Week #42 - Florianópolis - Episode #11 - A Brazilian, Colombian and an American

So this week was transfers and now we are in a trio... should be pretty interesting haha. A Brazilian, Colombian, and an American. If anyone thinks of any jokes let me know! haha. The Brazilian is Elder L. Ferreira and he was in the CTM with me. He is a good guy so it should be fun.

Another week that flew by...

This week we continued working with the group that we have made until now. They all have so much potential it is incredible. 

Wednesday we had a great lesson with a family. Their names are D, L, and the son is named W. We had a lesson with them a couple weeks ago but they have been busy moving. They had read the chapter that we had left them (Alma 32) D had read more! We had a great lesson about Alma 32. Now they just have to get legally married like almost every family we find lol. 

Last week I talked a little about a guy named JP but this week we got to teach his whole family! Parents and 3 kids, and they are legally married! The American families here met them because this family owns a restaurant called Texas Burger and the Americans invited them to english class. We invited the whole family to church and they committed to going but sadly yesterday only the mom went. But she said she loved it so that´s a start! 

This week I gave up on calling the Filipino lady but Saturday morning at like 8:30 I felt like I should call her. I said a little prayer and convinced myself that she would answer (miracles happen through faith). She answered!! I was so happy. She said she wasn´t answering before because she didn´t recognize the number... and sometimes I would call like 4 times in a row and she would hang it up every time lol. So it really was a mini miracle that she picked up the phone. I invited her to an activity that night and she came! We will visit her and her husband (who she´s not legally married to ;(  ) on Wednesday! 

I am excited to stay in this area and I know we will have success this transfer. I am so grateful for this incredible opportunity to serve a mission! I have learned so much about so many different things. I have really learned to love meeting new people and getting to know their stories. It really is incredible. I love you all!!! Have a great week!

Sempre fica firme, forte e feliz!!

Elder Scheer

Week #41 - Florianópolis - Episode #10 - Long Johns in Brazil?

What´s up everyone!! So this week got pretty chillyyyyy. I never thought that I would use long johns in Brazil but I was wrong haha. The cold is different because it´s a humid cold so you feel wet + cold and it´s just not very enjoyable. Wet shoes don´t dry and wet shoes = wet socks and feet.

 First off the bad news is that I have literally tried calling that Filipino lady 3 times every day this week and she didn´t answer :( and she didn´t go to church. She really be playing with my emotions (smh) But I made the rookie mistake of not getting her address... 

English class got us 2 solid investigators this week!! 

The first one being JP. JP speaks solid English, but more importantly is looking for a path to follow. He is 19 and  6´4´´ 230. He is really open and really smart. We had an awesome lesson about the Restoration and he said it gave him answers to a lot of his questions. I´m excited to watch him progress!

Second is Victor. He is 18 and also looking for a path to follow. He opened up to us during our lesson that he doesn´t really believe in God. He finds it difficult to believe there is a God, that if He is extremely loving, how can so many terrible things happen in this life to good people. We explained about the Book of Mormon and invited him to read Alma 32 and to really talk with God. I have so much faith that he will gain a testimony.

Thursday was President and Sister Silva´s last conference. It was super good and I will miss them! One thing that stuck out to me was when President was bearing his testimony and said, ´´I am not better than anyone, I am not smarter than anyone, I don´t know more than anyone, but I am paying the price. If I died now, I would die happy.´´ He has truly dedicated his life to the Gospel and is a great example to me.

Today a member made cinnamon rolls for us!!! Best thing ever. 

I love you all so much! 

Sempre fica firme, forte e feliz

Elder Scheer  

Lunch with Sis. Kellen

So happy to get to eat cinnamon rolls!

Last Conference with Sis. Silva

Week #40 - Florianópolis - Episode #9 - Happy Memorial Day!

Happy Memorial Day everyone! I hope you are all enjoying a great day off! I´m thankful for all of those who have fought for our nation! Keep them in your prayers!

This week has been super great! Just the rain that has been really annoying. I remember when I liked rain at the beginning of my mission.....hahaha

Anyway we have had some great lessons and are helping our investigators progress!

Daniely is 14 and is waking up her parents every Sunday to go to church! Her parents are members but her mom didn´t want us to pressure her to get baptized so we are going to finish the lessons and then talk to her parents about a date! 

Miracle of the week: We had just finished teaching a recent convert at the chapel when a Filipino lady showed up asking if someone speaks English. I started talking to her and she said that she has been here in Brasil for a year and she just moved here from another state. Her entire family was baptized in the Philippines and she started going to church and wants to be baptized! Nothing like someone walking up to you saying they want to be baptized. It really puts a smile on your face as a missionary haha. Anyway we will start teaching her and her husband this week! 

