Um grande Mudança

Yes that’s right! We moved!!! Two weeks ago today Sister Labadie and I woke up and found more worms in the shower, and we about had it. We have tried every product and raid thing on the face of the earth... nothing. We were killing so many every day, but the next day- there would be more! So we called our Presidente, and he told us to move! Hoorah!! And I think the Lord wanted it to happen too because it was so incredibly easy to find another apartment, 2 minutes away, close to the church, less rent, 100 less Rais (that’s like 50 less dollars) to pay for energy, and its BUG FREE!! CLEAN AND NEW! It is amazing.

So this morning we got up super early, and we started moving. We had 3 men in the ward that helped us, and luckily we really didn’t have too much to move. At the end of our move we unfortunately opened one more drawer that we hadn’t opened yet in our house and found... like 10 pairs of old, old pants, shoes, smelly socks, and sheets that I don’t think where washed in 6 years. The stench was horrible... and I just laughed and laughed... oh elders. They never threw anything away! I don’t know who they thought would use these things! Shreds of fabric really... horrivél!! (ohh-heee-veil) (that’s how you say it in Portugues)

So anyways, we got all moved into our little new apartment. Yes. We are so excited... afterwards we took a quick little shower, and to our excitement, we found..... 1 worm!! ha-ha... I died laughing. All that moving and still worms... but no, this apartment is really, really better, and the shower is different so I really don’t think the worms are a problem. It was a different kind of worm so I am not too worried.

But anyways this is exciting. We are continuing to work really hard, we had a challenging week but still taught a lot. We have three women set for baptisms this Sunday- Michelle, Yvonne, and Pollyanna. These three women are amazing- Michelle and Pollyanna were 2 street contacts, pretty incredible how we found them. We are continuing to work with Carol, and praying that soon this boyfriend of hers can just move out! ahh!

Anyways, I am continuing to learn and grow as I am pushed. I am so grateful for the chance that I have to share my testimony everyday. The gospel is so wonderful. I am trying hard to learn and apply the principles of the atonement more and more in my life. It is such an incredible thing we have, to learn and apply this force in our life!

I love you all, thank you all for your support and love, take a shower barefoot for me... or just walk barefoot. I forget how it is!

Love
Sister Felony Monroe

PS. I almost forgot- two things. One, I ate raw meat. It was disgusting, I don’t recommend it. We had to though, it was at lunch and it was considered a specialty. It was like a dip kind of thing, you dip a raw onion in the raw meet. Nasty!! It was horrible....and the other funny thing, apparently I have been talking in my sleep in portugues. And I also laugh in my sleep. Sister Labadie gets a kick out of telling me what I say the next morning- and every time we use those words the next day we end up laughing so hard. The favorites have been "vamos ver" (we go to see)and "passou." (passed)

I ate a granola bar!!

Yes, it’s true... I ate a granola bar. We found them in a little farmacia here, I almost died. It’s the green kind- you know the Nature Valley? It was soooo good. And someone who I love a ton sent me reecees peanut butter cups. Sister Labadie and I saved them and ate one or two every day.... so it only lasted a week, but it was soo great. I am not going to lie, these days I have a hard time remembering what kind of food I use to make and eat, but when I tasted these American foods I remember HOW MUCH I LOVE AMERICAN FOOD.... Just FYI. I was excited.

Oh yes, and I know some people had questions- my companion Sister Labadie is American. She has 2 less months than me, and we have been together for 3 months now... I think it is crazy to see how different my mission has been from my brothers. He has had a new companion like every transfer... Meanwhile, I am hitting almost 2/3 of my mission and I have had a whoppin 4 companions (one of those being in the CTM...sometimes we don’t even count that!) It is so crazy to see how the Lord has a different plan for each and every person here in the mission field. It’s crazy to read about my brother’s experiences and know that we are seeing a lot of the same things, but many different things. I am in a waay rich part of Brasil; and these past few months I have even had to teach in English to 3 or 4 people. It’s crazy... that is pretty hard to do, but as long as I don’t have to pray in English I am set... praying in English is pretty much impossible. It’s so hard. But yeah, I am pretty sure that my Portuguese accent is horrible, my brother will have to help me out after the mission :)

This last week was really great- we worked really hard, but it was kind of uneventful... but we worked so hard... there were a few times where I almost didn’t make it through my nighttime prayer I was so exhausted. It’s a really great feeling though, to know that you are trying your all and you have no more to give. Sister Labadie also told me the other day that I talk in Portuguese while I sleep....ha-ha.

I just wanted to talk a little bit about the power of hymns... Sister Labadie and I have really been singing a ton these past few weeks. When we make street contacts, a lot of times we try to sing a hymn for them... we sing at least 15 times each day, more or less... but it has been so powerful. There have been so many times where we meet someone, and they don’t want to hear anything, they don’t even want to hear us sing, and they are negative... and we always insist... no it will be really fast, it will be great, you will love it... and then we sing... and then they change. It’s so great to see! They always want us to come back, and many times they invite us to come in and teach them. It is such a contrast... and I know it is in the power of the hymns, they are so simple, and yet so powerful because they help people feel the spirit. That changes everything!

