Miracle Baptism First Week in the Field

Hey everyone!!!!

First week in the mission. Wow. Not what I expected at all! It´s been a lot harder and humbling than I thought it would be. The first few couple days were really hectic!!! I left the MTC and took two metros and a bus ride to Sao Jose dos Campos (about 2 hour travel). My companion has only been in the field for 3 transfers, so she was really scared about being a trainer and having two americans in the same area. The next day we had a zone meeting, so I met all the missionaries in my zone. Everything of course in Portuguese and even though I feel like I´m understanding everything fairly well, it was hard to keep concentrated. After that we went around to houses of investigators and recent converts and just my luck not one person was home and it started pouring down rain. Man it was really hard not to get discouraged. After about 4 hours of that we had to travel back to Sao Paulo because I still didn't have my official documents we stayed the night with some other sisters and then went to the Polizia Federal the next morning with everyone that I got to the MTC with. It was good to be able to see my MTC companion and all the familiar faces from the MTC!!!! Anyways all the details aren't important. The important thing is that we were out of service for 2 days and when we got back to our area it was hard to get in contact with all the progressing investigators. It seemed like all of their lives where falling apart. One family wanted to get baptized but the parents had to get married first. They had a wedding planned for this month and now they decided to cancel. One family is going through a really hard time because they live in the back of their grandmas house, but she doesn't like us or them and she keeps telling them they have to move out. We kept visiting them everyday this week because they had a baptism planned for Sunday, but come Sunday we called them about 20 minutes before sacrament meeting and they said they weren't coming because they didnt have clothes, but my companion explained that it wasn't about clothes it was about their desire to serve. We thought for sure they weren't coming, but GOD ANSWERS PRAYERS!!! All I could do was pray for them!!! And about 10 minutes into sacrament they walked in the door, and were baptized later that day. Miracle really!!! In the family there are two boys Adriano and Alan and their mom Ivette, their Dad died a few years ago. They both are really really funny and its amazing how much I´ve gotten to know them in 3 days!!!! The baptism was really really awesome. We had a great show up from the ward. The ward here is amazing we have lunches EVERYDAY and theirs so much support and love!!!! It´s great. Anyways even though its been hard I know Heavenly Father has been blessing me and I know that if I work hard and try to be perfectly obedient I can be a happy successful missionary!!!! 

Sister Bruno

Sister Deseret

Hola Familia
Spanish not Portuguese...oops

Well I made it to the Brazil MTC...Def different than Provo, but so far so good.  I'm grateful to here...It takes one week to get letters here. so you should prob send them straight out to the field!  Anyways hope all is well.  Don't forget to write emails, letters, etc. Oh yeah I think I have to change my name from Sis. Bruno to Sister Deseret because there are so many people (men) here named Bruno...Anyways. Love you all!

Desi

Hitting the Mission Field on the Run

Ola!!!!! I just got to my mission. Right now I´m in the mission office. I just met my trainer Sister Waite, American, and found out my first area!!!!! Sao Jose Dos Campos Morumbi!!!!! She seems really cool. Not sure anything else because I still havent traveled there yet. Its a 1.5 hour train ride away!! I was really really sad to leave the MTC because I made such good friends with everyone their, but I´m really really really excited to be here :) My companion told me that we have a baptism on Sunday, so I´m pretty excited for that. Last month they had a total of 197 baptisms in the mission. I´m excited to jump right in!!! My last week in the CTM was CRAZY!!!!! We went proselyting in the middle of the city, that was such an awesome experience!!! On Tuesday at devotional I bore my testimony in front of EVERYONE, that was pretty cool, and then on my last Sunday I gave a talk in my MTC branch. It was a really good experience because I really felt prompted by the Holy Ghost in what I needed to say. Orientation for the field was crazy as well because it was all in Portuguese and I could understand most things that I paid really close attention to, but after a little while it got really hard to keep paying attention to all the fast portuguese!! Some days I feel like its really easy to understand and talk, but some days I feel like its impossible.... funny how that works. Hope everyone is doing really really really good!!! I hope your all being member missionaries and inviting people to church and to take the lessons from the missionaries. I know you are all probably really busy but write me (at least emails) once in a while..... Ok??????!?!?!?! Desi

Loving Sao Paulo CTM

Hey Everyone!!! I made it safely to BRAZIL! It's so awesome here. I left the Provo MTC on a last week on a Tuesday. I traveled with about 10 other missionaries going to the CTM here in Brazil. Some from the Provo MTC and some new! I loved it. I finally felt like a real missionary because I talked with a lot of people about the church and about their lives and I gave out 6 pass along cards. I gave out my 3 and my companion's 3. And when I got the the Sao Paulo MTC I had a conversation with actual Brazilians and I was able to understand almost everything they were saying. The one thing I couldn't understand is when they were saying LADY GAGA. hahahahah it was funny. Everyone here is SO nice!!!! It really is their culture. I've already made so many friends here in the CTM. I have Brazilian roommates and they are so awesome and hilarious. Sis. S. Santos and Sis. Lima dos Santos. Here in Brazil if you have a really common name they make you put your first name abbreviated or other things like that. I don't know if you got the letter I wrote, but Bruno here is a really really common Male first name. I've already had 2 elders come up to me and tell me that my last name is their first name, and I get a lot of laughs when I introduce myself. It's always pretty funny. But, they might make me change my name to either sister D. Bruno or sister Deseret. Which one do you think is better? Anyways I have now had a total of 5 companions in the last 8 weeks. I got a new companion last week, Sister Campbell who is one week behind me, but they put us in the same district until my district leaves and then shes going to be in a Brazilian district, and today another sister, Sister Villaroman joined our companionship because her companion left today! They are both really really nice sisters and both hard workers. Yesterday, we all went together out into the streets around the CTM to do some proselyting for the first time. We had no clue what we were doing but it was a really good experience we got to talk with a lot of Brazilian people in Portuguese. Didn't know everything they were saying but I knew enough to give them Book of Mormons and teach them a little about the church. It was scary but exciting and awesome all at the same time. Today we went to the temple. It's soooo beautiful. It has really unique features inside which I love!!!! The food here... big surprise SCARES me. The only thing I enjoy eating is the beans and rice hahaha. Everything else is really strange. A lot of meat. and the desserts are scary to. A lot of questionable jello. haha. Anyways I hope everything back home is going well!!!!! Sister Bruno