Boa tarde Família!

It´s true! It´s true! I´m staying in Campos Eliseos!!! And...with Sister Hoggan! We are SO excited to be here together for another six weeks! Transfers couldn´t have been more wonderful. The two Elders here in Campos Eliseos (Elder Graf and Elder Kimball) are staying here too which will be super great and helpful. And...we are receiving another dupla in our ward!!! Can you believe it? Three sets of missionaries in Campos Eliseos as well. This area is zooming. We will be receiving a new set of Sisteres. We picked up Sister Rodriguez from the rodoviária this morning and she will be living with us in our wonderful apartment with a newbee! Sister Rodriguez will train her here, the best area to start your mission. Sister Rodriguez is from Porta Alegre and is SUPER nice and a great missionary. I don´t know her super well but I have a good feeling it is going to be great to work together here. I love this area!

This week we had lots of miracles and taught lots of lessons. Our area is small so we don´t have to do tons of walking to find people to teach. It is so amazing to be here! This past transfer I have truly gained a love for being a missionary. Every day is wonderful and I can´t wait to go out and teach people. We are teaching two families right now! Marisa and Valter with their three girls: Giovana, Bianca, and Mariana. Then we have Marcos and Vanessa with their daughter. I am so happy to stay here to have the chance to continue teaching them! They truly understand what we teach and now just have to put out a particle of faith to pray to gain their own testimony. These families are very smart and catch on to almost all of the principles that we teach very quickly.

Marisa has a sweet story. Let me tell you: We met her and her husband one night while doing contacts. They were sitting in the street in front of their house. We talked to them for a while that night and they seemed curious about the Church but not very interested in our message. Then come to find out they are the aunt and uncle of our Ward Mission Leader. He called us one day and said that they had called him lots of times to try to meet with us again! Our week was really crazy and they can only meet certain days at night during the week so somehow with lots of committments we could never schedule another time to meet with them. We tried to go back and we talked to the daughter and Dad outside of their gate who seemed a bit lukewarm so we didn´t think it was going to really go anywhere. Then we were just walking down the street one day and ran into Marisa again. She said she had been thinking about us a lot and really want us to come back. We turned around right there and went back to her house to teach her a lesson. She is Espirita and told us a lot about her religion, (which is a super common religion here) and it was very interesting and helpful to learn. Then she told us that that first night we had contacted her, as soon as she went back inside she had a prompting "Go back and talk to them. Try" She said she tried to run after us but we had already sumimos! She had then been trying to get in contact with us the best two weeks but was never able to. Satan has been trying to work against us because he knows this is so right! But we finally did meet with them again and everything turned out great! Marisa told us in the first lesson that she didn´t need to pray to know that the Book of Mormon was true and that she should get baptized because she already did pray and is ready to go! She knews this will bring good values into her family in this crazy world. The rest of her family isn´t quite as gungho as she is but they are willing to learn and are very attentive during lessons. I really hope and pray they keep sticking with them and we can find them em casa mais!

Wow, we have just started teaching them but I really hope they stay firm and continue accepting so well! What a huge blessing. We have been working a lot to try to find those who are elect. There are tons of Brazilians who are willing to let us in and teach a lesson, but its hard to find those who will actually keep committments and progress. This last week was way better and I am SSSSSSSSSOOOOOOOOOO grateful to stay here in this wonderful area.

Deborah came to Church this week! She is progressing great and I am SO exuberantly happy to have the chance to stay here and continue teaching her. I love Debora and her family so much!

Sorry, there is tons more to say but I am all out of time here! It has been a fabulous week. Thanks so much for all of your prayers and words of love. They are working so well and I have been so blessed! I continue to pray for you every day.

LOTS of love,

Sister Marchant

Presidente!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Eu estou MUITO MUITO animada estar aqui em Campos Eliseos! Eu amo esta área demais e amo Síster Hoggan ainda mais. Quando nós ouvimos as notícias sobre transferências gritamos e abraçamos e choramos. Vai ser uma ótima transferência de novo! É uma bênção muito grande ficar aqui e nós estamos prontas continuar trabalhar muito duro e tentar seguir a vontade do Senhor. Nós também estamos muito animadas ter Sister Rodriguez em nossa casa! Ela é bem simpática e vai ser uma outra bênção em nossas vidas. Nós recebemos muitas, muitas bênçãos esta semana, bênçãos demais contar.

Nós encontramos uma família esta semana! Os pais se chamam Marisa e Valter. Eles têm três filhas e todos eles são muito inteligentes e dispostos aprender. Eles estão atentos durante nossas lições e ter muitas perguntas boas. Nós convidamos eles ser batizados na primeira lição e eles aceitaram! A mãe quer isto muito. As filhas e pai têm menos certeza mais ainda são dispostos continuar aprender e orar em fé. Nós vamos orar muito por uma milagre para toda a família.

