos, Lukas, Doman, Zacheu and I were authorized to go to the temple. It was one of the clearest experiences of personal revelation I´ve had on the mission. I went into the session praying for something specific that I was needing in the moment, and felt that I ought to take my patriarchal blessing into the celestial room with me. The moment that I opened it a phrase just on top of the fold caught my eye and was EXACTLY what I had asked for in my prayers that morning. I felt so loved and really well taken-care of by Heavenly Father. What´s more, Irmã Kikuchi from the CTM participated in the session with us! She was there supervising some missionaries from the CTM that came to Campinas for their P-day because the Sao Paulo temple is in maintenance. She´s 8 months pregnant and 20 kilos heavier, but it was super good to see her. As I like to say, it was another heaven-planned coincidence for me to be grateful for.

As for our investigators: lots of them are keeping their commitments finally :) Eva is progressing well and all set for her baptism next weekend. Marcilene, a friend of Irmã Cesira in the ward, has gone to church with her boys 3 times this month and also has a date set and intact for next weekend. Elder Nelson and I are pretty stoked. We´re working with her husband, Antônio Carlos, so he can stop smoking and drinking and join with her in the Church. We felt we needed to be pretty direct with him in our latest lesson and I remember asking him the same thing that so many Nephite missionaries asked their Lamanite investigators: are you going to follow the traditions of your fathers or are you going to follow God? Marcilene jumped in and bore her testimony to him and called him out in a way that only a wife can do :) It was pretty special to witness that, and how eager she is for him to experience what she´s been experiencing. 

Fabio, Elisabeth´s son, is taking huge strides towards baptism again. We had a lesson with him last week in which he told us some friends starting questioning him about Joseph Smith and he walked away from the conversation with a ton of doubts. He told us he didn´t believe he was a prophet anymore. BUT, he told us yesterday that while he was on an airplane headed for Rio de Janeiro last week the plane started going through a bunch of storms and shaking all over the place. He said that he promised God he´d call us and keep the commitments if the turbulence went away. And it did, almost immediately. We unexpectedly got a phone call from him Thursday asking if we could meet Friday. He told us he´d read the conference talk by President Monson that we´d left with him and that he´d received another confirmation that Joseph Smith really was a prophet. He´s so, so close to baptism. He himself said it. He still didn´t accept a date, but please pray with him so that he does!

We´ve also been teaching the family of Ademir, Wanda, Douglas, Ana Claudia and Viviane for the past 2-3 weeks. They´re friends of Marcos and Isabel Damico (about the umpteenth referral we´ve received from them), and here´s what I wrote in my journal yesterday:

"Ademir and his family were all at church and are receiving the discussions 2-3 times a week. They´re getting married and baptized in April. They´re a really simple family but the Spirit has been doing wonders with them. At the beginning of yesterday´s lesson I asked them if they´d noticed any positive changes in their family since they started meeting with us. Douglas surprised me and shot his hand up right away. "I´ve stopped doing nothing in my free time--now I´m reading in The Book of Mormon." I asked him where he was and he said chapter 2. I thought--well, that´s a start--but then he showed me where he was and I saw "2 Néfi" chapter 2 at the top of the page. Wow! Ademir said he´s gone 25 days without drinking and Wanda said the once constant fights between her and her husband are non-existent now. Tell me tht´s not because they´re starting to live the only true gospel."

We´re going to the cartório with Ademir and Wanda early next week to mark the wedding/baptism date for next month.

As I mentioned last week, we had another mission tour with Elder Costa this week. It was super inspired and I took loads of notes. Here are a few things I wrote down:

-the earth is already organized for Christ´s coming; if he came today, Elder Costa would be President of Brazil...haha!

-D & C 138:56: we were called as missionaries before the foundation of the world

-when we feel the Spirit is at its high point in the lesson, we need to testify and leave

-never mix spiritual with social

-we need to BE missionaries (ser, not estar in portuguese)

-if we want people to teach, we need to always be smiling and always be opening up our mouths

insights he gave me during an interview with him:

-fun is a moment, happiness is a state of soul

-God made the earth with mountains and valleys--you´re happy when you keep going forward and you´re learning

-I have the right to ask the Lord for success when I´m diligently doing my part

Needless to say, it was a really cool experience, especially being able to talk with him one on one for a few minutes. I feel very lucky!

