Cate Mission Weekly Letters

Boa tarde!!! Well, transfer news came in this morning and after 3 transfers running the social media here in the mission, I am getting transferred to a new area! I am so sad to be leaving the social media work as I have seen so many miracles and gained a stronger testimony of the plan that God has for each one of us. But at the same time I am so excited to see what these last three months have in store for me!! This week, we were headed to the mission office in an uber. We were talking with him and explaining how we are missionaries for the church. He asked us where we were from and when I said the US, not even kidding this man did a full 180° turn around (while still driving) and said "you're from where?!?" I then confirmed that yes, I am from the United States, to which he said, "are you married?" And no, I am not. The follow up question was, "then, will you marry me?" So that is the story of how I received my first marriage proposal. The miracle thi...

Olá boa tarde galeira, tudo bem? This week was so amazing! We have really been struggling to find new people to teach in our area this transfer, but this week we found three new friends who are already progressing! One of our friends, Júnior, we found through sending an email. Missionaries in Brazil generally get lots of media referrals from sites like Come Unto Christ. But a lot of times these people get contacted once with a text message and then nothing else after that. Well, this week we were going through our Area Book contacting these people again and Júnior's phone number didn't work, but we noticed he had also included his email address. We decided to send him an email with our phone number, and he responded!! It was so cool, I have never had that happen. We got his phone number and started teaching him. He told us he was having a really rough week when he saw our email, and he doesn't think it was a coincidence we got in contact with him. God really is in the detai...

Happy Monday everyone! This week we had a Mission Tour and Elder Koch from the Area Presidency of Brazil came to our mission! He and his wife gave a few trainings throughout the two days that are really going to help me improve my teaching.   One thing that really stood out to me was he talked about how repentance is more than just a change in our behavior, it is a change we make when we choose to have faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, recognizing that because of Him, we can change our character!! Our message as missionaries is a message of happiness, and we feel that happiness when we choose to accept Christ in our lives!  I also love mission tours/zone conferences because that means I get to see all of my friends from around the mission! We had a couple awesome lessons with our friend Anderson. He is seriously so close to baptism, the only thing holding him back is that he wants to come to church in person but is currently in Rio de Janeiro buying a car. We are p...

Boa tarde!!! We had another awesome week here in Valinhos! We got to walk and deliver a Book of Mormon to one of our new friends, Daniel! I contacted him through Facebook and shared a scripture from the Book of Mormon with him, and he wanted to learn more! It was so cool to get to go and see a new part of our area. Our COVID restrictions are still super tight, so typically I don't see much of anything but our chapel, the apartment, and the mission office. And our area is HUGE. Let me tell you, I didn't realize it until we walked over an hour and still weren't even at the end of it. We also had awesome lessons with our friends Anderson and Nilza who are so close to baptism! It has been a really awesome experience teaching them and watching their testimonies in the Restored Gospel grow! I also found out this week I have the cowboy accent of Brazil. My first companion and some of the other missionaries in the office are from the interior of Brazil so they say things a little d...

Boa tarde galera!! A member brought us Nutella, which makes pão de queijo 10x better. And French toast. And just about everything. Nutella is really expensive here, so it was super awesome that this member bought some for us! This week was pretty great! We put our friend Rita on date for August 14 and our other friend Anderson is so close to baptism. We taught him the Word of Wisdom and he has such a strong desire to quit smoking and drinking coffee. I have faith that he will be able to do it! We did a lot of contacting this week too as our teaching pool has gotten progressively smaller and I had some awesome experiences that really strengthened my testimony of the power of the Holy Ghost. This week we were taking an Uber to the mission office and the subject came up that I am not from Brazil (as it usually does thanks to my awesome accent). When our driver found out that my companion is from Brazil and I'm from the US, he said, "Wow, that is just the most beautiful thing I...