Nós também tivemos um pesquisador na igreja! Acho que você conheceu ela: Debora? Ela é MUITO chique e esta progredindo rápido. É muito fácil encontrar ela em casa e nós estamos ensinando ela mais ou menos quatro dias por semana. Eu amo ela muito e estou muito animada e feliz ver ela progredir. Nós já tivemos MUITAS milagres nesta área!

Tudo é maravilhoso. Nós estamos saudáveis e felizes. Muito obrigada por tudo que você sempre está fazendo para nós, especialmente sua visita a nossa ala esta semana. Me faz feliz ver você e Sister Brum de novo. Eu amo a missão!

Com amor,

Sister Marchant

Hello there!

These weeks are zooming by! I cannot believe it is already almost the end of this transfer! It has been fabulous working with Sister Hoggan. I hope we never get transfered.

This week we had a neat experience on Sunday. As you know we have been having lots of problems with getting investigators to come to Church. Sister Hoggan and I did a special fast this week to try to help some specific investigators we have been working with have the motivation and drive to attend Sacrament Meeting this week. We had some great lessons and felt the Spirit strong. A few of our investigators promised to come and we were getting excited. We also have been working a lot with less actives and were able to help a few of them get the motivation to come back to Church. After a bit of a funny morning (we forgot about daylight savings time and woke up at 5:30 instead of 6:30! We got all ready for Church and almost left the house before we realized it. Oops!), we woke up one menos ativo (se chama Christiane. She is awesome and has a super strong testimony) to help her come to Church and made it exactly on time. It turned out that none of our investigators were there, and we were pretty beat. But then after the meetings we had this mini meeting with Bispo Fabio (who is absolutely amazing and does everything wonderfully to make our life great! Basically our one and only link to the ward, but a rock solid link). He had written down the names of every single less active/investigator who came to Church today who usually doesn´t come. It turns out there were two teenage girls who slipped in who we didn´t know about, and also two casals who are part member families. Our ward had 6 investigators in total (1 from the elderes) at Church! It was a huge blessing. It came to teach me to never ever doubt the Lord. He works in mysterious ways and will grant unto us every righteous desire that we have. Our prays and fasting may not be answered exactly how we expect, but they will be answered. I truly believe that our other investigators will start coming in the next few weeks as well. The Lord is watching over us.

We also had a neat experience with a new investigator, Deborah. She is our one faithful aluno de nosso aula de Inglês. It has been going on once a week for about two months now. She is super sweet and has a strong Christian background. She used to sing in her evangelical Church and has an AMAZING voice (that means a lot here too because most Brazilians don´t know how to sing much). She basically has been preparing to be a member of the Church all her life because she doesn´t smoke or drink and is married and wants to pay tithing. When she was younger  (like high school age) she said she didn´t fit in very well because she wanted to have good standards and not have tons of boyfriends. People like Deborah are hard to find! She is a very special soul and I know how much the gospel can bless her life and her family.

I have felt the Spirit super strong this week. He has really led our lessons and helped me to know what to say when I do not know. I few times this week Sister Hoggan or I have opened to a scripture or asked a question that we hadn´t planned beforehand that the other was thinking about saying in the same moment. It is so neat to see the Spirit work strong in our lessons and planning. We are loving serving together and learning a lot. I feel a lot more confident and bold after this transfer and can see my Portuguese improving little by little. I love being a missionary! Campos Eliseos is the best area in the world.

Love you forever,

Sister Marchant

P.S. A few of you have sent me some poems that are really great. Thanks so much for your extra time and service of thinking of me with funny poetry.  :)

Olá Presidente!

Estas semanas estão apressando demais! Não acredito que já seja a última semana da transferência! Campos Eliseos está muito bom e nós estamos trabalhando com felicidade todos os dias. Sister Hoggan é ótima e uma bênção grande em minha vida. Eu tenho aprendido muitas coisas dela inclui como ser mais ousada e feliz em todos os momentos. Ela é uma missionária muito boa e muito dedicada. Espero que eu posso ensinar e trabalhar mais como ela.

Esta semana tivemos algumas lições muito boas. Temos estado estudando sobre o Espírito Santo muito esta semana e eu realmente posso ver o poder do Espírito muito mais. Eu posso reconhecer os sussurros do Espírito mais e acho que isto está liderando nossas lições melhor. Sister Hoggan e eu somos muito unidas e tínhamos ideias semelhantes em muitos momentos. Eu aprecio a importância de seguir o Espírito mais agora e quero ter este poder comigo por minha missão inteira e depois. Nós podemos ter muitos esforços e poderes com o Espírito do Senhor em nosso lado.

