Sept. 9, 2013 Finding Investigators and Following the Spirit

Bom dia!!

I´m going to break up my computer time today since in a little bit we´re headed to Parque Taquaral (the Central Park of Campinas basically) to play frisbee and basketball and all that good stuff. This past week was really, really tiring but really rewarding. First off, I got to talk to Andreya from Ponte on the phone this morning! She got a calling last week as visiting teaching coordenator. And her year-old daughter Ana Luisa was blessed in sacrament meeting last week. Those updates made me super, super happy. I tried to call Selma this morning but nobody answered, so I´ll be trying again later. 

Let me see what´s happened since Wednesday...we had a pretty sweet lesson with Gislane on the law of chastity. She´s 42 and has a boyfriend so...yeah. But it was a really neat lesson because we were able to be completely open and sincere with her. We talked about what she wanted in life and in a husband. I know, odd for 2 20 year-old´s to be doing, but hey we´re missionaries. We talked about eternal marriage and asked her if the guy she´s dating is the type of guy she wants to be Leo´s dad for eternity. She said no. So we committed her to talk to her boyfriend about at least changing the nature of their relationship and she said she would. She didn´t come to church yesterday because she was out of town celebrating her birthday. Elder Chagas and I called her and sang to her (in English and Portuguese). She seemed to like that. Ricardo and Shayla are coming along really well. We took them to the temple Friday night and walked around and got permission to talk with them in the waiting room. Ricardo said the moment he drove in the gate he felt something really strong. I´m amazed by the faith of that man. The temple has a perfect view of downtown Campinas, and we had a good chat about temples and eternity and families. They had to remark their marriage for October 11 because of some problems in the cartório but they´re still excited, as are we (but maybe a little bit impatient too :) ). Saturday night when we got home we were both exhausted. We finished our planning and were ready to go to bed but I just had the feeling we needed to call Shayla nad make sure everything was set for her to come to church the next day. I asked Elder Chagas what he thought and he said "go for it." Then the thoughts of "no, but I saw her yesterday, she´s going to get annoyed if we´re contacting her every day" and "it´s already 10:00, she´s probably asleep" kept going through my head. But I decided to call anyway. She told us she´d been feeling super stressed and overwhelmed that day with some family problems and that when Diego asked her if she´d be going to church on Sunday she said "I honestly don´t know. I´m about ready to give up on the whole thing." We talked with her for a solid 20 minutes and listened to what she had to say and helped calm her down a little bit. When we finished the call she promised she´d be at church and that she was anxious for her baptism. I was really glad I decided to call. It was a simple feeling I had but it goes to show how important it is that we follow feelings like that. The whole family came to church and, as always, loved it.

Saturday here was Brazil´s independence day. Which meant lots of chaos and lots of drunk people. The plan was to take a bus to do a division with another area, but when we got to the bus station downtown all the tickets were taken. So we went back to Castelo and got to work. We stopped by a street contact named Miguelina we´d done the last week and started teaching her. As it turns out, her 10 year-old son Rafael went to church a few times 3 or 4 years ago and has been asking her to let him be baptized since then. When we talked with her in the street she put two and two together and is completely on board with Rafael´s baptism that we marked for the 22nd!! And she accepted baptism too! She came to church yesterday along with 11 others. God is being really good to us. If we´d done the division we wouldn´t have taught her and who knows what would have happened.

Half of our investigators at church were kids from an orphanage that we found right next to the chapel. There are about 15 of them living there from 7 to 16 years old. And they´re adorable. One of them, Vinícios, asked me after church, "are you going to help me find a family?" My heart just about melted. None of them are allowed to have any kind of contact with their parents because of things that happened in the past. We´re working with each of them and Maria das Graças (the woman that takes care of the orphanage) to help them have a Christian background that hardly any have at the moment. I sincerely feel a huge love for them. It´s no wonder to me that Christ asks each of us to become like little children. The primary teachers fell in love with them too and are planning to visit the kids during the week to sing to them and do everything that a mom would normally do.

