aula de inglês

Another awesome week!!! Itapecerica is cool--very in the middle of all the business! We live in the same house as members so that´s really sweet--they give us food at night! YES! One thing that is really common in Brazil is JELLO! Today for lunch Irmã(Sister) Vanuza made us lunch(a blessing on p-day) and jello. Expect there's a twist, we put powered milk in jello here after it sets... you should try it! experiment that Brazilian life--it´s really quite good. You can also try making jello then when it´s done you mix it with condensed milk--another favorite of the brazilians here. 

Wellington (19) is continuing to progress! He says he agrees with everything. He works and studies right now so monday-friday he gets up early and comes home at 11. He is doing his homework for us--aka reading the pamphlets and the Restoration film we left with him--but he still hasn´t read the Book of Mormon. He told us that he doesn´t want to read it on the bus--which is his only option-- because people would mock him and make a scene. I told him about the Book of Mormon app and he downloaded that, so I have high hopes that this week he will read and get a more solid answer. He really does love the church though! He told us that he didn´t need us to walk with him to church--and when we got there he was already sitting in Elder´s Quorum in a white shirt, a tie, slacks, and dress shoes--OPA! We have been talking about baptism a lot with him and he didn´t commit to a date because he said he wants to learn a bit more about the commandments; we explained a few things to him and then he asked, ``If i showed up on Sunday and asked to get baptized, could I?`` We were like YES. 

Also we are seeing some fruits from our English class. 1st, I taught the English class last week and Jefferson (22?) showed up. Apparently, he once went to a baptism at the church and then heard about the english class, so he´s been coming. We invite him every week and he was pretty mole...until we walk into church on sunday and guess who is sitting on the back pew in the chapel...JEFFERSON! It was a miracle! He came by himself and stayed for the whole thing. We wanted to take advantage of the opportunity on him being their for the spiritual side, so we asked if we could talk with him quickly after church. We invited a young married couple, our Ward mission leader and his wife, to join us(because we needed a woman with us and our Ward Mission Leader has been integrating Wellington) for the lesson. It was SUPER spiritual. We taught the Restoration and it was an incredible spirit. I want to take advantage of the chapel more often--I know that teaching in the chapel makes all the difference and even better that we taught after sacrament meeting, where the spirit was so strong. I have high hopes for Jefferson, even though he is in the same situation as Wellington--he only can meet on the weekends because he studies and works until late at night. 

Also our ward mission leader was at my last english class and asked if I had experience with teaching. Not really,,, just on the mission. He told me that I should really think about teaching english to brazilians when i get home...perhaps teaching via internet. I´m not sure, but I think I´d like that. I have a lot of fun with the class. 

Thanks for the emails and cards! Your support is INCREDIBLE! Thanks!

Love you guys so much! 

Sister Sadie Bledsoe

So Jefferson gave me this paper of english he wrote... I´m thinking he put something into google translate and this is what it gave him... I thought it was funny. my district leader read it as a rap song and it worked pretty well ....hahaha... (in brazil they write ....KKKKKK....fun fact)

​

Itapecerica

Sorry this email is getting to you late...yesterday turned out to be a bit of a mess. We tried to find Western Union because dad sent me money but we ended up getting sent to 2 wrong addresses--I didn´t check my email 1st where dad had already sent me the addresses....whoops! At least we got to tour the fancy/rich part of Sao Paulo, but things would have been easier with GPS #missionaryproblems. Anyway, lesson learned. 

My new area is Itapecerica and my companion is Sister Ovejero from Argentina(my 1st non-brazilian comp here). She has 9 months on the mission and is 24. She was my companion for like 3 days when I first got her eand we were in a trio. She´s awesome! Our ward is huge---compared to my other 2 wards here. We have tons of youth here and lots of active member. However, on sunday the choristor wasn´t there so they asked me. I´ve never led the music in sacrament meeting and well, it was a semi-trainwreck. I don´t think they will ask me again...lol. I forgot to have everyone stand up for the intermediate hymn but luckily my companion motioned to me at the last second and it all worked out. It was stressful though because I had never even heard of the closing hymn before. I don´t think I had ever even sung it in English...Oh well, I´m grateful for those who have a talent for that kind of thing. That´s really the beauty of the church--we bring talents and learn others. 