Tudo mais está bem e tranquilo. Nós duas somos saudáveis e fortes. Nosso bispo, Bispo Fabio, é absolutamente maravilhosa e está ajudando todos os dias. Tinha muitos mais pessoas na igreja esta semana graças o trabalho dele combinado com nosso com menos ativos. Ao trabalharmos juntos, eu posso ver muitos milagres na nossa ala. Temos muito trabalho fazer! Temos muitas pessoas visitar e estamos muito ocupadas. Eu amo esta obra!

Um abraço,

Sister Marchant

Hello minha amada família!

I am loving this place so much! There are a lot of challenges but the people are so good and friendly and the work is so worth it. Our new bishop, Bispo Fabio, is especially amazing and on top of things. He is working with us really closely and helping out a ton with the work. He is always going on visits to see people in the ward (yesterday we ran into him twice while he was trying to visit the same people we were:) ). We had almoço at his house this week and he gave us four references after the lunch message (one of which was Adriana (see below)). He also showed us lots of his old papers and lembranças that he kept from his mission because we asked about how it was before Preach My Gospel. Wow, it was a very different missionary world. It is really fun and funny to see him go on and on and remanise on all his missionary days. It reminded me of Dad. I hope to be like that some day. We have a ward mission plan now where we are working closely with the leaders of each organization to find pesquisadores and menos ativos to teach. There are always too many people that we want to visit that we can´t get them all in. It is a great problem to have.

We had a great lesson with Iara this week about the Plan of Salvation. We have to teach her kind of basic because she has very little Christian background, but she is always eager to learn and listens intently to all of our lessons. I can always feel the Spirit strong there and feel like I am fulfilling my purpose. I love Iara and her cute little family and truly hope they will start keeping more commitments to work towards baptism. They have a date but didn´t come to Church this week again so we´ll have to change it. One thing that is interesting to me is how so many people are not accostumed to prayer. Almost all of the people we teach will not pray the first lesson, are really reluctant to pray, or do not know how to pray. Brazil is a very religious country but yet prayer is still not something most people are willing to do in front of others. I am very grateful to have been taught since era criança to pray often and to pray fervently. It is making all the diference for me as a missionary now and I depend on speaking to my Father in Heaven so much! Prayer WILL bring miracles. So Iara has always tinha MUITO vergonha to pray but this week when we were going to start the lesson she said "Eu vou orar hoje." She offered and even offered at the beginning! We were super excited and hope that this means she is praying lots on her own as well. She is very timid and has a crazy past that makes it hard for her to change, but we love her so much and will continue to work a lot with her to help her see how the blessings of the gospel can improve the quality of her life forever.

We have been talking a little bit about General Conference already and I am counting down the days. It is so much more exciting now and I can hardly wait for Abril to get here. Conference should be the very beginning of not next transfer but the one after. Having current real prophets is such a huge blessing in the earth today and I cannot wait any longer to hear them speak!

I love you all tons! Always remember how wonderful our Heavenly Father is and how much He is willing to bless us. I am learning to be patient and happy in adversities as well. Remember that must of the things that will make you frustrated really are not a big deal or will pass. Everything is going to be alright! We have the truth and are on the winning team! I love the good news of the gospel with all my heart.

Love you forever,

Sister Marchant

Ola Presidente!

Sister Hoggan e eu estamos trabalhando muito bem juntos. Tínhamos uma boa semana com algumas lições muitas especiais. Era um pouco difícil esta semana porque nós estamos fazendo nosso melhor e fazendo tudo que nós sabemos para que nossos pesquisadores vão a igreja e progredam, mas eles não estão guardando compromissos. Vamos continuar trabalhar com estas pessoas, porque muitas delas têm muito potencial. Nós estamos amando estas pessoas mais e mais todos os dias, e nós desejamos a salvação e felicidade deles. Espero que o evangelho vá mudar suas vidas.

Nós tivemos uma experiência muito especial esta semana com um rapaz que esta começando preparar-se servir uma missão. Ele se chama Lucas e a mãe dele se chama Adriana. Ela não é um membro e sempre era mais ou menos contra a igreja, mas esta semana ela falou que ela quer ler o Livro de Mórmon, ir a igreja, e considerar sendo batizada! Lucas claro está bem animado porque faz muito tempo que ele tem estado esperando para isto. Nós tentamos algumas vezes este fim de semana mas não tivemos ainda a oportunidade ensinar ela. Nós falamos com Lucas uma noite esta semana muito sobre a missão e tão maravilhoso é. Ele parece muito animado continuar preparar-se sair. O Espírito foi muito forte, e eu estava MUITO feliz e animada para ele e sua família. Espero que tudo vai continuar melhorar em sua vida e que ele pode desfrutar todas as bênçãos do evangelho. Eu amo estas pessoas muito!

