Literally We Were Led

Well like the title says, we were literally led by the Lord this week entirely. Sister C. Silva and I are opening Perdizes A, or where Elders were before. It’s the center of all centers! I am in the true center of São Paulo haha and you know what’s cool??? Remember way back in the MTC where I did proselyting in the street with books of Mormon? Well I came back to where I did it! Yup, I’m ending my mission where I began it :)

Can you see what I see? (the Temple)

Here it’s quite different than any area I’ve been in. There are a lot more homeless people, buildings and I have never opened an area after Elders had been working there so our goal this week was to get to know the members who live in our area which is 80 percent of the ward. Luckily this week we got to meet some great people.

Tuesday we basically just grabbed the map and started walking around in our area that is pretty large. It covers three big neighborhoods, Santa Cecilia, Bom Retiro and Republica. We walked and walked and walked and tried to visit some of the Elder’s investigators, but it was really great for us to get a feel of our area.  Afterwards on the other days we grabbed the members list which is 60 pages and just started writing down names, not knowing if they were active, in-active, gone etc. and we ended up truly seeing the Lords hand amongst us. We ended up visiting a sister who had never been randomly visited by missionaries until us and she got all excited and had us help her with family history :) The others were blessings as well. We found D. who let us in and the first thing she said to us was 'I know, I know! I need to go back to church, it’s just that I’ve been working on Sundays and we were like woah, it’s alright :) So we had a great chat with her and her 15 year old daughter G. who is super awesome! She plays softball for Brasil’s 15 year old league thing and has won a ton etc. It was so fun getting to know them. And you know what was the best part? Seeing them come to church! She wasn’t too sure that she would be able to but they came. I was so happy! We also got to know the Bishop and the ward mission leader. There I played a bit with his kids and now whenever I see them they throw little paper balls at me haha whoops. Also a funny detail is that everyone has made popcorn for us in these visits....so I guess I’m in popcorn Perdizes now :)

I am so blessed to be here with Sis C Silva. We already know each other well from previous divisions so it’s been a blast, especially yesterday when she locked me in our house. Lemme explain. We had just said the prayer to leave and she went to the bathroom to do something real quick so I ran to grab water real quick but she thought I had already left the house so she left and I hear the door close behind me and I ran like crazy and pounded on the door....haha. The door opens and I find her laughing her head off. Then later that day I locked myself in the RS president’s bathroom.....whoops again. I just am not great with doors.

There have been some great contacts and references as well. F. was the sweetest and R. is a part member family who wants to come back! We have been so blessed here in Perdizes. I am so excited to help this ward progress and become more united. Know that I am doing so well even with the thought of how quickly my time is running out. I am super divided cause I want to put into practice everything I have learned here but I also don’t want to leave this amazing spiritual loving environment. But I know the Lord planned everything.

All is well :) Keep up the great work and I’ll keep up the member visits and map using haha. We still haven’t gotten lost yet! Woohoo!

Loves
Sister Oldroyd- who got to give a little testimony at church and talk about how excited she was to work there, then she got to play piano for the RS.

Don't mind the weird branch....he is helping me have an epic picture of the buildings 

of my area haha and my nametag.