So that was the week! I think I got everything in there. I love you all, and GO COUGARS!!!

Love, Elder Sears

P.S. if you want to respond today I may be able to get a response in after we get back from the park. tchau!!

Sept. 4, 2013 Wigging out with Elder Chagas

                  Sheila, Ricardo, Bishop, Elder Chagas (Brad's companion)
                  and Elder Riquerme

Elder Sears and his new companion, Elder Chagas, in front of the 

Bauducco Factory (a daughter company of Hershey)

Elder Sears and Elder Chagas wigging out!

Sept. 4, 2013 Ala Castelo and Elder Chagas

Boa tarde!

I know I have lots of questions to answer what with the new transfer and everything so I´m going to get cracking. I got transferred to Ala Castelo, which includes a pretty big part of downtown Campinas. My new companion is Elder Chagas. He´s from Pernambuco, Brasil and is an incredible missionary. Super, SUPER, super happy all the time and super experienced in teaching and every part of the work. I went on splits with him my second day in the field. We´re living with Elder Frutos and Elder D. Souza who take care of the other half of Campinas. I think it was Wednesday night last week Elder Frutos got a package with root beer extract in it so we made home-made root beer :) Our ward is out of this world. Wednesday night we had a missionary dinner designed for members to bring their friends. The members planned and prepared everything. We showed up with 2 of our investigators but the ward destroyed us in the competition of who could bring more. In compared to our two they brought more than THIRTY to the chapel. I was amazed. It has been beyond crazy trying to contact each of their referrals and start teaching. We were in charge of the message and decided to show the story of John Tanner. Only we didn´t have time to download it so we had to use a pretty shaky iPhone internet connection that one of the members set up. We tested it about 5 minutes before the activity started and it wasn´t working. But we both felt like it needed to be that movie so we said a prayer and hoped everything would work out when we pressed play. It´s a 19 minute movie and didn´t glitch once. Lots of people commented on how much they liked it, including several of the investigators there. So, another miracle on the mission!

The Sunday before I got here a family showed up to church because of Leo, a Teacher in the ward that had invited his friend Igor to come. Leo´s grandpa is named Carlos Martins, the owner of an English school called Wizard that´s extremely popular here in Brasil. They´re the 8th richest family in the country. And they are 150% perfect member missionaries. Igor came and brought his 10 year-old brother Diego, 2-year old sister Isabela, and his parents, Ricard and Shayla. They really liked church, especially Shayla. She bore her testimony in relief society and told the sisters she´d been praying for ages that her husband would be willing to choose a church to go to. We went to their house Thursday to teach the first lesson. When we got there there was a stack of papers they´d printed off on the internet with controversial stuff about the Church. I kept thinking in my head "here we go again." We said a prayer and started responding to each doubt one by one--polygamy, baptisms for the dead, our potential to one day be like God, etc. In talking with Elder Chagas afterwards about the lesson, we both were impressed by the fact that we did not feel in the least bit nervous. Ricardo even showed us a youtube video of a pastor bashing the Church, but the whole time I felt completely confident that if he really wanted to know the truth the Spirit would help us to help him know it. Different from Fábio last week, Ricardo and Shayla opened up completely and understood the way we explained each subject. It was already 9:00 by the time we´d gotten through everything, but Elder Chagas felt like we needed to teach them the first lesson and invite them to baptism, so we did. The whole family accepted and Ricardo was almost crying by the end of it. They told us they weren´t married so we got out A Proclamation to the World and read it with them. Ricardo asked us, "so I´ve gotta get married to get baptized then?" "Right." "Well then we´re going to get married." WOW. Sunday the 5 of them went to church and Ricardo got up to bear his testimony. He´s known the Church for one week and he´s bearing his testimony!! This morning we went to the cartório and marked September 27 for their marriage and September 29 for the baptism of the 4 of them. MILAGRE. A really really big one. Oh, and it wasn´t Ricardo and Shayla that paid this morning to mark their marriage. Bianca, Leo´s mom (who invited them to come to church), insisted that she be the one to pay the $340 reais.