Nossos estudos estavam muito melhor esta semana também. Nós estamos planejando nossos estudos melhor e eu estou aprendendo mais coisas mais eficazmente. Durante nosso estudo de companheirismo nós sempre praticamos o convite batismal e planejamos por nossos pesquisadores com práticas. Isto está ajudando muito e embora seja difícil as vezes, eu gosto e quero continuar. Eu ainda só espero que nós tenhamos mais tempo para estudar! Eu AMO estudar.

Em geral esta semana foi normal e feliz.

Obrigada por tudo!

Sister Marchant

Hello Hello!
Phew! It has been a busy week. We are running around like chickens with our heads cut off. There are so many people to teach and visit! It is such a wonderful problem to have. Unfortunately, no one is really progressing right now, but we have taught a lot of great lessons this week and are talking to TONS of people. We have a few really great investigators that would be ready for baptism if they just came to Church. We will continue to work hard with them and the ward and hopefully they will have to desire to visit and see the difference in the only true Church of Jesus Christ.

We did some neat service projects this week too. One family in the ward (Irmão João e Irmã Marlene) was moving across town and their son (Irmão Tiago e Irmã Fabiana) moved into their old house. Don´t worry, they are both still in our ward, they just now have a nice upgrade (one even has air conditioning:) ). We helped them move out of the old and into the new. The second family lived in an apartment on the fourth floor...Let´s just say those escadas were a trial in my life. I don´t know how many times we went up and down, but we did a lot of great work! It was fun to see so much support from the ward come together too to help each other. We finished super fast. My leggies are a bit sore today but it was totally worth it. I want to go to every service project after the mission that our ward ever has! They are so fun.

Our ala de inglés was also way fun this week. Sister Hoggan and I taught parts of the body this week. We sang heads, shoulders, knees, and toes together. It was awesome to see all of these adults singing and dancing to head, shoulders, knees, and toes with thick Brazilian accents. That must be how they all think of me to listen to me talk in Portuguese! I am really enjoying teaching this class.

Speaking of which Portuguese is going great. I can understand almost anything and think this language is just beautiful. We have had some good language studies this week and I am beginning to learn the little details of grammer that aren´t really the basics anymore. We are supposed to study the language every day of the mission until the very end. I am excited to really become fluent and to learn all the little picky details about Portuguese. I know the gift of tongues is real and that God is really helping me a lot. I was a little nervous about the language when I heard I would be with an American companion but things are really going great and I am still learning a ton. I am SO grateful for the chance to learn a new language and culture. This is such a wonderful experience unlike any other I have ever had or will ever have. What a blessing it is to be a missionary in Brazil.

Love ya,

Sister Marchant

P.S. I bore my testimony for the first time in Sacrament Meeting this week. It was short and sweet and about the Atonement of Christ, that we can perservere and overcome with the guidance of the Holy Ghost any trial that comes our way. The Spirit is so real and will help us to understand more of what the Atonement means for us personally. Testimony Meetings in this ward are great! A swarm of members always gets up at the very beginning and you have to go fast if you want a chance to speak. There are no silent pauses here! Luckily I was playing the piano like always so I was already on the stand and could sneak over real quick to get in line in the beginning. I love this ward!

Oi Presidente,

Isto foi uma outra boa semana. Foi um pouco mais difícil e nós estamos bem cansadas, mas nós trabalhamos duro e estamos felizes. Estamos tentando trabalhar mais com a ala também. Falamos com mais ou menos cinco pessoas para sair conosco e ensinar, mas tudo caíram. Porém, ainda tivemos algumas lições boas, especialmente com recém conversos. Estamos começando ensinar algumas pessoas da área dos Elderes de Campos Eliseos (incluindo recém conversos) porque eles não têm muito tempo no campo. Estas lições foram maravilhosas. Eu amo ver quando um pesquisador ou membro aprende alguma coisa nova e finalmente faz sentido para ele quando estamos ensinando. Isto é uma de minhas partes preferidas da obra. Eu amo ensinar a verdade!

Nós também ajudamos com duas mudanças esta semana. Foi muito bom e nos sentimos muito úteis. É legal ajudar pessoas em maneiras diferentes e ver todos os aspetos de serviço. Depois da missão eu quero servir em qualquer  maneira possível em minha ala. Nunca aprecia antes a  diferença podemos fazer em nossas próprias alas quando nós servimos e levantamos onde nós estamos. Eu nunca tenho que parar ser um missionária e ajudar onde eu mora.

Obrigada  por a entrevista e o treinamento! Nós estamos aplicando os ideias melhores para estudar e estamos vendo um diferença grande. Eu AMO estudos e agora estou aproveitando melhor.

Obrigada,

Sister Marchant