22 houses, 2 lessons, 1 mission call, 0 sleep

Holidays are officially the worst! NO ONE IS HOME. Literally no one. On Saturday we visited 22 houses and we had 2 lessons the whole day. WHAT. So that was fun. And, as happens every single holiday so far, on Good Friday when no one was home (except the drunks) we read the part in the manual that says "holidays and sundays are the best days to find people at home to teach, so use these days wisely" and Sister Davis and I laughed a lot and agreed that maybe thats true in the US (maybe) but it couldnt be less true here. Clearly God has a sense of humour because I also read that part on New Years. And Christmas. And Carnaval. All the days we accomplished nothing. HA

But we still accomplished some things! We have 2 baptisms lined up for the 9th of april, and both of them WOULD be this week if it weren't for general conference, but we thought it would be weird to have a whole week in between baptism and confirmation. The first is Cleverton, the guy that had that weird dream I mentioned last week, and the other is the 16 year old I've been talking about since I got here in Santos Dumont. She's an ENTIRELY different person now, I don't even believe its the same girl. She was suuuuuuuper sad and thought she didn't deserve to talk to God or go into a church building or anything like that and now she's happy and she's friends with God again and basically the gospel works miracles.

My new DL is Elder Antunes-who was already my DL once. He was the DL that kept grilling me about excercising...so guess what me and Sister Davis will start this week ;P True to character the first thing he said to me when he arrived was "are you working out Steele!??!?" Thanks to him I'll return to the US super swole. (are the kids still saying that these days? Dang I'm out of touch)

The last hightlight was that Pedro got his mission call right? But here they don't mail it to your house, but to the bishop. So he had no idea, and he was going out with us to teach as always, and a member of the bishopric called me and said "Sister Steele. Don't say my name, what ever you do don't say my name yOU CANT SAY MY NAME OKAY?" and I was like okay???? why??? basically feeling like something out of a spy movie and if I said his name someone with a sniper rifle would shoot me and kill everyone I love I don't know man, I was freaked out. but it was all normal and then he told me Pedro's call arrived and it was my responsibility to get him home at 7:00 for the surprise and like ????? I'm awful with surprises and secrets??? but somehow with all of that, even with him being next to me during this phone call, he didnt know and it was a success! He's headed for Campinas in only a month! There go all our lessons with member present #timeforhisbrothertostepitup 

THANK GOODNESS ITS PDAY I'm dying. Sister Davis and I are having a serious problem. We like each other too much. We're not sleeping! This will be a problem. We need to learn to dislike each other.

the week i didnt tell you guys anything

This week will be a smaller email/not a photo this time haha

So this week sister Davis and I met Cleverton, a member's brother. He told us that he never wanted anything to do with the church but then he had this dream that he was trying to stone 2 old ladies and one of them said "I am happiness" and the other said "I am Christ" and he took that as an answer that he needs to join this church?? So we told him to pray about it and he said he got another answer and he wants to be baptised! 

L PRAYED literally I got so excited. It was funny because she said it super in passing like "oh yeah I prayed so that was a thing, but anyway Im feeling super good today like really good im at peace and I have no idea why cuz nothing got better but I feel good....maybe its because I prayed. anyway.." and we were like wow there slow down lets talk about that for a minute

and like thats basically it this week because the internet is notttttt working well so I dont have as much time today. But yeah. Me and Sister Davis are doing well :) Two americans together is crazyyyyy

AHHHHHH SISTER MAZETTO GOT TRANSFERED :( only one together? Totally unfair. BUT my new companion Sister Davis (who is american, what?!?) will get here tomorrow and I know we'll be awesome. Sister Mazetto (good luck oh goodness) is opening a new area AND training at the same time. HA. But I know she can handle it.

This week the main highlight was that Valmir got baptized! Teaching him was an interesting experience given that he's completely deaf. But this guy is soooo good. Since he can't hear, he studies more than anyone else in the church, and he's super sick right now but when we asked if he wanted to wait until next week to be baptised, he said "what and listen to the devil? heck no! I'm being baptized now!!"

Then there was the lesson with Stefany and Cleidiane that was going SO WELL until a drunk man with two large raw chickens showed up and wouldnt leave us alone. "I want to fry my chickens!! And you little chinese girl won't let me? How dare you. Let me tell you, people here are way nicer than you, you [swear word] go back to china" (he said to my very much brazillian companion). Thankfully Pedro was with us to make him go away/scare him off/make sure he didn't beat us and the other two girls with his raw chickens. That was quite the experience. Nothing like a drunk racist man shoving raw meat in your face...this always happens during the 1st vision. I dont think I've ever managed to teach the restauration without something crazy happening. #workofthedevil

I don't really know what else happened this week because I didnt get to work :( We did splits and I stayed in a member's house because I managed to hurt myself and couldnt walk well BUT im all good now so its ok

Anyway....good luck to me and Sister Davis! I'm Senior Companion now O.o

This week I have one main highlight I want to talk about. WORKING WITH MEMBERS BRINGS MIRACLES. So the last girl I mentioned last week, we've been teaching her for 3 weeks now. She had to run away from home and her old church excommunicated her for kissing a boy outside of her church-and when you're excommunicated no one can talk to you for 6 months. Which means that while all the horrible stuff was happening at home, none of her friends listened. They pretended she wasn't even there.

Sister Mazetto and I were pretty desperate to get her to come to young womens and meet the girls and help her feel like God loves her, but with just us calling her there she didnt want to. So we enlisted the help of the members and got her to come to an fhe with a ton of the youth. the next day she came to Nycole's baptism and the day after that she showed up to church!!  She literaly already seems so much happier I can't believe its the same person! We weren't even thinking of inviting her to be baptised because all we want right now is to make her happier but she's talking about being baptised!! 

I'm like so out of time so next week is going to be like last week was because that was so much easier but here's Nycole's baptism!!  

So this week had one more highlight that I didn't write in the letter. WE GOT A BAPTISM. Vinícius. He's 14 and has been visiting the church for a while, so on monday Sister Mazetto and I were like "hey, want to be baptized?" and he got suppppper excited and said yes. So we taught him all the lessons this week and here we are! He's adorable. On Sunday after his confirmation he couldn't stop smiling. When I said "hey you're a real mormon now!" his smile just got bigger. AND NOW we're going to baptize all his friends (Ingrid and Nayara).

sorry i had computer problems today and ran out of time?? I'll talk more about that last one next week

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The week God dropped people from heaven to meet us.

SO. This week me and Sister Mazetto managed to land 4 people with a baptismal date. Ingrid was the first one, and teaching her was soooo cool because she started to say "oh I already was baptized" but then we asked her to say the closing prayer and we all knelt down and she started crying and we were like "what's wrong?" and she says "no I'm not sad, I feel good, but I don't know what this is I've never felt this before. I'll be baptized." and we're like "well daaaaaang, you got your answer without even praying??? That happens?".

The second was Nayara, who was super cute and said "if I heard there was a prophet today I'd come running!" and of course we're like "well then have we got the message for you!"

The 3rd was a re-marked date of an investigator Sister Mazetto taught already. We asked her whats stopping her-she already knows what she should do-and she says "you're right, I do know" and accepted.

The 4th was also a re-marked date and similarly accepted.

But the best thing was Saturday. Sister Mazetto and I were a little lost, trying to find the house of a less active member and we went a weird way and nothing was making sense, when someone started shouting at us like "heeeyyy hey you guys" and we got a little afraid

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