Feliz Ano Novo! Happy
New Year! It’s been a great week for
us. It is hard to believe that we have
just finished 2014! We have heard that
time goes faster when you are older. We
must be really old because time is flying!
We love the holidays. It is a
great opportunity to take a wonderful message into homes. But we also have to be selective where we
visit as we don’t want to “crash” anyone’s holiday dinner and family time
without being invited. But we have had
some good visits this past week.
It is always fun to
have the Sisters come over to our place.
They came on P-day to send pictures and have left-over mashed potatoes
and turkey gravy. Mashed potatoes seem
to be a real treat for missionaries, especially missionaries from the U.S. It was nice of them to help us finish up our
turkey leftovers. We enjoy these
Sisters!
Ledí, a faithful
Sister in the Uniaõ branch, has been requesting that we visit in her home with
her and her non-member husband. We
visited there several months ago. It was
past time to visit again. We had a nice
visit this week and they invited us back to do a Family Home Evening next
week. Their son, Edson and his wife,
Luciane (Nelson’s daughter) and family (which include Kevin, the guitar player
and his sisters) are going to be invited too. So this is an extended family that we know and
love. Ledí has requested a lesson about
eternal families. We have tried to catch
Edson and Luciane home to extend the invitation, but have been unsuccessful so
far. Ledí is going to try also. We would really like to have everyone there
next week.
We have met a lot of
friendly people this week on the street and on the bus. One day, as we boarded the bus, the driver
greeted us by saying that he wanted to visit our country. The cobrador, money taker, joined in the
conversation, as did several others. We
had a nice visit (loud enough for most everyone on the bus to hear) and were
able to give our cards with our meeting schedule on to several. In turn, one of them gave us a printed
message from his church. It was
fun.
On New Year’s Eve, we
baked a couple of loaves of French bread to deliver. We always like to give appreciation and
support to leaders in the branches which is actually part of our calling. President Castro also encourages us to do
that. So we decided to visit Alves,
Lucimar and their family early in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve. Alves is a counselor in the branch presidency
of the Marina branch. Lucimar is in the
District Young Women Presidency. Also living in the “fundos” (out back) at the
home of Alves is their son, Josué and his wife and 1 year old daughter. This
young couple was active a year ago. We
don’t know what happened, but they quit coming.
But recently they have started coming to church again. So we felt like this would be a great visit
to make. Lucimar was out grocery
shopping with their teenage daughter.
But we were welcomed warmly by Josué and his wife. We delivered one of the loaves of bread and
had a nice visit in their home. Alves
was very happy to see us also. His
mother lives next to them and had requested a blessing of health. Alves told us that he was just wondering how
he would do it and who he would get to help when we showed up! He was pretty
grateful and felt like his prayers had been answered! So it worked out well. Elder was able to help with the blessing and
we had a really nice visit. Alves
thanked us for the bread. But he
protested that he did not have a gift for us.
Then he remembered the little red peppers growing in his yard. He insisted on sending some home with us and
told us how to make “Conserva de Pimenta (Brazilian pickled chiles). It seems easy enough to do and not too
time-consuming. So we are giving it a
try. It is in process now. It has to sit in a vinegar- type solution for
a week. Although Elder is not thrilled,
Sister is excited to try! It was a fun
and gratifying visit.
For lunch on New
Year’s Eve, we went to Per Tutti Grill to celebrate. We knew they would be decorated and
festive. They always have a nice
selection of food too. Then it was a
noisy New Year’s Eve. We heard
firecrackers going off all day. And
there were lots of fireworks in the evening.
At midnight, we thought we were being attacked! Fireworks must have been going off right
beside us. They like fireworks
here! There was no sleeping through
that! So we welcomed the new year in
whether we wanted to or not!
New Year’s Day we,
along with the Sisters, were invited to the “chacara” or little farmstead of
Mení and Paulinho. They are friendly,
good, faithful, very active members of the Uniaõ branch. We thought it was pretty cool that we could
spend Christmas with all of the young Elders and now New Year’s with the
Sisters. We took a little treat. It was another wonderful churrasco with lamb,
chicken and salsicha and all of the trimmings. Mení and Paulinho have a
business and also a little home close to our apartment here in the city. So the party was held at their country home a
little ways out of town. We hoped to
catch a bus out. We sat and sat at the
bus stop, without seeing a bus. Since it
was a holiday, we knew that buses would be few and far between. But while we were sitting there, Nilson and
Karla, non-members from our English classes drove by and waved. They circled the block and came back to pick
us up. It’s nice to have friends! We were
grateful for the ride as it had begun to rain.