Also the Americans that moved here have started teaching English for free every Tuesday night so we are telling everyone and hoping that it works as a great finding tool!

This week I have been studying Chapter 3 in Jesus the Christ which talks about why we need a Savior. I have always known Christ´s role in the Plan of Salvation but I learned so much. God gave us complete free agency which means He will never force us in anyway to choose bad or good. Because of the fall, we are all subject to temptation everyday and make mistakes. Only through a perfect sacrifice sin was overcome. And through His resurrection death was overcome. I have a huge testimony of Jesus Christ. I know that He suffered for us and that He lives. I am so thankful for the scriptures and other sources that we have to learn more about Him and I recommend you
to read this chapter! 

I hope you all have a great end to the holiday weekend! Love you all!!

Sempre fica firme, forte e feliz!

Elder Scheer

Week 39 - Florianópolis - Episode #8

Another week comes and goes! Shout out to the PV volleyball team for winning state!!!!!!

We didn´t have a ton of progress with our investigators this week but some great experiences as always...

On Wednesday we got to visit Dayane for the first time which was the lady that just randomly showed up to church last week. We showed up and just started talking to her and her son waiting for her husband to get home. When he walked in we just thought, man this guy is def an atheist and is going to be hard to teach. Haha but I really learned not to judge because when we were teaching he was one of the most focused and sincere people I have ever taught. We asked him why he thought there were so many churches today when Christ established one when He was here and he replied basically reciting the apostasy section from Preach My Gospel. It was awesome. This family has so much potential and I am super excited to continue teaching them. 

Thursday we had a lesson with Daniely. We taught the Plan of Salvation and the Spirit was strong. At the end we asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said yes! But then her mom (who is a member) got mad at us and started saying that we were pressuring her and that she wants her daughter to know for sure that this is what she wants to do. I was just thinking, why in the world are you stopping your daughter from being baptized when you have a testimony? haha. But sometimes you just have to put yourself in their shoes and see their perspective. So for now we are going to continue teaching her and see what happens.

On Saturday we were visiting our surf investigator, Devan and he is really struggling. He just recently got divorced after 20+ years with his wife and he is super sad. We taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ but he wasn´t very focused. He tells us that he is super grateful for our friendship and he actually reads the Book of Mormon every single day for an hour which helps him out.

At night we visited a family where the mom is a recent convert but stopped going to church and the dad isn´t a member. Their 18 year old daughter ran away recently with some guy and it has been super hard on them. We talked with them and then left a message about trials and Jesus Christ. We shared Matthew 11:28-30. I told them that I have no idea what they are passing through because I have never gone through anything even close to this but that Jesus Christ knew exactly what they were feeling. Not only that. but He is there to take this feeling from you. Alma 34 talks about how the atonement is infinite and eternal. which means that it covers everything we can imagine and more.

I am so thankful for these humbling experiences. When I was saying my prayers at night, I was thanking Heavenly Father for the opportunity to meet these people. I felt the Spirit say to me that He visits people through the missionaries. It may seem kind of obvious. but it hit me really hard that everything I do as a missionary really needs to be through the Spirit because Heavenly Father wants to talk to His children through me, and through the Spirit He tells us where to go and what to say.

On Sunday it rained super hard which means people decide that sleep is better than church so that ,was kind of sad. but it´s all good. I had the opportunity to teach Gospel Principles about repentance and we discussed a lot about how through repentance, we can progress every single day and become more like Christ.

Have a great week! Love you all as always!

Sempre fica firme, forte e feliz!!

Elder Scheer

Week 38 - Florianópolis - Episode #7 - Swan Dive!

I hope everyone had an incredible Mother´s Day!! Thank you to all of the mothers that make life possible!

Also a huge shout out to PV volleyball for taking Region this year! Everyone go support them this week in State!

Not a ton happened this week but a few awesome things...

This past Thursday I had the opportunity to interview an African from Ghana for his baptism. He doesn´t speak very much Portuguese so I got to do it in English and it was a super spiritual experience. It was incredible to see how great his desire was to follow Christ. I asked him if most of the people in Ghana are like that and he said yes. I think that is so awesome! They are naturally humble because of their circumstances and always have to trust in the Savior. Sadly many people who aren´t forced to be humble reject Christ because they feel like they don´t need Him. We always need to remember to humble ourselves no matter what our circumstances are and rely on the Lord. We really are nothing without Heavenly Father and could never get back to Him without Christ. 

