Hard weekend - Tati not ready to be baptized; 10 investigators in church yesterday!

     Hello everybody, how have you all been this past week? This week has definitely been an interesting one.  So the beginning of the week started off really well.  We focused on trying to find more people to teach that live close to our house and to a good number of the members.  We were lucky to be able to teach a lot of people including a family of 6 kids!  All of the kids were really cool and friendly and were all really interested as we taught them.  Most of the kids want to come to church but the parents are still a little hesitant.  Also Maicons mom is progressing and is trying to stop smoking so she can be baptized like Maicon and Diego were.  It always is a little hard for people to quit smoking but I can tell that she has real intentions and faith to be able to do it.  She has already lowered the number of cigarettes per day and is excited and determined for the change.
       We also had been working a lot with Tati to help her prepare for her baptism.  She has always been a little bit hesitant when it comes to baptism but when we went to her house to teach a lesson with our Branch President she was very calm and told us that she felt ready to be baptized!!  Woohoo!!  On Thursday we did a division and our district leader came and interviewed her for the baptism.  She passed and we set the baptism for Saturday morning.  We were all super excited for the baptism until we woke up Saturday morning and saw that Tati sent us a message in the middle of the night saying she didn't want to be baptized any more and that she didn't want us to visit her anymore.  We were all shocked and completely devastated.  We tried calling her and trying to contact her but we haven't been able to talk with her since then.  I have know idea what happened.  She said she was super excited Friday afternoon when we talked to her on the phone but then she sent that message right before the baptism.  That morning was one of the hardest days for us. We had to call several members and also the LZ´s to inform the baptism wasn't going to happen.  None of us wanted to go out and work that day because we were so discouraged.  Thankfully the afternoon was a little better as we were able to visit with the family with 6 kids again and the sons Douglas and Ivan ended up coming to church with us.  On sunday we had 10 investigators there which is a really great number which lifted our moods a bit, but even now Im still kind of disappointed.  Hopefully these  investigators will continue to progress and that we can have a good up coming week.  It will probably be my last week here in Vera Cruz so Im already feeling a little sad that I will have to leave all of the friends I have made here.  But that's what happens on the mission, once you get accustomed to the area, and all people the people, It's time to move on to something new.  But thanks everybody for all the emails, they always make me feel happier and I feel loved.  I'm doing well here and even though its a little tough right now I know that it will get better and that I will be able to help people change there lives for the better.  I know that this church is true and Im really greatful for this oppurtunity to share the gospel of Jesus Christ her in Brasil.  I love you all and can't wait to read your emails next week!! 

Elder Gee

In a threesome; Maicon's mom came to church

Hey there family!!  How have you all been doing? Life is good here in Vera Cruz.  Elder Fernandes, Elder Cabral, and I have been working a lot and been having a good time.  Haha ya that´s the big news from this week, we have been in a trio of missionaries since Friday when Elder Cabral came from an other area  in our zone to work with us in Vera Cruz for these last two weeks of the transfer. From these last couple of days working with Elder Cabral he seems like a really cool and chill guy.  He is from the country Cabo Verde so he already spoke Portuguese before the mission but there's a little bit of a difference in some of the words and the accent.  I still don't know how I feel about working in a trio.  Its definitely been a little more fun today on p-day as we were able to play some card games and play a little catch with a football that Elder Fernandes bought.  Its been good for teaching lessons too, but now the transitions of teaching and talking have been a little different than the way me and Elder Fernandes had been practicing for the last 10 weeks.  But for me, having new companions is always really really helpful.  Every time that we go on divisions and I get to work with somebody else I can see some of the different ways that each missionary tries to find new investigators and how they teach.  Then I try to take the good parts that I learned from them and try to apply it in the way I work. 
     So other noo-nooz from this week is that the mom of Maicon came to church on Sunday along with his 9 year old cousin.  Maicon is a 17 year old young man and recent convert that was baptized 3 or 4 months ago and he is really firm in the church.  He comes to church every single week and prepares and blessing the sacrament.  I'm not sure what I've written about him but he is a really cool guy and good friend of ours.  He has even gone out and done some proselyting with us in preparation to serve a mission in October.  So we have been visiting him regularly and have always talked with his mom at his house.  She is really nice and is really happy with how we have been helping her son but usually when we invite her to make a visit to church she says that she will some day but not this week.  Recently we have been focusing the visits on helping her and have already taught her a couple of the lessons.  This week when we taught her we taught her more about the church and how we receive blessings when we go there on Sundays.  We invited her to come and she said `maybe` so I was pretty surprised but really really happy when she showed up on Sunday.  The sisters in the branch were really friendly with her and I could tell that she enjoyed it.  We will keep on visiting her and hopefully she will continue to progress!
     Wow it was so cool to see pictures of Celecta Rose! Congratulations to you Celecta and Ryan!  oh and to me too, I'm an uncle!! Haha on Thursday one of the members Kassia came up to me and asked me if I had already seen pictures of my neice and it took me a couple of seconds to understand what she was talking about before I realized that Celecta must have been born.  She is friends with Jamie on Facebook so she heard the news before showed me some pictures of the baby on her phone.  Awww she is so cuuute!!  I cant wait to be able to see her in person but by the time that happens she wont even be a baby anymore haha :)  But it was great to get all of these emails today and be able to feel a little closer to home.  I miss you guys a ton, but I'm having a lot of great learning and spiritual experiences here on the mission  Thanks a ton for everything and have an awesome week!!  Love you!!

