Sao Caetano Do Sul

Recycled pic from last time.  What could be better than Elder Andrew, his companion, and PIZZA!

Dear Family,

It's good to hear that everyone is staying busy! That's exciting to hear that you guys are preparing for trek again. Trek was an awesome experience, I grew a lot spritually and it was a great way to meet new people. Everything here in São Caetano is awesome. The ward here is about the same as the ward in Planalto. We have a lot of really good members and they are all really good at receiving (welcoming) the people we bring to church. Yeah, our bishop is a Chileno and yeah, he has a different accent, but he's lived here in Brazil for a good amount of his life so his Portuguese is flawless. 

This week we had a lot of good experiences. We have been working a lot with Wesley and his family. The only problem that we have with them is that Wesley's mom Sandra talks a lot, so it is really hard for us to teach, because we don't get that much of a chance to speak. Other than that though, they are progressing well. Sandra said that she already believes that our church is true, but she still hasn't been to church yet, and she still doesn't know if she should be baptized or not.  We invited her to pray and ask God if she should be baptized, so we'll see next time we stop by there. Wesley wasn't able to go to church because of work, but his little brother Renan came to church with us and he loved it!

We had another cool experience this week with a family where two of the kids are baptized but inactive. We stopped by the house this week hoping to present ourselves to the family and leave a little message with them. We only got a chance to talk with the mom, Rosangela, and a daughter, Twany, who are not members.  We found out that one of the inactive daughters, named Thais, who is moving back to that house is having a really rough time and having problems with self-infliction and depression.  We were able to offer a message about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how Christ can help us with the problems and difficulties in our lives. We invited them to to go to church and to pray and read the scriptures as a family to help support each other in their hard times.  Thais went to church on Sunday and the ward was so good and welcomed her with open arms. 

This week I also had the chance to go on another division (split) with Elder Iorg in his area to do some baptismal interviews for their investigators. It was a really cool experience and I learned a lot. Elder Iorg helped me a lot with my teaching skills.  He told me that I am too worried about the things that I want to say when instead, I should be worried with what the people we are teaching are saying.  It's so true, because if I just talk at the people I'm teaching like some sort of speech, they're not gonna listen.  People rather will more likely remember the things that they say rather than what I say. It's something that I hadn't realized before, and now I am trying my hardest to incorporate it in all of my lessons. 

Other than that, my district is doing well.  I have two sets of sisters and the zone leaders in my district and I was able to give my first training this past week.  It went really well -- we practiced teaching investigators who have problems with accepting the Book of Mormon as scripture, and accepting that we have a living prophet today.  My district is really great and I look forward to working with them in the future. 

Well that's basically all the highlights from this past week. I just want you all to know that I'm doing great, and I'm loving it here in Brazil, and I'm loving the fact that I get to serve the Lord for these two years. The Church is True!

Love,

Elder Schwartz

Sorry, no (new) pictures. I forgot my camera :(