This is my view from our house. It´s like the Lion King where Simba sees the Elephant Graveyard(or favela) ``as far as the eye can see.``​

This week was really wonderful! On Thursday, we fasted to find new investigators and prayed to find families to teach and it worked!We have been inviting everyone to our English class and that has opened MANY doors for us so far. We were trying to contact a referral, Wellington, and we ended up talking to his mom. We told her about our sunday meetings and the english class. She wasn´t too interested in the sunday meetings but she was super interested in the english class. She invited us in and had us invite her 2 daughters to the class. At the time, Wellington was at school so we didn´t get to meet him yet. Then we talked a bit and said we would return on Saturday when Wellington is home. When we came back on Saturday, we talked to Wellington and he is super elect! He had been to church once with Elder Chavier like 4-5 months ago(?) and loved it. When the elders got transferred, he didn´t receive anymore visits and was shy so he didn´t go back to church. We didn´t even have to invite him to church--he told us he would go and he invited his whole family, telling them how wonderful it is. They all stopped going to church because they were disappointed in many and have doubts about tithing. When we were on our way out, Wellington told us that his mom has some sort of depression and that their family has been going through a lot lately; he said he believes God sent us there because his mom loved us and is really interested--that like never happens (they have had visits from like every denomination--Jehovah´s Witness, etc.). On sunday, Wellington went to church and loved it! He is already integrated with our Ward Mission Leader and we had a lesson with them later that day. The whole family is really receptive and we had a really spiritual experience watching ``Because of Him``--the mom was really touched. As we left, Wellington told us that things have been worse since we got there but he believes it´s because we are bringing a good thing--he basically taught us the law of opposition. I´m really excited for him! 

Also we had a super spiritual experience with the sister, Mariana, of a returned missionary, Evelin. Mariana was once close to being baptized but an inactive member told her a bunch of anti-mormon things. Because of that she still has doubts about the Book of Mormon. On Saturday, we visited Camila, a recent-convert who was introduced to the church by Evelin. Mariana showed up there and we shared a spiritual thought about the atonement. Everyone was in tears and bearing their testimony. Mariana told usw how much she wants an anwser and how she thought, ``Camila got an answer, why can´t I?`` We testified that she could and talked about a lot of related things. Camila bore her testimony, which was really powerful, and told Mariana to have an open heart. It was a really cool experience. I´m grateful for such a good companion, who is already teaching me so much. 

​I realized that I haven´t straightened my hair for like 6 months so it has gotten really long. I´m scared to get it cut because of Elissa´s experience in Peru. Anyway, I might come house as Rapunzel...lol ;)

Thanks!

Sister Bledsoe

nada nada nada

Ok so I got transferred! I will find out my new companion and area tomorrow at the transfer meeting... sad to leave Parelheiros but I´m sure my new area will be awesome too.

This week, we didn´t do much because Sister Mota was still contagious, so we did a lot of reading--apparently the book is Drawing on the Powers of Heaven (not evoking...I tried to translate the title directly...). Also since we weren´t allowed to leave the house to watch General Conference last weekend, the elders brought us a pendrive with conference downloaded onto it, and we watched the sessions on a portable DVD player. It was kind of cool being able to watch conference at home...I haven´t done that for a year. But Conference was soooo goood! I can´t wait for the November Ensign to get here! 

Also here are President Dalton´s rules for goal setting (they are like SMART goals but better): His acronym is DREAMS

 D = Deadline

R = Realistic

E = Etched in Stone ( written down)

A = Always Reviewing (review daily)

M = Measurable (smaller plans and goals)

S = Supreme Being (share your goals with God--prayer). He has done a bunch of professional conferences teaching people about goal setting and he always includes this step and says something like, ``Some of you might not like this step and will not do it, but I will do it and I know I will be more successful.´` This step is heavily tied to the book Drawing on the Powers of Heaven.

He talked about how reviewing them daily makes them a part of who we are because it becomes a part of our subconscious. He talked about his professional experience a lot and his schooling to teach a lot of principles about setting goals. He told us about his dream to go to Harvard when he was a student at a junior college. He said he only told his wife and parents about that goal because no one would have believed that he could get in because he was starting off at a JR college. (one of his rules for goals is that if it is a goal to stop doing something like stop smoking or losing weight, you should share them with everyone because you want their help, but when it is a goal to grow, you should only share those goals with special people and God). He ended up going to Harvard and has been super successful in his professional life (as well as in the church, with his family, etc.), as the president of many companies and turning them into successes. 