I think the thing that most caught my attention during the mission tour was when Elder Costa said he was 100 percent happy all of the time. I made a goal to be happier and smile always. It´s been making a huge difference already. Yesterday I did a street contact and got to "we´re missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ..." before the lady cut me off and said "não obrigado." I jokingly asked her which part she didn´t like..."missionaries" or "Jesus Christ." She laughed and it broke the ice super fast. She still didn´t accept, but I walked away from that contact laughing. Small things like that that are making a difference. 

I love you all! Happy Saint Patrick´s Day to everyone! Here´s a picture of our zone with Elder Costa...

Love, Elder Sears

March 8, 2014 Tender Mercies

20 years ago and some change my mom was born! :) haha. Feliz aniversário mom, I love you. You have a card (handmade--maybe not perfect but handmade) on the way.

This week´s been full of several tender mercies. My journal tells them better than I can come up with now, so here goes...

"5 March 2014...

Yesterday I was on exchanges walking back from a referral (that didn´t exist) when I heard, in English, an "excuse me!" from across the street. It came from an 18 year-old named Phillippe who just so happens to be from Alpharetta, GA--maybe a half hour from Lost Mountain. He came here 2 weeks ago for Carnaval and on the way over had a 2 hour conversation with a missionary headed for the CTM. His first question for me was "who goes to the Celestial Kingdom?" I had one of the best, flowing conversations with him that I´ve ever had on my mission. I was stunned at how naturally the English came out, since I´ve never taught the gospel in English in 17 months and the one time I made an attempt during a companionship practice it was the worst lesson of my life. We sat down on a doorstep downtown and talked for 35 minutes. I asked him if he believed in God. he said yes, but to him God was energy. I asked him if he´d ever felt that energy stronger at times than others. He said yes, that when he was on a 3 day road trip he needed to know if there was a God or not so he asked Him. He said he felt a surge of energy rush over him for 10-15 minutes straight. I explained that was how God answered questions, and used the experience to invite him to ask God which church was God´s church (Specifically if it is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), promising him he´d receive a similar answer. He agreed, and since we were close by we took him to the mission office and got him some Church materials in English. He heads back to Georgia tomorrow but he wrote down the chapel address there, the Bishop´s phone number, and Elder Frutos is going to email his contact information to the Atlanta North Mission. It was so good to be able to preach the gospel in my own language to another American. I finished the conversation so renewed and grateful to still have some time left as a missionary.

7 March 2014

The other miracle I mentioned was a golden referral named Eva. She attended church for 1 year in São Paulo but was never baptized. Monday she saw some other elders on the street and called them over. She´d just moved here from the capital and wanted to know where the nearest chapel was. And she now lives in our area :) We contacted her with Bishop and discovered she´s been reading The Book of Mormon this whole time and she has a huge testimony that ours is the only true church in the entirety. We marked her baptism for March 23rd."

Two really neat experiences that I was really needing. Eva´s all set for going to church tomorrow. I think it was Wednesday that we checked in on Ricardo and Sheila. They´re doing super well. Can I just say how much I love that family? Towards the end of our lesson with them I bore my testimony and shared my love with them and could not hold back tears. They are amazing people that are enduring a lot because of their membership in the Church. I cannot wait until we´re all in the Celestial Kingdom one day. 

Other news...we had a successful training on Friday, focused on the why of missionary service. I´ve studied a lot about motives and desire lately, and have come to the conclusion that the only way to fully fulfill our purpose as missionaries (and human beings) is to do God´s will because we love him, nothing else. Elder Holland spoke so perfectly on that a few conferences ago in a talk that I´ve studied called "Feed my Sheep." I have felt my love for God, my Savior, you, my companion, each of the missionaries in Campinas, and the Brazilian people grow substantially this week, and I´m really happy about that.

Next week we´ll be having another mission tour! This time just with Elder Costa. Should be fun and really inspiring. 

Love you all,

Elder Sears

March 1, 2014 Marriage of Igor and Daniela, former investigators

                                          Igor signing marriage papers

Brad and Elder Nelson at the wedding of former investigators, Igor and Daniela