Letter from 10/17/2016

There are so many hills and small mountains here..my legs are dying! The picture of the doorbells is funny because we passed by this place trying to find a woman SO MANY TIMES and as you can see, many of the doorbells don't even have a house/apartment number to diferentiate. We rang all of the doorbells so many times (for about a week straight) just trying to find someone to open the door....so everyone complained and they wrote our investigators name on her doorbell just because of us:) And the best part? They still complain that we're always ringing the wrong doorbell hahahha! But Michele, the woman that we were trying to find is AMAZING! Long story short: About 8 months ago I was in Areia Branca and I had a dream one night that a recent convert was going to bring a friend to church. It was Sunday morning, so I told my companion that we should ask her when we got to church what friends she had that would be interested in the Gospel, because who knows, maybe I was receiving revelation haha! So around 7:30 am we left our apartment as usual on a Sunday morning going to knock on our investigators doors and accompany them for church. And almost everyone flaked out, ended up sleeping or said they couldnt go to church for some reason or another. We were heading to church when suddenly we heard, "Hey Sister!" It was the recent convert that I'd dreamed about and she was with a friend that was moving to Santos that was staying with her and she wanted to introduce her to the church! I was fairly shocked to say the least and continued to be more and more shocked throughout the day as Michele just embraced EVERYTHING about the church and even decided to pay tithing even though she's not a member. But unfortunately, she was only staying for a week until she could rent her own house  and ended up in another stake, where I sent her address to the missionaries there, but who knows if they ever actually passed by. Fast forward to only 4 months ago when I was at a doctors appt in Santos and suddenly I ran into Michele again in the street! Well, actually she saw me and was so excited. Turns out she'd moved to Jabaquara in the Santos stake. I took down her new address and immediately called for the sisters from Jabaquara to tell them all about her. Alright, now fast forward to two weeks ago when I was transferred to Jabaquara. One day we were looking at the potential investigators list in teh area  book and I saw "Michele- reference from Sister Neal. We tried to find her, but she was never home." Miracle after miracle and guess who we taught this week? MICHELE! She accepted a baptismal date and has some difficulties, and I don't know why, but God wanted me to find this woman. It's amazing and a testimony to me how He prepares who He wants to be in His true church. I love the mission!!!

Sister Neal