Also we had a really good fireside for our ward last night. A brother taught the Plan of Salvation to really emphasize the basic doctrines because of the wuote by President Packer :``The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quickerthan a study of behavior will improve behavior.`´

He first talked about the Lion King. He explained the story--Simba is the rightful heir to be king, but after his father dies and he meets Timon and Pumba, whose motto is ``Hakuna Matata``/no worries about anything, Simba grows up and forgets who he really is. We watched a clip of the movie where when he grows a little older Rafinki brings him to a pond where he looks at his reflection and sees the face of his father. Rafinki says, ``He lives in you.`` Then the clouds turn into the figure of Mufasa and Mufasa talks to Simba and reminds him who he is and what his potential is--he can be king/he is an heir. It was a really spiritual experience watching that part of the film because it teaches a really important gospel principle--do we know who we are and what we can inherit? He talked about Romans 8: 16-17

The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:  And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

And then Revelations 21:7 

He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God,and he shall be my son.

Anyway, I just thought it was really cool that he tied the Plan of Salvation to the Lion King. He also talked about the degrees of glory in a powerful way .He talked about what kinds of Mormons will be in the 3 degrees(these are just possibilities to make his point that our decisions in this life really do matter): those who do not magnify their callings here will go to the terrestrial kingdom, and those who leave the church/reject the gospel/break their covenants will go to the telestial kingdom. He talked about how not magnifying our callings is not living our covenants. He talked about the law of consecration and how we should consecrate our whole lives to this work. He showed the film about John Tanner--watch it if you haven´t seen it yet--Treasure in Heaven, the John Tanner story: https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-07-139-treasure-in-heaven-the-john-tanner-story?lang=eng

Anyway, I am grateful for good teachers and good firesides--how blessed we are to be a part of such a great church. Love you all! 

--Sister Sadie Bledsoe

catapora X_X

sorry this email is so late! today has been wierd...well this whole week has been wierd to be honest. Last Sunday, Sister Mota woke up with a few red bumps and we thought it was an allergic reaction to something so we went to the hospital because she was itching really bad. They gave her an IV but that didn´t help so they sent us home late sunday night telling us to go to the dermatologist. She woke up Monday morning itching even worse, so we went back to the hospital and the first doctor we saw said, ``I have no doubt. You have the chicken pox.`` noooooooo. That morning she probably spread it to half the missionaries in the mission at the mission office...Sister Dalton is trying to warn everyone now but I think there might be an outbreak in the mission....Good thing I had the vaccine; apparently Sister Mota never had that--I think a lot of the Brazilian missionaries never had the vaccine so a lot of them are worried. Sister Mota caught the chicken pox like 3 saturdays ago at a member´s house whose kids had it, and it took 2 weeks until she showed symptoms....

Anyway, this week we were homebound. The elders brought us lunch to-go everyday, and some of the sisters in the ward brought us dinnner/snack a few times.President Dalton has some sisters bring us a book to read, and I really suggest it--it´s called Envoking the Powers of Heaven by Grant Harrison. It talks about using faith to achieve our dreams, and it applies a lot to the work. We also watched a lot of church videos, but weren´t able to go to general conference. President Dalton said that someone will bring us a laptop tomorrow with all the sessions of conference downloaded, so we can watch it tomorrow and wednesday while Sister Mota finishes her 10 days of being contagious.

I really have like nothing exiting to say about my week--just lots of cleaning , updating our area book, and rubbing alcohol(i don´t think calamine lotion exists here) on my comps back...

hope you all loved general conference! I´ve heard lots of good things. 

Love you all!

Sister Sadie Bledsoe

Fè é um verbo!

Hey! Congrats to Elissa for serving a faithful full-time mission! So proud of you and grateful for the best siblings in the world! 

This week was awesome! We had a great training/Multizone Conference--we talked about goals (basically SMART goals) and President Dalton talked a lot about faith. He says that if he could write a book it would be titled `Faith is a verb`--he is really pushing us to do things we never ever imagined/thought of doing. We have to follow the Spirit-- he said ``a positive thought to act is inspiration from God until it is proven on the contrary.`` (that´s a translation so it´s a bit awkward but you get the idea)

Sister Mota, Bledsoe, A. Souza, and Salles (my comp and our roommates)
**welcome to the closet of Sister Salles--we are all wearing her clothes ;)**

 The work is going well here- we are working with the bishop´s family to fellowship Aiton/Claudineia because they live on the same street--we will possibly have an FHE this week, and we hope that we can get them to the broadcast of General Conference. Aiton really has a ton of potential and Claudineia too. 

Then we have Silvana--she is the wife of the family with José who had questions about the Plan of Salvation. José is hard to find at home, but we have taught Silvana a couple times and she is really solid. She didn´t go to church last week because her daughter is special and had to go to the hospital that morning and yesterday she was out of town for family reasons. She is really solid though--we watched the Restoration film with them and she loved it. She also asked about coffee--we taught the word of wisdom and committed her to live it. She drinks 2-3 garrafas(like the coffee makers--those containers-- 2-3 of those) of coffee everyday, but she said, ``yeah, I´ll stop`` with no excuses or problems so far. She still has to get married so that is our goal with her this week. 