So much has happened this past week that I do not have nearly enough time to tell. But Ricardo and Shayla are the highlight. By far. We´re also teaching Gislane and her 10 year-old son Leonardo and they both have a baptismal date set for the 15th. We had a family night Monday with Gislane and half of the ward it seems. The members organized everything and invited her without us having to say anything. This ward is seriously amazing. Members make a HUGE difference in missionary work. Thank you to each of you for the difference you´re making.

I love you all and miss you!

Love, Elder Sears

I´ll try and send photos in a sec...

August 26, 2013 Ala Ponte Chapel

Bradford in front of the beautiful chapel at Ala Ponte

Elder Renato and Brad at the mission office after a "division" (split)

August 26, 2013 Leaving the Place Better than He Found it . . . Transfers

Transfer week this week! Tomorrow actually. I was pretty surprised when I found out Sunday night I´d been transferred after just 6 weeks in Ponte. What happens happens I guess. I still have all my packing to do and a house to clean for the rest of my P-day...yay! But I´m excited for a new area and for the energy that always seems to come along with a change in the regular routine. I hope I´ve been able to leave Ponte in at least a little bit better of condition than how I found it. The ward has been starting to catch the flame of missionary work lately and I´m excited about that. Friday our Elder´s Quorum President organized a ward party in his neighborhood just for the recent converts to have an excuse to come and socialize with the ward. Sunday the Stake Presidency came and gave a training during Priesthood and Relief Society about the importance of members and missionaries working on the same team and on the same page. They´re starting a family night program here in the stake that is totally designed to help us find investigators and less active families to teach. The training was pretty cool. President Silva, 1st Counselor I think, showed a 5 minute clip of a herd of buffalos that got attacked by lions. The lions dragged the youngest buffalo into the nearby lake and started tearing him to shreds. Then a crocodile (true story) pops out of the water and wants his fair share too. That goes on for about a minute before the whole herd of buffalos comes back and takes it to the lions and the crocodile. President Silva talked about our responsibility to work as one to rescue the one that may have gone astray. It seemed to have a really positive effect on the members. Some of them came up to us afterwards asking when we could go on splits with them without his having to say anything. A bummer I won´t be able to be a part of them, but we have 3 nights locked up with the members for this coming week, and a ward activity. We participated in 'Comitê Executivo' with the bishopric afterwards and were able to help them get our ward mission plan going. So I´m excited with the potential for progress here.

The teaching this week was awesome for me to be a part of. We didn´t have a ton of appointments but the people we taught have real challenges and doubts that have forced me to study, pray, and practice even more than usual to be prepared. I went on a division with Elder Renato in a neighboring area and we taught a man (28) named Fábio. He knows the Bible cover to cover and kind of came at us with an attitude of trying to find a fault in our message. The whole lesson the Lord´s promise in D & C that He won´t let us be "confounded before men" kept coming to mind. Fábio directly challenged Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and doctrines of the Church ranging from eternal marriage to our belief that we can grow to become like Heavenly Father. I knew he wouldn´t be the type of investigator who would progress, but it was super neat for me to watch how the Spirit helped us defend the truth in ALL aspects during the lesson. Several scriptures, especially from the bible, came to mind that at least helped Fábio to see the basis for our beliefs. There were a few occasions where he had to keep quiet because the Spirit was not letting him doubt what we believe in and know to be true. It was the thrid or fourth time I´ve met an investigator like that, and the third or fourth time I walked away from the lesson knowing, absolutely knowing, that anyone who wants to can challenge the Church, but no one will ever be able to prove that it is not directly governed by God Himself. There´s just no way for this work to be stopped. I´m hoping Fábio´s able to open up his mind and heart a little bit to be able to come to that conclusion. The only thing anybody ever needed to do is be sincere and ask God as Joseph Smith did. That´s what we invited him to do in the end. Elder Renato and I passed by the mission office to undo the division and President happened to be there. So I talked with him a little about the lesson and he emphasized the same thing. He told me he´s met a lot of people just wanting to argue and wasted a lot of time trying to do the convincing that only the Spirit can do. I am 200 percent confident the answer will always be 'yes' when someone who really wants to know asks if this is the only true church on the face of the earth. I´m really glad I have that answer for myself.