We are always so amazed at the blessings that come to us and that are so
obvious. Even at that, we had to walk up
a little lane to get to their home. The Sisters had quite a ways to walk and
arrived pretty wet, even with their umbrellas! We felt bad for that. But by the time lunch was over, the rain had
quit and the sun was out. It was a
beautiful afternoon. All of us enjoyed
the little farm. They had cows, sheep,
chickens, tractors, a lake and all kinds of fun stuff. They were lovely hosts! It was a lovely day!
We had a good visit
with Artur. However, we are sad that his
dog, Bola (Ball), has come up missing.
He has been gone for a week. We
have become really fond of Bola and take a dog treat for him each week. We just heard from the Elder Buhler and Elder
Gorham that Artur’s daughter brought him a cat to keep him company. He has named the cat “Elder”! We gave Artur a lesson on free agency and
goals. He maintains that his goal is to
be baptized before Casal Shirley leaves.
As we look at the calendar, we hope he hurries. Time is really flying! Our release date appears to be April 21. We don’t want him to leave it to the last
minute. We also hope that he doesn’t get
cold feet. He told the Elders that a guy
really needs to think about this! But he
comes to all three hours of church each week.
We all agree that he has made a lot of progress recently. We still have high hopes!
It was also a good
visit with Júlio, Rosángela and family. The baby still has a bad case of colic, but is
growing fast and doing well. We talked with them about free agency and
goals also. Julio told us that he
doesn’t believe in setting goals. We
have hoped that his goal would be to get married and to have Rosángela and two
of the kids baptized this next year. Rosángela
seems ready for both marriage and baptism. He told us how expensive it is to get married
as you have to have a reception, etc.
You have to include all of the relatives. And they have a lot of them. But he also taught us a new word which we
really like. Although he doesn’t want to
have a specific goal, he does like to have “guides”. The word he used was “Nortear” (Norte as in
north). That is like aligning yourself
with the North Star and keeping on the correct path. It means to have guides. We like that!
What a great word! That will
work! And it is a verb which indicates
action. So we still have high hopes for
them also!
Elder H. Silva and
Elder Campbell had a baptism this week, Olivia Gomez. They invited us to attend. We really enjoy baptisms! She is a really nice lady and will be a great
addition to the Cachoeira branch.
We spent some time
this week notifying branch members of the change in church meeting times. In January, Uniaõ and Marina branches
flip-flop meeting times. Marina now
starts at 8:30 am with Priesthood and Relief Society and Uniaõ starts at 9 am
with Sacrament meeting. Although there
were quite a few visitors on Sunday, numbers were down a bit in both branches.
It was testimony meeting. Usually there
is a line of people wanting to bear their testimony. This Sunday was slower than usual. We attended sacrament meeting in both Uniaõ
and Marina. Elder Shirley bore his testimony
in each of the two branches. Sister
Shirley summoned up courage (and it takes a lot of courage, especially to do it
in Portuguese) and did it in the Marina branch and was the very last testimony. Marcio Medeiros was conducting. At the close of meeting he told us that he
had been hoping for 38 testimonies.
Part-way through the meeting, he said that it had come to him while he
was sitting there that there would be 20 testimonies and that Sister Shirley
would be the last testimony. He was
actually teary-eyed in telling us from the pulpit that he knew it would work
out just that way. So glad that Sister Shirley
didn’t ignore those promptings.
Hope your New Year is off to a great
start! Hope you are all surviving the
cold and snow! It is really hard for us
to imagine. Although after looking at
pics on fb, we half-way expect to look outside our window and see snow. But we have had a lot of rain again this
week, some of it really heavy. Some
days, it rains really hard and then the sun comes out strong. It feels like a sauna! Rain or shine, we have lots of work to
do!
Be safe! Be healthy!
Be happy! Be good! Vai nortear!
Eu te amo!
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