Week 23 - Jardim Celeste - Because I am on a Mission

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Well, nothing bad happened this week. this week flew byyyyyyy!

Our zone has been having a lot of trouble this transfer, so Presidente flew in some spies! I was sent to Villa Sonia on splits Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday! So I missed almost the entire week here in Jardim Celeste! But I returned Friday night and we just hung out at the church and ate pizza that some of the members bought for us! (Even the members missed my presence for 3 days). After the pizza, we went back to our routine of cleaning the baptismal font. Because guess what? It was stopped up again! But this time was still full of the water from the baptism of João! So again, we spent 3 hours emptying the water out with buckets in an assembly line and emptying it into the toilets in the bathroom!

Saturday foi perfeito, perfeito, perfeito (it was perfect, perfect, perfect)!!! The baptism was exactly how she imagined it and that we were wanting it to be. Her entire family came and there were so many people and support from the ward e os membros! She was so scared when it was time for her to enter the font with the bishop that she started to cry. So what do you do when an 8 year old who has never been in a pool or swimming before or even a bathtub starts crying and refusing to enter.. you sit on the ground with her and make her pray to ask her Heavenly Father to take away her fear. And then you sit there and watch her stand up, take the hand of the bishop, and enter into the water.

Sunday, she was confirmed a member de A Igreja De Jesus Cristo Dos Santos Dos Últimos Dias e recebeu o Dom do Espírito Santo pelo bispo. Her dad walked her to the front and the ward was in tears to see him back in the church for the first time in 3 years. The spirit was so incredibly strong once again. After sacrament meeting her mom hugged us in teras thanking us for saving her family and helping them get back on the right path. And this is why I’m serving the mission of The Lord.

Continue praying that everything goes well this week for this Saturday’s batismos!

Have a good week, love y’all!!

Week 22 - Jardim Celeste - Having Done All, To Stand

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This week was so EXHAUSTING!!! But honestly every week is. I just wanted to start off to say that we literally rocked this week.. in the most humble way I can put it.

Joao’s baptism was perfect. LITERALLY PERFECT. The entire room was in silence and tears as Pastor pulled him out of the water. I don’t think anyone even breathed during that moment. The spirit was so incredibly strong and powerful, Joao’s cried in the baptismal font with Pastor and it was like the world just stopped. Time stopped. No one breathed, talked, nothing.. not even the primary class we had.

(funny note: we went to the church early in the morning to make sure everything was good, found out the baptismal font was stopped up because it hadn’t been used in quite some time. spent 2 hours trying to unclog it, but instead we just filled buckets up with the water and dumped the water into the bathroom sinks. When we were almost done, we prayed that everything would work out. Then we continues breaking our backs trying to empty the water. We had an idea to test the water to see if that even worked, so we turned on the water to fill it up and what do you know.. the water starting draining back to normal and all was well.)

On top of that, we had 18 investigators come to church yesterday! One will be baptized Saturday and I’m even more excited than ever before! She’s is absolutely the cutest!!

Our family that we’ve been focusing on has been progressing fastly. They are all set to be baptized on the 26th! Their parents can’t be baptized yet because they aren’t legally married. The biggest, most annoying thing about Brasil. No one is legally married, which makes our work difficult. But on the bright side, we’re working on their wedding as well!!

The members in this ward are amazing. I’m so in love with this area and all the people here! I’m actually just in love with the mission and our work. Transfers are this coming Sunday, but I’m almost positive President Del Guerso will leave us alone here because of our success and feedback from the ward. I really hope so!!

So I studied a lot this week about missionaries. We are literally representatives of Christ here. We were called to take care of the area that we are in. Jardim Celeste, Sister Oliveira and I were called by The Lord in revelation give to our mission president to be the hands of Christ here and take care of every person living in our boundaries. To act as if we were Christ Himself acting, and to respond as if it were Christ Himself responding. What an honor and what a responsibility.

As we’re thriving in success right now, we’re remaining humble. We didn’t do anything here, the Lord did it all. We know that. We know we are nothing and we know that in all we do, we need Him. I’ve learned to fully rely on The Lord with all my heart and strength. And with that, I am made strong.

com amor,
Sister Bido
Ephesians 6:13-17

Week 21 - Jardim Celeste - And of Some Have Compassion, Making a Difference

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Gente!!!! WHAT A WEEK pela madrugada! A lot happened and went on, which is good.

Yes Mom, I received the package but either someone robbed my sunscreen or you forgot to send some.. :( either way, THANK YOU FOR THE PACKAGE!!!!!

So my highlights from this week. We were walking in the street contacting referências. I looked across the street and saw a girl staring at us that obviously was homeless. Sister Oliveira and I decided that we wanted to talk with her. I looked back at her and smiled and she smiled at me and then ran away, running barefoot on the side of the street. I pulled Sister behind me by the hand and chased after her. We crossed the street and caught up to her! As we started to get close to her she stopped running and turned around and ran into me and hugged me!!!! Then hugged Sister Oliveira. We talked with her and it was obvious she had a mental problem and I felt so sad. She had a baby but was taken away from her and she showed us a stash of grocery store adds and newspapers of pictures of babies she had found and kept because she is looking for her baby.. but we’re almost positive she is (I forget the word but it’s when you hear voices and have people talking to you in your head). I asked if she had already eaten lunch but she couldn’t make up her mind if she had or not. So we took her to the bakery so she could eat bread and ham. She was content, but then had to leave to continue looking for her baby.