We are still teaching a lot of great people... We will be helping 2 families get married this week hopefully. One is Patricia whose kids were baptized the past month or so, and she has been trying so hard to convince her boyfriend to get married, and they are suppose to be going to the cartorio today to start the process... we are stoked! We also have another family we are going to help get married; they have a lot of problems to overcome, cigarettes, alcohol, so we will keep pushing because only the gospel can change people. But they have a willing heart, which is the most powerful motivator! We also are teaching Carols parents now, which is way exciting... Carol is still waiting for her boyfriend to move out... if it was up to us we would have packed his bags a long time ago... but this is where I am learning patience and the timing of the Lord :)

Anyways, we are doing great here! We are eating a ridiculous amount of fruit as always, rice and beans, and I am happy, and pretty excited to sleep a little bit this afternoon. At the beginning of my mission I never understood why missionaries would sleep on PDay... Now I know why... that last sentence took my 3 times to get right. English grammar is so hard.

Ok Well I am off- I love you all!!! This letter is pretty much unexciting, but I hope it finds each of you well, give a pass along card to someone today, our presquisadores are giving them to people- they aren’t even baptized and they are sharing the gospel! And we who are members, we have this responsibility! Share it with someone today!!!

Beijos!! Sister Melanie (felster) Monroe

Sister Monroe, Danielo and Lia just before baptism, and Sister Labadie

Feliz Pascoa from the land of Chocolate Eggs

Happy Easter!! It wasn’t until yesterday that I realized I have never written what people do for Easter here.... I don’t know how I forgot because I have never seen ANYONE celebrate Easter like this. Its crazy... basically its an excuse to eat a lot of chocolate, no problem for me!! About a month ago people started making these giant, giant, chocolate eggs, and they fill them with more candy, and more chocolate... and they are basically amazing. In the grocery store they have aisles and aisles of chocolate eggs of all different sizes, and with all different sorts of fillings... some are only 5 inches tall, but others are huge- like 11 or 12 inches! Ginormous!!

The Relief Society had an activity to learn how to make them, and people have been making them like crazy. It was really cool because Sister Labadie and I EACH got like 3 huge Chocolate Eggs. And one of them was the biggest thing of chocolate I have ever seen in my life. They are expensive too-so we couldn’t believe it. Way nice of the ward here. They are so good to us! They also make way good truffles here in this ward... yeah lets just say that Sister Labadie and I are glad that Easter has passed because we really don’t need all of this chocolate. We have started running more in the mornings.... which means that instead of running a lousy 10 minutes, we run almost 20 minutes... the sad thing is that it nearly kills us... I just keep telling myself that I really am in shape because we walk all day- I am in walking shape- I tell myself, just not in running shape anymore. I have no idea if it is true, but what can you do.

Anyways, that’s just some fun news, but as far as the real news- we had an awesome, awesome week this past week. We had a surprise baptism- and this is a way cool story. About 2 months ago we were walking on the street, and we passed this really tall, big Brazilian. He looks like a football player. Well anyways, we passed him, and then about 2 seconds later Sister Labadie and I both looked at each other because we felt this huge thump in our heart. Sister Labadie was already starting to talk to someone else, and she said, well go talk to him, so I turned around and started running. Well I caught up to him, and talked to him a bit, got his address, and set up an appointment. Well after that we always tried to teach him, but he was NEVER home... we literally passed by his house like every day, and it was only one time in the past 2 months that we taught him.

Well this past week we had a bunch of lessons fall through, and as we were walking on the street, praying about what to do, Sister Labadie said to me, let’s try Douglas...I said, “He’s never home but sure let’s try again.” So we walked down to his house, and he was home!! He said he was having a bad day, and so we gave him a Book of Mormon, and sang a hymn with him and taught him. He was completely different at the end of the lesson, and thanked us for teaching him. We set up to visit him the next day.

So the next day we went to visit him, and he was soo different. He had a huge smile on his face, and asked us, what do you guys do to celebrate the 22 of September? uhhhh Sister Labadie and I looked at each other... trying to fathom what could possibly be this day… and then Douglas said, well, its the day that Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith and told him about the plates.... and he started to tell us the whole history about Joseph Smith. He had such passion in his voice, as he asked us to teach us everything we knew about the church, as he told us he knew it was true, and he wanted to read all day all of the Book of Mormon. Sister Labadie and I taught him and taught him, and just felt so overwhelmed by the spirit.

It’s so incredible to see how people are prepared by the Lord. Douglas had already gone to the church in another part of Ribeirao Preto for several months many years past (I am translating all of this back into English by the way… that’s why my grammar is horrible at times... just FYI ) But anyways, he never really felt the power of it... but this time, the timing was right. He had never liked to read until this week, but he said now his life has completely changed. He practically begged us to be baptized as soon as possible. And as soon as we set a date for the baptism he began counting down.. He was so excited.

