Transfers!

Well this week was transfers and I found out that I will be staying here in São Borja. Que Bencão! It’s such a good thing, opening an area is a lot of work, and I still feel like I don't know the members well enough. So there is a lot of work to do in these next six weeks :)

So crazy part about transfers: When I arrived in Santa Maria another group of missionaries came the following day and in that group there were close to 8 Americans I think. All of those Americans served 9 months in a state-side mission prior to receiving their visas. 2 of those Elders are here in my district in São Borja-Elder Hauck and Elder Johansen. Sad thing is though, in those nine months they forgot a lot of their Portuguese. They are suffering pretty badly, not to say I am not, but I think they have it even tougher than me. Anyways for transfers they found out that they both will be training, and Elder Johansen is our new District Leader. CRAZY! I can't even imagine. But they are both excited. 

Also, so we've been meeting with a young girl named Êmily. She is so great. You can just tell that the Lord has been preparing her for some time now. She is good friends with the branch president’s daughter and loves going to church. We first met Êmily a month ago at church where we gave her a Book of Mormon. We set an appointment for the following day, but she didn't show up. We asked the family of the branch president to contact her for us because she doesn't have a phone, and we don't have her address. The family didn't have much luck, and kept forgetting. Honestly my companion and I were running out of ideas on how to contact her. So about 2 weeks ago we said a prayer, just asking for a miracle so we could contact her. And well last week in church there she was. That Sunday, Sister Claret and I were each working with some non-members and before we got a chance to talk with her she had left. I felt awful, we had been praying for a miracle and when we received it we let it slip away. So we decided to go talk with the branch president later that night about some of the activities that we had planned for that week in the church edificio. And guess who was there? Êmily! Except guess what happened? We got so excited talking to president about the ideas we had planned that we left their house without even talking to her. Not only did I throw away one opportunity but 2x I threw away the opportunity. It took my companion and I 5 blocks to realize what we had done. When I first realized I turned to her and told her we needed to go back. She was slightly reluctant, because it would look weird us returning, it was blazing hot and she was tired. But she said that we could go back if I honestly felt we should. I explained the feelings I had felt earlier that day and reminded her about the prayer we said earlier that week. So we went back and talked with Êmily and it was bom de mais. The spirit was so strong. It was incredible. We asked her to pray about the things we taught. Then when we started talking about a follow up appointment she told us Thursday was her birthday, so I thought she was going to say it wouldn’t be possible to meet that week. But she asked us if we could meet with her on her birthday. What teenager do you know that is that excited to learn about their Savior? Anyways that was an example to me of her desire to learn. So we met with her on her birthday ( I made cookies and everyone here loves cookies-- Fun Fact they don't have cookies here in Brazil. Que Triste Neh?) She talked to us about her prayer and said she received an answer. We talked about baptism and she wants to be baptized. Her mom was baptized about 20 years ago and doesn't like the church anymore, so there are a couple road bumps still ahead, but she accepted the date January 31 to be baptized! QUE LEGAL!!

So sorry about the long story. But I am excited! And I hope that you all have a wonderful week! Love you all!

Sister K. Seal

Yup:) Chaco tan lines are trending here in the Brazilian Missions.

 Nosso AmigoJ