We had a cool experience on Saturday--this story starts at the Multizona when I was talking to Sister Thornhill; she mentioned that she ran into a former contact of hers that lives in our area, Helen. She told me to visit her this week. On Saturday, I remembered Helen and we tried her house. She wasn´t home, but we decided to contact her neighbors. One of them was washing dishes but Sister Mota invited her to church through the window. Turns out, Norma had been going to our church when it was a branch in Parelheiros and people were baptized in a swimming pool. She said she really liked it, but she moved and then moved back and in the mix of things, she lost contact with the church. She was really inviting and we ended up teaching her the Restoration that very visit. She is looking for a church--she never felt like she identified with any and she has read a ton of religious books. She want to be baptized, so we committed her and she said yes! Then we talked about the word of wisdom because she brought up coffee. She then confessed that she smokes and has been trying to quit. Her husband quit like a year ago, so she wants to quit too. Before we left, she told us that we must have been sent from God because she has been praying for help to help her quit smoking. I know that Heavenly Father answers our prayers--often times in ways we wouldn´t have imagined. I doubt she was expecting the Mormon missionaries that day, but I´m glad it all worked out the way it did. 

I´m super excited for General Conference--we will invite everyone and really do our part to prepare the way for them to get there! BTW this is my 1st conference in Portuguese--wish me luck ;)

Sister Sadie Bledsoe

grande potencial

BOM DIA! Espero que vocês tiveram uma semana incrível! 

Thanks for all the updates--always love hearing from you all!

This week, we had some really powerful lessons with some less-active members(one who came to church Sunday!) and some referrals. One referral was a family that lives next-door to Mayara, a member who works with us consistently. This family hasn´t been keeping commitments, especially coming to church; however, they stopped going to their old church(assemblia de Deus) and are looking for a new congregation. Mayara has been passing by and following up with them and they just didn´t seem to be having much of a desire. We went into the lesson with the intention of doing a how to begin teaching and possibly drop them if they really weren´t interested. Turns out, Aiton(the dad) has been reading the Book of Mormon, but still has doubts because one of their daughters is super anti-Mormon and that has influenced their interest in really investigating. Anyway, Aiton started asking us a bunch of questions, and we felt impressed to really expound on the things that he was asking. He asked us if we believed that only our church would be saved. I´ve read of responses to this question in books like Our Search for Happiness, and we tried to answer his question to the best of our ability--we taught the Restoration and a large part of the Plan of Salvation because he had many questions about our beliefs about salvation. It was really powerful when we taught about and testified of these truths. Even more so because Aiton is super smart and has many beliefs that have prepared him to receive our message. At one point, his wife cried and said we bring a different spirit into their home and that we make her feel better than any other religious group/denomination. She said that she likes to keep quiet during the lessons, but she has felt something good and we have answered many questions she had and questions that she didn´t even know she had. I was grateful for the power of the Spirit that really touched their hearts. Aiton asked about our families and how we were raised with these beliefs--he said he admires the family unity that we teach in our church, but he commented that it´s pretty much impossible in the busy world nowadays. I felt impressed to bear my testimony that that is far from the truth; it really is possible to have that unity within families nowadays--it is possible and even more than that, God expects that of us. I talked about my family--things my parents did and sacrificed for our family to get where we are now.  We talked about church attendance and how we decided once that we would go to church every Sunday--how that is easier than making the choice every week; he said, ``I wish I had that kind of determination.`` We testified of the Savior and the power to keep the commandments. I believe that if they have desire and if we help integrate them with other ward members, they can really become converted. Aiton has HUGE potential if he lets the desire work within him and goes to church on Sunday; I think he could be a stake president one day.

Things are going well in general. Lots of work to be done! 

Hope you all have a great week!

--Sister Sadie Bledsoe

livre arbìtrio

Another really good week has come and gone! I am trying to make the most of this transfer and we have seen some great things happen! We have been able to teach a lot of lessons in many houses--less actives, recent-converts, investigators, members, which has been an answer to my prayers--we are finding people when they are home! For a long time, that hasn´t happened, so I was really happy.