It was an awesome baptism, Danielo baptized him!!! It was so incredible to see this recent convert of just 5 weeks baptized Douglas.. it was like David baptizing Goliath. ha-ha... it was a bit hard. But Douglas was way excited because he thinks that Danielo looks a little bit like Joseph Smith. I don’t really see it... but sure. Douglas was happy! Douglas even bore his testimony in sacrament meeting and it was so simple, but super powerful... so now Sister and I are trying to talk him into preparing to serve a mission.. He is only 20 so we will see what we can do! The first thing Douglas wants to do is help his family come to church. His mom came with him to see his baptism, and was very touched... so we will see how that goes.

Anyways, I have blabbed on long enough here, we are still working with our other pesquisadores- they are coming along here- with Carol and Patricia... we are praying that they can be baptized soon, they both want to be baptized... we just need Patricia to marry, and Carols boyfriend to move out... so yep, that’s coming along.

Oh yes, one last thing. We had transfers! Sister Labadie was sure she was being transfered, she had her suitcases packed and everything. But pretty much all the ward members have been praying for the past week that we wouldn’t be transferred... and so transfers came... and went! We are staying here! wahoo!! We sat with Lia and Danilo when we called, just like we did our last transfers, and we all anxiously waited to hear the news, and we all celebrated to know that we would be here 6 more weeks! Yeah!!!!

Entao... that’s only some of the news about how it’s going waaay down south here, but its time to wrap this up! I love you guys and I am soo grateful for the letters, prayers, and thoughts. I got some great letters this past week and they came on a day I was really, really, needing them. So thank you soo much for thinking of me! I felt so loved!!

Happy Late Easter!! I love you all!!

Beijos! Sister Melanie Monroe

obs- Can you believe I have been here 10 months!! Ahhhh!!

5 is right out

Anyways... that’s a quote from Monty Python... not so sure why I thought of that now. But anyways, this week flew by, and so I will do a little list of alguns coisas that happened this week-

1. General Conference- so amazing! We got to go to it on Sunday, 4 hours of sitting! Wow... I am not going to lie, that was kind of nice! Ha-ha. But it was so incredible to sit there, and see these inspired men talk. I had never noticed it before, but these apostles have such great light in their eyes- they are so pure and so powerful! It was awesome because I sat next to our pesquisador, Carol, who unfortunately couldn’t be baptized this past weekend, but she just looved conference. She got goose bumps as she saw President Hinckley for the first time- and asked me to show her where Salt Lake City is. She is setting a goal to save up money so one day she can travel to Salt Lake City to see conference. Wow... can you imagine the sacrifice that will take? She is so incredible.

2. In another news, I think it is getting hotter. I didn’t think it was possible, but I find it ironic that it is suppose to be fall here... but meanwhile it is raining less, and I am burning more.

3. I think some time of bug is going around for sure. My brother Mike was sick last week, and so was my companion Sister Labadie. We had to spend half a day in house... which was really weird. I spent the time reading and trying to help. It was weird to have extra time to read.

4. Oh yes, one day we were trying to find an address, and this old grandma, Avo, asked me if I was the MOTHER of Sister Labadie. I must be aging a lot on my mission... But I didn’t know I was looking that old! Sister Labadie tried to comfort me afterwards by telling me the avo must have been a little bit blind... yeah... we had a good, good laugh about that. Sister Labadie tells me it’s because I am taller. Height does seem to be associated with age many times here in Brasil. Por que? Eu não tenho idea nenuma.

5. We had some incredible miracles happen this week- We have been praying and praying for months now that Bobby could have a dream about the gospel. He comes to church all the time now, but he is an espirito... oh brother... which basically means he believed in reincarnation, and a load of other ridiculous nonsense. But he has been starting to change. And this last week, he told us he had a dream- where he heard voices talking about the Book of Mormon, that it is symbolic. So now we are telling him he needs to pray about baptism... it was such a great thing to hear though- to see how our prayers are answered, with consistence and patience. He is an incredible man, it is so sad to see him so trapped with 32 years of false teachings- he really does desire to know the truth, but unfortunately the teachings of man are so much easier to accept sometimes. But he is progressing, and we are praying that he can have another dream very, very soon.

6. We are also working a lot with Carol; she is having a really hard time with her ex boyfriend. She told him to leave, but he wont leave... which makes it hard because Carol cant be baptized until he leaves... which makes it really hard for her- because she is doing everything in her power to make him leave. So we are praying that this can resolve this week.

Anyways, we keep pressing forward here. I feel so blessed to be on a mission- I can’t believe that 6 months have already flown by, I was remembering my last general conference here in brazil- and how big of a headache I had after conference from trying to understand it in Portuguese. It went a lot better this time, thanks to the gift of languages :) I love Basil so much! Everyday I am overwhelmed by the beauty here- and how much the Lord loves the people here. I see it everywhere, and I am amazed to see how the Lord puts prepared people in our paths everyday... Yay for Brasil!!! Eu amo!!!

Entao, acorde e convide alguem para ouvir o mensagems do evagenlho. E tão importante e vai mudar a vida duma pessoa- eu sei com certeza!
Eu amo cada um de voces!

Com amor e muitos beijos-
Sister Melanie Monroe