Feliz Natal!

It was a great week! We did an exchange, taught a lot, ate a lot, and sang a lot. On Christmas eve we ate a special lunch and a special dinner. On Christmas day we also ate a special lunch and I was able to talk to my family through Skype! That was fun.

Fátima was probably the highlight of the week. She is progressing really well and shoudl be baptized this week!! During the week she was afraid that she wouldn't be able to come to church because she would be at a family get together on Christmas Eve until like 4 in the morning (a brazillian tradition). But we focussed a lot on the importance of the Lord's day during the week and she made the right choice!! She actually stayed at the party until 8am, and then went straight to church without sleeping at all! And she invited her whole family to come to her baptism!! It was a Christmas miracle.

Other than that it was a wonderful Christmas! I hope it was a great Christmas for everyone else as well. I love you guys and hope that New Years is goes well for everyone.

I will send some pictures!

Elder Searle

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Merry Christmas!!

I totally forgot to send a general email last week. Sorry! I will try to sum up these past two weeks in this email.

These past two Sundays have been spectacular! Last week there was a transmission from Salt Lake for all of Brazil and Elder Holland spoke at it! He started and ended his talk in Portuguese which was very spiritual and kind of funny because he doesn't speak portuguese. But he talked about temples and keeping the commandments. It seems like the meeting had a really positive impact on the ward here.

And yesterday was the Primary Program! It was awesome because many investigators came and it's like the best meeting for investigators to come to because of the simplicity of the message that the children share.

One of the investigators that came is Fátima. She is progressing really well. We found her by asking for referrals from a different referral! She is a retired chemist, and looks exactly like my 9th grade math teacher. She is really smart and is learning super fast. Last week she was reading the Book of Mormon, but didn't want to ask God if it was true. We told her that she needed to ask and so she made a plan to ask last Monday, and guess what happened when she asked? She had an amazing dream about everything she had read in the Book of Mormon and woke up super happy! And now she came to church and is excited to be baptized in a couple of weeks!!

Also, we started teaching a family that lives literally right next to the chapel. They came to church and loved it! We just have to help them receive their answer now.

My birthday went really well! My companion made me a surprise breakfast when I was in the shower and let me take one of his ties! And our mission president talked to me in English on the phone haha!

I love you guys! I hope this week is amazing for everyone especially with Christmas on Sunday!

Elder Searle

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This week was super awesome!!

So this week was basically a ton of exchanges. To start, on Wednesday we spent 10 hours with our Mission President teaching our current investigators. It was the coolest thing! He took a bunch of pictures and I will send them. I learned a ton. President Fernandes is the type of person who isn't afraid to do anything in a lesson. We were able to help a lot of people understand the importance of following the gospel. One cool thing that happened that day is that we gave a priesthood blessing to a new investigator and two days later she told us that all of the pain she had been feeling in her arm went away immediately after we gave her the blessing. It was amazing!

Then on Thursday we went to the assistant's area to do an exchange with them! I got to stay with E. Knudson which was great. When I arrived on the mission he was my leader and lived in the same house as me. He is an amazing missionary and has taught me a lot of things.

And then on Friday we did another exchange in our area! I stayed with E. Sedrim who is another amazing missionary! He's from São Paulo and has a huge testimony of the gospel as he is the only active member of his family. It was another great day with him. We got our "Zone shirts" that a member here made for us on this day as well! They turned out great, except the sleeves are super short.

So other than that, transfers are tomorrow, but I will remain here with E. Volino. This is his last transfer on the mission and it should be good to work with him one more transfer! There were only a few missionaries transferred from our Zone.

This week should be a good one. We will have Mission Council on Friday then on Sunday there will be a conference broadcasted for all of Brazil. I'm excited!

I love you guys! Have a wonderful week.

Elder Searle

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