Weekly Steps: 10210

Dearest people I know,

Yesterday was a Holiday here in Brazil so our Pday got moved! It's a good thing it did because absolutely nothing was open yesterday. But as far as I could tell, there isn't any special activities that happen on the day of the dead.

So this week I had a pretty cool experience. During weekly planning on Tuesday, Elder Vieira and I prayed to know specifically which member we should go to get referrals from. I had a sister from our branch pop into my head when I was praying so we decided to visit her and do a "Noah's Ark", which is basically having someone write everyone they want to "save" from the water when the rain comes. So we get a list of all the people close to them, and then visit the ones that are in our area and aren't members! During the week it became difficult to find time to visit Vanessa, and I was starting to doubt it would even be productive to visit her, but Elder Vieira was very good at making sure I followed that prompting! We visited her Friday, and were able to visit her cousin named Fernando that night and present the gospel for him. Saturday, we did a family home evening with him and Vanessa's family, and yesterday he went to the Branch activity! We will be working with him these next few weeks. My testimony was really strengthened from this experience though because he really is a golden reference and we found him because of personal revelation!

This Sunday we also had an awesome opportunity to train the new branch missionaries! I will send a picture of all of us if I have time. It is great to get the youth excited about missionary work and to help them prepare for missions of their own.

Portuguese is getting better! I'm understanding better, and communicating better. I still can't say everything I want though so that's a little frustrating. I have made it halfway through the Book of Mormon in Portuguese though!!! Reading has really helped me understand grammar and sentence structure better.

So the weather report for this week: It rained!!! Finally! We had some good rain for two days at the start of the week and it was a bit cooler, which was really nice. Now it seems to be turning back to how it was before though. Also, every day this week we had water in the morning and that was it. The water is so fickle. But I'm super grateful I've been able to shower every morning and that drinking water isn't a problem since they bring jugs of water to us when we need it.

We finished teaching Karen lessons after baptism this week and she has been helping us teach new investigators!! My word she is a good missionary. And she told us this week that she actually does want to be a missionary in a couple years!! How cool.


If only this people were a little more willing to change their lives for better. We are teaching and finding, but it's super hard when you have people who believe the truth, but aren't willing to follow it. I know the Lord will continue preparing them though, and I hope one day they will accept the Gospel!

I hope everyone is doing wonderful! I hope you all know how much I appreciate all the support. I decided this week that this has to be the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, but holy cow it's so worth it! I know I am supposed to be here, and even though it's hard, Heavenly Father is watching over me and giving me everything I need.

Love,

Elder Searle

Weekly Steps: 102106

Young branch missionaries

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