Saturday was Guillerme´s baptism and it went super well! I really liked a story from one of the member´s testimony: During a flight a plane entered high winds and when the pilot announced that they would experience strong turbulences everyone became a little uneasy. A women realized that a young boy next to her didn´t seem nervous at all and just continued drawing as he was before. She asked him, ´´Aren´t you a little nervous?´´. The boy responded smiling, ´´I trust the pilot, he´s my dad.´´. All of us will face challenges in our lives but as long as we stay optimistic and put our trust in God, we will always come out of the difficulties as a better version of ourselves. 

On Sunday one of our investigators, Vanessa finally went to church! We were so happy! Also a lady showed up with her son and said that she went to church once in another city but moved here recently and wants to come every week so we are super excited to start teaching her this week!

The subject is swan dive because on Friday during district meeting I left the room and I tripped on a step and just embraced it and gracefully slid 5 feet on my chest like the good ´ol volleyball days hahaha.

I love you all and have a great week!

Sempre fica firme, forte e feliz!

Elder Scheer

Week 37 - Florianópolis - Episode #6 - Para Para Paradise!

You know you are in Paradise when you are in a lesson sharing what you love with others and you can hear the waves crashing on the beach. 

This week was pretty good! We didn´t have nearly as many lessons as we were hoping for, but the lessons we had went really really well.

One family that I have already talked a little about is João, Paulina, and their daughter Danielle. The parents and their older children are all inactive and Danielle isn´t baptized. Last week we had a super good lesson with them but they still didn´t go to church the next Sunday, so we were super bummed. So this week we went back and taught them and it was such an incredible lesson. We read 2 Nephi: 31 with them and taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ. João was super involved and talking about how he know he needs to repent and stuff. Then he says´´We are going back to church, you guys rescued a family.´´  We were so happy. And then this Sunday they didn´t show up to church during the first hour (church starts with Priesthood/Relief Society and ends with Sacrament Meeting) and we were really bummed. But they showed up an hour late and we were so happy. They were received super well and loved church. I love this family so much!

On Sunday we taught a lesson to the couple Alexandro and Vanessa on Alma 32 and how we have to act and nourish our faith so that it can grow. The Spirit was strong and at the end he told us that the message was very clear and he knows what he needs to do with his life. Elder Montero and I have started to be more direct with people and the Spirit is always so much stronger.

We can feel the desire in the ward changing and we are hoping that we can really help the ward to be better. I know that there is nothing that brings more happiness in this life than the Gospel. I have never felt more happy than after a great lesson or when someone new comes to church. Pure joy comes from Christ. 

I love you all as always! Happy Mother´s Day to all the wonderful moms out there. This world wouldn´t exist without you!

Sempre fica firme, forte e feliz!

Elder Scheer

Some day.....

Conference with Sis. Neill F. Marriott

Week 36 - Florianópolis - Episode #5 - Tex Mex in Brasil = felicidade

Hello everyone.. another great week!

So Tuesday our mission received a visit from Sister Marriot (2nd Counselor of Young Women Presidency) and her husband. They were super funny and her talk was really good. She talked about her conversion story and how the Book of Mormon was really how she gained her testimony. It is so important to get our investigators reading the Book of Mormon as soon as possible so that they can feel the Spirit when we aren´t with them. She also talked about the importance of praying with ´´all the energy of heart´´ (Moroni 7:48) and out loud. I have started putting a lot more energy into my prayers and I have felt a huge difference.

This week we had a super cool experience going out with a couple from our ward who is actually the ex bishop. They picked us up and they were planning on taking us to visit one of their friends but when we got in the car they said they felt like we should go visit a less active/ part member family that we visited once. We agreed and when we got there and were talking with them,  the mom, Paulina, told us how earlier she had knelt down and prayed for God to show her a light and she knew that´s why we were there. It was so incredible. We taught the Restoration and gave the daughter that isn´t a member O Livro de Mormon. We are way excited to work with them.

Also this week we had another lesson with our surfista investigator and he went to church Sunday and liked it!

This area really feels a lot like SoCal. The hardest part is to get people to go to church because they would rather sleep or go to the beach.   

Everything is going well with Guillerme and he is still good to be baptized on the 13th.

Big news: Found a Tex Mex food truck and I had my first burrito in 8 months!

Well that´s pretty much the main stuff from this week. Love you guys!!

Sempre fica firme, forte e feliz!!

Elder Scheer

Pic with my 'son' and 'grandson'