Week 19 - Guarulhos, São Paulo - February 9, 2015

You can see the never ending abyss of buildings in São Paulo City from an apartment of one of our members.  I get overwhelmed sometimes at the amount of people in one city!!

The famous bridge in Guarulhos!

Ola Família! Eu espero que suas semanas eram muito boas! 

So many things have happened this week, I do not know where to start! Here in São Paulo we are really needing water.  Especially here in the city.  Right now we are one day without water (having to use our water reserve tank on top of our little house) and one day with water from the pipes.  But it will get worse.  People are saying that in a few months it could get so bad that we will have five days without water, and one day with! WHAT?! There goes taking showers, cooking, washing our clothes, and everything else.  I guess we will keep praying for rain!  It rains a lot here in the city, but not in the places that it needs to. In our mission now we can only have one baptismal service per month per zone because of the water problem.  So, on Feb. 22nd we will be baptizing soooo many people in our zone! It is going to be so amazing!

I have a crazy story to tell!  We were working in an area this week where we don't have many investigators.  We were making so many contacts in the streets and were running into so many inactive members, it was amazing.  We bumped into a woman that was leaving her sister-in-law's house and heading to her own.  She asked if we could walk with her and talk. Perfect.  We were asking her about herself and her beliefs and were about ready to ask her for her address to mark an appointment with her when she started to walk really slow and her eyes started to roll back into her head.  She began to seizure and collapse to the ground. Sister Saavedra and I grabbed her and placed her on the sidewalk.  My companion ran to get her family and I asked a man near by to help.  He got his sister that knew a lot about what to do.  By this time she had wet herself and drooled all over my hand.  I turned her onto her side and we all waited for it to pass.  Thankfully she was breathing the whole time.  When all was well, we brought her back to her house and they explained that she had forgotten to take her medicine that day for her seizures.  We tried to explain to her that God had been mindful of her and sent us to help her that day.  I tried to tell her that there was obviously a reason and that she needed to listen to our message.  She would not buy it and would not give us her address to come and visit her.  She had her religion and would not change. 

We have been trying so hard to have more faith this transfer.  We have been working so hard with our investigators to have them come to church and keep their commitments.  Yesterday none of our investigators came to church but our Heavenly Father did not ignore our prayers.  He did not discount our efforts.  He sent a miracle.  Laura is an old little woman that showed up at church yesterday.  Years back she had studied for four years to be baptized into the Jehovah's Witness church.  Soon after joining, her friend gave her a Book of Mormon.  She could not stop reading for a whole year and also studied the Doctrines and Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price.  She learned on her own and with her friend about Joseph Smith and the Church's history.  Yesterday she decided to finally come to church.  We invited her to be baptized on the 22nd of February and she began to cry.  She has been wanting to be baptized very soon but did not know that she would be able to!  I have never felt such a joy in my mission than in that moment!  I felt that my heart would burst!  This little old woman had found the Gospel of Jesus Christ at the end of her life and she was so happy to find it!  I know that she is such a loved daughter of our Heavenly Father. I love her so much! 

God's work will always keep moving forward.  If I were not here there would be another Sister in my place to testify of Christ.  It is a privilege to be a part of this work.  It is our choice if we want to see the work move forward and if we want to be a witness and grow from all of the experiences that a mission can bring.  My mission has already helped me grow so much.  I am so grateful!  I love you all so much, and pray that you all will have a great week!  Happy Birthday to the twins on Wednesday, WOOHOO 16!!!  And Happy Valentine's Day on Saturday!! 

Love, Sister Cordner XOXO

Our very pretty chapel, we are so blessed here in Palmeiras!