I´ll let y´all know where I end up going next email! It might be Wednesday, just a head´s up. Go BYU!!!! Brayden, best of luck to you at the Y, and Elder Krogh, best of luck to you on your mission. You both are going to tear it up.

Love, Elder Sears

August 19, 2013 New Convert Enthusiasm and a New Ward Mission Plan

Bom dia amigos,

So, 11 months ago I got to São Paulo. Exactly. That is a really weird thing to think about. I remember so well that day and my first impressions of the mission and how much has changed since then. My perspective, testimony, struggles (esp. with Portuguese), oh and the 20 pounds I´ve put on too. Haha :) It´s been an incredible ride. And I´m really glad it´s not even close to over!

Claudio and Edna were confirmed this past Sunday. The whole ward is really excited with their progress and potential. I am too. They are just solid. They´re giving us some referrals from their family members nearby and Bishop has already talked with them about going to the temple to do baptisms. Edna´s super stoked. AND, she got a job she´s been waiting for a while now, coincidentally 2 days after she got baptized. Seriously, how can anyone not know the Church is true. All you have to do is look at the way God blesses it´s members. The same thing happened with Andreya (who is doing well too). Our Elder´s quorum president is having a recent convert´s dinner in his home this Friday and we´re invited. He told us to bring an investigator so we´ll be sure to do that. Selma´s coming along well too. One of her family members got super sick Sunday morning so she had to rush him to the hospital and missed church (and her confirmation) again! :( But she´s excited for it. We had a family night with her and a less active member named Marlene on her street (who is slowly becoming completely active) and taught about the importance of the gift of the Holy Ghost. We blind-folded her and had several different voices whispering/shouting in her ear which way she needed to go to get back to the living room couch. Marlene and her sister had a lot of fun with that. Selma´s job was to pick out which one was the Holy Ghost. She seemed to like that.

Robson and his son, Luis Guilherme, are our two investigators that are most progressing. They came to church on Sunday and said they liked it. It just so happened that one of Robson´s friends (who he didn´t know was a member) decided to come to our ward today. Coincidence? I think not! Our difficulties finding new people to teach knocking doors and doing street contacts led us to talk and study a lot about how to work better with the ward. We scheduled a meeting with our ward mission leader for Saturday to create a ward mission plan (Ponte hasn´t had one for a while). He didn´t show, but Elder Vianna and I came up with some ideas and made them all pretty and printed them out to show to the Ward Council on Sunday. Everyone really liked it and seems to be a little more excited (and committed) to help us out with the work. So that´s a plus. 

On a much sadder note, we got a phone call from a member Friday saying that one of our investigators, Clodoaldo, took his own life. That hit pretty hard on me and Elder Vianna. Prayers for him and his family are much appreciated. I´m sure, though, he´s being taught by a much more experienced companionship on the other side of the veil.

Friday was also interviews with Presidente Perrotti. I love that man. I can talk really openly with him and I always walk away from conversations with him a lot more determined to work a lot harder and be a lot better. I´m not quite sure how he has that effect on everyone but he does. Friday was also zone meeting which went well.

I´m gonna send along a picture from our last P-day at a place called Parque Taquoral. We got to play basketball and frisbee and the like with our zone and a few missionaries from another zone. Love you all!

Elder Sears

picture´s not sending...(again)...i have to be smarter about choosing which computer I sit at :P I´ll try next week, promise.

August 12, 2013 Black Suits and a Couple in White

Zone conference competition is on!

Brad and Elder Vianna prepare for wheelchair racing

Zone conference reunions:

 Brad with his previous companion, Elder Hill

and other missionaries "pretending to be trunky"

Baptism of Edna and Claudio

             Carlos (Claudio's brother and recent convert), Edna, Claudio and Elder Vianna