One cool lesson I learned this week was in district meeting. Our district leader is Elder Cranor, and during his training, we had some extra time, so he suggested we implement the training right then. We had been learning about setting goals--setting realistic goals that really push us. He told us that we had 10 minutes to go out and contact. He asked what our goals of contacts and lessons would be--we said 7 contacts and 2 lessons. We left and began talking to people. I felt like our goals were realistic and helped us keep going. The third or fourth person we talked to was Patricia. She showed interest, and we talked about marriage. She has been wanting to get married, but they are waiting a year to save up money because she said it would cost like $300 reiais ($150). We offered to help, and Sister Mota said, ``What if we told you we could help you get married for free?`` (which we can do here because of our plaques since we are `ministers´or something).Her jaw dropped in shock. She was SUPER happy and we got her address to pass on to the elders that work in Cipó. I was really glad that we had that goal to talk to that number of people because we pretty much met our goals, didn´t feel rushed, and met a really awesome person who had interest in our message. I want to try to make more realistic goals to really push me and keep me going.

We also had a cool lesson this week with Silvana. She has been struggling with having a desire to gain an answer. She had that dream where she was at church, but she is struggling with the desire to follow it because she is deeply involved in her church. We told her very clearly that asking permission for her pastor will not help her(this is what she keeps telling us is keeping her from coming to church--she needs his permission), and that he will never give his blessing because she is paying a lot of tithing to his church. We have been talking a lot about free agency this week with her. She had a question about the Plan of Salvation that brought up a good discussion; she asked, ``Why does God let all that suffering happen in places like Africa where there are kids starving?`` We felt impressed to read some of Alma 14 with her where Amulek sees the suffering of a group of righteous people who are being persecuted(women and children)/being burned to death because of their beliefs. Amulek knows he has the priesthood, so he asks Alma,``How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.``
`` But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in glory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the judgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the blood of the innocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.``(alma 14: 10-11). We taught about free agency--how our choices are a huge part of God´s plan. He will not force us to do anything nor will he impede the free agency of others to answer all of our prayers in the way we want. Sister Mota remembered a quote by President Kimball:
``Could the Lord have prevented these tragedies? The answer is, Yes. The Lord is omnipotent, with all power to control our lives, save us pain, prevent all accidents, drive all planes and cars, feed us, protect us, save us from labor, effort, sickness, even from death, if he will. But he will not. We should be able to understand this, because we can realize how unwise it would be for us to shield our children from all effort, from disappointments, temptations, sorrows, and suffering. The basic gospel law is free agency and eternal development. To force us to be careful or righteous would be to nullify that fundamental law and make growth impossible. If all the sick for whom we pray were healed, if all the righteous were protected and the wicked destroyed, the whole program of the Father would be annulled and the basic principle of the gospel, free agency, would be ended. No man would have to live by faith. If joy and peace and rewards were instantaneously given the doer of good, there could be no evil—all would do good but not because of the rightness of doing good. There would be no test of strength, no development of character, no growth of powers, no free agency, only satanic controls. Should all prayers be immediately answered according to our selfish desires and our limited understanding, then there would be little or no suffering, sorrow, disappointment, or even death, and if these were not, there would also be no joy, success, resurrection, nor eternal life and godhood.``

She summerized what he said, and we testified of the Plan of Salvation. We made it very clear, and as we left, I felt a peace that we had done our part. Silvana knows what she needs to do. We have encouraged her very consistantly, and I felt like we had given her knowledge and our testimonies, but she has her free agency to accept it and follow her answer. Like in the pamphlets, at the end of every one it says something like ``you will have to choose to live in harmony with the knowledge that you receive.``I hope to continue teaching clearly and motivating these people to come unto Christ. I hope that Silvana, and the others we are teaching, can really progress as we continue to teach and follow-up.

Also Moisés came to church for the 3rd time! We asked the elders to ask for his information, since he didn´t want to give it to us. He agreed to a visit from the elders, which is best because he just lives with his aunt who is never home.

This week I also broke my bed, so I slept on the floor a few times... I was hungry one morning and the elders wanted us to walk to their house to pick up money. They live far away and I wasn´t too happy, so I jumped on my bed only to hear a huge snap. One of the side bars of my bed broke in half. We(the 3 sisters I live with and I) just about died of laughter. The maintenance guy told me my situation reminded him of a movie--I think it translates to ``Blind Love,`` where a guy is in love with a girl who is really fat but when he looks at her he sees a really skinny girl. He told me that how I broke the bed is a mystery because it looks like someone with 300 pounds jumped on my bed. The connection was a bit of a stretch but we laughed so hard. It might be all the churrasco(brazilian BBQ) I´ve been eating here in Parelheiros!

thanks for everything! have an awesome week! love you ;)
Sister Sadie Bledsoe