Elder
Gee

Good and productive week here in Vera Cruz; teaching 5 granddaughters; start holding English classes

Sorriso means "smile" in Portuguese

Hey everybody!!  How are you all doing?  I have been wondering the whole week whether or not I was an uncle but it looks like I´ll have to wait just a little longer.  Haha that's alright patience is a virtue.  Just make sure to send me pictures of her when she comes.  It sounds like you guys are having a lot of good family bonding time inside while it just keeps getting colder and colder outside. Haha I'm not missing the snow enough yet to be jealous of you guys but maybe after 2 full years under the Brazilian sun I will be ready to go out and shovel sidewalks again. 
     We've had a pretty good and productive week here in Vera Cruz.  The biggest news for sure is that we got to begin teaching 5 granddaughters of one of the members.  They lived in Vera Cruz before but now they are living with their grandma for the summer vacation and possibly longer.  We are pretty excited because teaching family of members is always good and they have a better chance of progressing and going to church together.  The ages of the granddaughters are from 15-10 so If we can get them coming to church it would be a real boost for the youth here in our branch.  We taught them the restoration of the gospel and after invited them to be baptized when they prayed to know it is true.  They all accepted and we really excited to have them come to church on Sunday, but none of them showed up.  We arranged with a member to pick them up and give them a ride to the chapel but they didn't come out of the house while he was there.  We will just have to keep visiting them and help them see how going to church can help and bless there lives.  Other news, we have been visiting Tati regularly to help her prepare for baptism.  One of the visits we went with branch president Henkes and had a great lesson.  She told us that she knows how important baptism is and that its the path that she wants to follow.  Haha also she told us that she would like to be a sister missionary someday so that cant be a bad sign ;)  What else has happened this week,  hmm One thing that will be interesting is that we are gonna start holding English classes in the chapel for anybody that's interested.  Hopefully it will be a good way to meet new people that we can help out and get them more interested in the church. Im pretty excited for that, it should be fun to go from the person that always is asking how to say something, to the person that that is teaching words :)
     But that about sums up this last week.  Thanks again for all the emails and support.  Good luck to y'all in school, work, and everything else.  I love you all a ton!  Until next week...

Elder Gee

Christmas and New Year's in Brazil; Tati is progressing; Simone and Durlan

Hey there everybody!!  Happy 2013!!  Ya, sorry that I didn't send an email last p-day, the LAN house that we go to didn't open that afternoon because of New Year´s eve.  I was worried on Christmas eve that maybe the LAN house wouldn't be open, but I didn't even think about it last week.  I'm sure it was hard for you guys to survive without hearing from me, but don't worry I had to go through the same thing.  But other than that, it was a good couple of holiday weeks here.  It was great to experience Christmas and New Year's in a different country.  These holidays are celebrated a little differently then back in the US.  Since it is summer here right now, Christmas and New Years are great days to be outside and go to the beach, play soccer, use fireworks, or make churrasco.  It was nice having both new years and Christmas eve on p-day because we were able to celebrate a bit with the members. It was really fun to bond with the members and it made missing you guys not quite so bad :)  Haha the only annoying thing was that there was a party at one of our neighbor´s on New Years Eve and they blasted loud music all night till about 10 in the morning, but what can you do right?
      It has been a pretty interesting 2 weeks here in Vera Cruz.  It has been a little different for us missionaries because a lot of members and some of our investigators have been taking advantage of the holidays and gone out of town.  This is the bad part of the holidays, but also we have been teaching quite a few families that are visiting members.  Its been pretty cool and a lot of them went to church, so now we will be able to send their addresses and info to the missionaries working in there cities.  Also, one of the members introduced us to her daughter and her family who recently moved back to Vera Cruz.  We visited them and they seem really cool, and then on Sunday they were all came to church.  Their names are Simone and Durlan? (haha don't know how to spell it) and they have a baby girl. They seem really interested in the church and want to get married soon so its gonna be good to work with them. 
     Also we had been working really hard with Tati to help her stop smoking.  She has been lowering the number of cigarettes per day  and also she said she has been reading the Book of Mormon daily so that's great news!  She also went out of town to visit family during the holidays but will get back tomorrow so we will go see how she is doing and how we can help her out.  Her goal for baptism is now on the 19th of January so keep her in your prayers that she can be ready for that date.
     Other interesting things, we had divisions both of these weeks so I went to both Santa Cruz and Rio Pardo.  I think that Jamie´s mãezinha, Fernanda, demands the Rio Pardo missionaries to visit her when we have divisions because we go there every time.  Haha but there family is really cool so I'm definitely not complaining, it was fun seeing them again.  Also President Wright has been telling all of the missionaries that we need to do a lot more street contacts and that our weekly goal should be 120 at the minimum.  All of my companions have generally done more knocking doors so it will be different focusing on contacts. Hopefully we can have a lot of success doing this and can find new investigators that really are interested in our message.
     Buuuut thanks everybody for the emails, love,  and support!  You are all great and I really miss each and everyone of you!  And Happy birthday tomorrow, Kyle!  I sent  you a letter by MissionTies so make sure to keep checking your email every once in a while.  Lots of love from...

Elder Gee