Then the same night we were walking through a part of the area mais sketchy towards our house when we heard someone screaming "MISSIONARIAS". It was a woman sitting on a bench crying, drunk, wanting us to let her stay the night with us because she didn’t want to stay on the street another night. We gave her O Livro De Mormon and talked with her about changing her life and that we’re here to help, because that’s all we could at 9:12pm. We said we would meet here in the same spot the next morning at 9am. But with this woman it was different. I didn’t feel sad for her and I searched in my heart for the sorrowness and guilt I wanted to feel for her, but I didn’t.. and on our way home I didn’t understand. Sister Oliveir wanted to call o bispo and ask what we could do and see if she could stay there with him, but I said no.. I wanted to say yes, but it didn’t feel right.

The next morning we arrived at the bench and waiting an hour for Zilda.. she never showed up. So we left, and kept walking. Instead, not far from the same street we saw a little girl holding a baby sitting down crying and had O Licro De Mormon beside her that was a little ripped and so dirty. It was the one we gave Zilda. The girl Samara, said she saw a woman throw it down so she picked it up. She’s 14yrs old and the 1 yr old baby is hers. Yesterday she came to church with us and we started teaching her entire family last night. I don’t think it was a coincidence that I felt wrong about Zilda. I think The Lord put her in our path so we could find Samara and be able to help her and her family. I’m sure of this, absolutely sure of it.

I’ve been studying Christ-like attributes and my heart has opened so much more. I’m also learning how to rely fully on the Spirit. We really have a purpose here, every one of us missionaries in every area we go in. At times we go and leave and never know why, other times the why slaps us in the face. Either way, I love being a missionary and helping these people here. Every person that walks by us in the streets is going through something in their life and has problems or trials. The one thing we all have in common that we cannot live without and need to survive, is the love of Christ. And this is why we’re here.

com caridade,
Sister Bido

Week 20 - Jardim Celeste - No More Mold

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Olááááááááááááááááááá!! This week was an especially good one, and an especially interesting one.

So Terça-feira, Sister Oliveira received special permission to go and enter the temple! While we were there waiting to enter (because we arrived 2 hours early), we saw the missionaries from the Sao Paulo south mission exiting! So we got to meet the mission president and his wife and talk with the missionaries. they even took a giant group mission foto with all the missionaries, so Sister Oliveira and I snuck in it! We’re right smack dap in the front! So mom you might see a picture of me on your moms page from a different mission.. hope you enjoy it! :) But after the temple, we ate subway and headed back home because the session ended late. But it was a marvelous experience.

Wednesday the president came to our house, and saw that we had an old refrigerator in the garage. He told us we needed to clean it up or throw it out. IT WAS COVERED IN MOLD. So I asked if we cleaned it out if he would fill it with food.. and he said YES. So we did, but we only had 30 minutes to do it.. so we dumped bleach everywhere, scrubbed and scrubbed and I hung the inside parts on the clothes line to dry! It worked!

Later that night when we returned to the house, Presidente called us and was outside with his wife with 13 bags of groceries. Ice cream, tapioca, oranges, cereal, 5 cartons of milk, peanut butter, cookies, I don’t even remember what else but it was a lot. A lot for a house of 2 missionaries to have in the house at one time! So it was a milagre com certeza!! We literally jumped up and down screaming and crying tears of joy!!!

Sexta-feira was when it got interesting. It rained a monsoon and the city FLOODED! Sao Paulo is dirty, everyone knows that. So when there is water flooding the streets, it picks up all the poop and trash and diseases and the nastiest things you can imagine with it! Well as we were caught in the monsoon, we saw one road that wasn’t completed flooding that we were going to walk on to get back to our house. As we were walking a huge garbage truck is coming, its tires splashing through the water and it basically looks like a tsunami of a blackish muddy river coming at us. So what do we do? We look at each other and scream and start running away as fast as my chacos would let me. The sight of a title wave of Sao Paulo water coming at me was enough to make me pee my skirt in fear. But I didn’t. Instead, the truck was obviously faster than us and yes were hit by the diseased watery flood. Then walk home in water above my knees to our house and showered.

Sunday was better! In church we had 3 return missionaries talk and it was so cool! Then we had lunch with the stake president and his family and it was sooooo good. And of course has a buffet of ice cream afterwards! On our way to the house last night it rained a monsoon again.. so Sister Oliveira looked at me and I looked at her and we both knew. We put away our umbrellas that weren’t helping us at all and just let the rain soak the 3 inches of dry clothing we had left! The saying of let it be took affect as we just let it be.

Now, No I’m not using bug spray but I really do need to start. we spray this rely strong bug repellent on the doors and windows in the house every day. But there’s so much talk about diseases from the favela because of the dirtiness there that’s spread by the mosquitos. And since we’re working in the favela that’s something I need to do! But this was my week for yáll!

com amor,
Sister Bido