Happy transfers everybody!

So tomorrow I will get a new companion and will continue serving in Pampulha!! My new companion is Elder Barbosa! He is from the north of Brazil, bu other than that I don't know much about him and I've never met him before. It should be awesome to meet him tomorrow! I will train him to be a Zone Leader so that should be fun. Also, many missionaries in our Zone will train brand new missionaries this transfer!

This week has been great! We did an exchange with the assistants and I did a baptismal interview. The lady I interviewed is super cool! She has read the whole Book of Mormon in less than 25 days! I was so surprised. I don't know how people can read that fast and still remember stuff. But she is super converted and ready for baptism!

Thankfully, we were able to find some good investigators this week. Some friends of a member came to the English Class and then came to church on Sunday! We will be teaching them tonight.

I hope you all had a great week! I love you guys!

Elder Searle

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Boa tarde!

This week has been wonderful! We did another exchange, had leadership council, and found some great new investigators!

I don't have a ton of time so I will try to cover the most important stuff. On Friday, we went to a contact's house who we met at a church soccer activity. He and his brother (Víctor and Junior) are both really receptive and are excited to get to know the church better. They were so curious during the first message and it seemed like they were directing everything through their questions and comments. They accepted baptism and have been reading from the Book of Mormon! I am excited to continue working with them.

Fátima is doing really well. She will bring a friend to church this Sunday and also come to the church to do family history during this week. We gave her a triple combination on her birthday Saturday!! She didn't have the courage to bear her testimony in sacrament meeting this Sunday, but I believe that next month she will for sure. But she is really enjoying Relief Society and even won a treat this Sunday for explaining apostasy in the class!

Edson came to church with his wife again! His mom sent him his birth certificate through mail and as soon as it gets to him we will try to get them married as soon as possible so he can be baptized. It will be the first time that I make a marriage happen on my mission and it should be a great experience!

This is Elder Volino's last week on the mission! So next week I should already know who my next companion will be. That will be exciting! I love you guys!!

Elder Searle

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Happy 2017!!

I am grateful that new years landed on a Sunday this year! It made for a great sacrament meeting with a lot of reflection about the new year. It was also really special because Fátima was confirmed a member of the church on the first day of the year!! Her baptism was on Friday and I had the privilege to perform the ordinance! She was so excited and happy on the day of her baptism!!

I wanted to relate Fátima's conversion story a little better for you guys. A while ago, a member gave us a referral of a locksmith so we went to talk to him. When we saw that he wasn't very interested, I asked him who he knew that could be, and he indicated Fátima, who lives close to his key store. So we went to talk to Fátima, who he informed us had a smoking problem and depression. She seemed a little scared when we first came to her house and didn't let us in, but accepted a pamphlet about the restoration. A few days later we came back, gave her a Book of Mormon to read, and marked to come back the next day. Ever since we taught her the first lesson she began to change very quickly. She received an answer to her prayers through a dream and started reading the Book of Mormon a lot. She is really intelligent and basically memorizes the contents of the chapters and then relates them to us! We gave her a priesthood blessing to stop smoking and drinking coffee and she never broke the word of wisdom since, she loved church, and she is finally happy. Her birthday is this week and I will give her a triple combination! She is already doing her genealogy and is excited to go to the temple soon to do baptisms for the dead!! She was truly prepared for the restored gospel.

Other than Fátimas baptism, we did an exchange this week and found a family that have visited temple square in Salt Lake City! They are traveling now, but when they come back in a couple weeks we will continue to teach them. One of them Has a Utah Jazz hat!

I am so excited for this new year! It's crazy to think that I have been serving a mission during all the year of 2016. I have missionary goals for this new year and am determined to achieve them. I know that all things are possible through diligence and faith and I also know that God has many souls prepared for me still on my mission. I love you guys and hope you have a wonderful start to the new year!

Elder Searle

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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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