MERRY (late) CHRISTMAS!!! and a happy new year to come! I've been hearing it was a Christmas lacking snow in the U.S. but I hope it was good for you guys anyways!​

This week was pretty great for a few reasons. I got to skype with the fam on Christmas, which was super good! It's nice to see that even though things are changing at home, everyone in my family is still the same person haha! It was good to talk to everyone and it made my Christmas.

The work here is going pretty well! We have been teaching a couple who are real truth-seekers and have been putting a lot of our focus on them. Their names are Alison and Aline if you guys would to pray for them! They are very well educated so it's been a lot of long discussions with them so far. But even with them being well-off, they are humble and are willing to try.

I realized this week I haven't updated you guys on Helberth or Karen for a while! Helberth is the bomb. He has been passing sacrament and is reading the Book of Mormon like a boss. Karen is coming along really well too. She has been doing a lot for personal progress and gave the lesson in Young Women's a couple weeks ago!! I love meeting with them and helping them strengthen their testimonies!

I love you guys! I hope New Years is good for everyone this week!!

Elder Searle
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Elder Hatch and Elder Searle with a family who is moving soon

The Branch president gave them a box full of food for Christmas :)

Hello!!

This was quite the week. It started out with the Christmas Conference which was super super fun! It was also the week of Elder Hatch's and my birthday! I took a lot of pictures so I'll try to send some! 

During the conference President talked about Joseph Smith and Jesus Christ. I thought I knew a lot about both of them, but I left the conference feeling blown away! He told us a lot of cool stories from Joseph's life that showed how prophetic his calling was. Essentially, Smith restored the Atonement of Jesus Christ because without the authority to perform saving ordinances, no one was able to enjoy the full blessings of the repentance during the great apostasy. My testimony of Christ grew as he talked about the Atonement as well. It was a really spiritually uplifting conference!

It was also really really good to get mail and finally have peanut butter to eat for the first time in forever haha! I have been very much enjoying eating pb and j's once again.

My birthday was good! Elder Lima made us a cake and we traded ties!! Plus I got super cool gifts. Shout out to the fam for sending a frisbee haha! I was so happy to have your kind words and mail that day.

The work is moving along in Montes Claros! We have been trying to reactivate and find new investigators through the members here. Yesterday we beat our record at church again with 108! It was pretty exciting. A lot of the members here love the missionaries so it's good to have that support. Yesterday we had a family home evening with some recent converts who are working to be sealed in the temple! They have almost been members for a year so they should have their opportunity soon. It was a really special night for me because I could feel the spirit and could see the Lord blessing the work here. That's one thing that President has really been focusing on is getting members to the temple. If only we had a temple close to here.

Also the Lord has been blessing us immensely with better weather. The past two days haven't been super hot and it has helped me to think more clearly and work harder!

Well I'll send some pictures now! I'm super excited to skype and also to be a missionary for another week! This is probably the hardest thing I've ever done, but I'm sure it's blessing me and my family more than I even know. I love you guys!!

Elder Searle

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All the Christmas packages for the Missionaries

Eating a gummy plane while riding on a plane :)

Elder Hatch and Elder Searle

Elder Hatch and Elder Searle

Elder Searle and Elder Fernandes

Elder Searle and Elder Hatch celebrating their birthdays

Elder Searle and Elder Knudson

Elder Searle and Elder Stocks

Elder Searle and his birthday and Christmas packages!

Elder Silfies and Elder Searle

It's Santa!

Bom dia gente!

This week was really good! We did an exchange withe some Elders in our District on Wednesday. I stayed in our area and worked with an Elder who has only been in the field a week! It was intimidating to be the one calling all the shots for the day, but it helped me gain a lot of confidence because it was actually a super successful day!

I was also able to finish the Book of Mormon in Portuguese this week!! I have been reading like a machine these past months and I'm glad I was able to make my goal of finishing before my birthday. I'm able to understand the scriptures and people very clearly now. It's the speaking that still needs work. People understand me just fine, I'm just not able to express myself in the way I would like sometimes. 

But the Lord has helped me so much with this language. He has put just the right people and situations in my path to help me learn and improve.

Tomorrow is our Christmas Conference! We will fly out really early and fly back really late. I'm super excited to get mail and spend the day with a ton of missionaries!! Also, it will be Elder Hatch's birthday! It's cool we will get to celebrate our birthdays together this week.

Speaking of which, thank you for all the birthday wishes!! I love you and really appreciate all the support you guys give!

We taught a lot this week and I felt the spirit a lot! It's surprisingly really hard to get people to come to church during this season though. At least in Montes Claros, many people travel or go out partying over the weekend. 

But Elder Hatch and I are happy and working hard! He is a very good missionary and I'm grateful to have him as a companion. Many times this week people have come up to us and asked if we are brothers. We tell them yes, in the faith!

Shout out to my dad who will turn 32 this week! if you're reading this, then on Friday make sure to congratulate him!

I love you guys! You're in my thoughts and prayers. Study the scriptures, say your prayers, and remember that Heavenly Father has a perfect plan for you. Have a good week!

Elder Searle

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Oi gente!

Alright I'm gonna keep this short so I can send some pictures. Basically this week I flew to BH and got my new companion! His name is Elder Hatch and he is from upstate New York! He has 3 months left of his mission so he is very fluent in the language and very experienced. I've already been learning a ton from him! He is the District Leader here in the city so that means we will get to do some traveling during this transfer together for interviews and exchanges! It should be good.

We have been teaching a lot and working hard! Saturday night I felt like we should invite the family who lives under our house to church so we did, and on Sunday three of them came!! It was really cool to have that prompting be comfirmed. We taught them last night and they were pretty receptive.

Gonna answer a couple questions from the fam-

My favorite food here so far has been Açai. What they do here with the fruit is make a kind of ice cream with it that is to die for. They also use a type of condensed milk on literally all deserts here that is really good. We don't really have an equivilent to it in the states. The churros here are really good too. And I also really like pão de queijo, which literally translates to cheese bread. It's like a roll with a lot of brazillian cheese inside. é bom demais.

The language is becoming more and more comfortable! People understand me just fine and I'm understanding people for the most part. What I'm trying to work on now is how I say things because that makes a big difference on how the tone of your words are percieved.

Also I'm just starting to realize how strange looking we are to the people here. There are only 3 Americans in this whole city and they are all missionaries haha! Yesterday on more than one occasion there were people who were very surprised to see people with blue eyes.

Overall I'm doing good! I have been learning to stop comparing myself to others and just work like I know the Lord expects me to. And it's really nice to have a companion who does the same.

I hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas season!! Check out the video on natal.mormon.org if you haven't yet and share it with the people you know!

Love you guys,

Elder Searle

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Last Day with Elder Vieira

First Day with Elder Hatch

District

Flying to the mission home for transfers