Goiânia!

Hello everyone! I have had a lot of adventures this month and I am excited to share them with you.

April 4

Today, I helped a mom with her missionary son, who is in the hospital here in São Paulo. He is the one I asked you to pray for. He has been extremely sick with Dengue Fever. He also had a mild infection, which, because the white blood cells were wiped out by the Dengue, turned into gangrene and pneumonia. His lungs stopped working and he went into septic shock. The church paid for him to be flown down here, to Albert Einstein Hospital, which is one of the best in the world.

I taught her how to talk with him and give him suggestions of healing to his subconscious mind. She is happy to be able to do something. I also was happy to see her happiness as it affected him positively. I got an email from her, saying:

"[My son's] blood pressure monitor kept sounding, so I went over and talked to him about what a good job his body was doing regulating his blood pressure and it quit going off! And it has stayed off! You are seriously my favorite health care provider right now! Thank you so much! 

While I know that she would never trade me for one of those incredible doctors, it really makes me happy that I can help her. He is slowly getting better!

April 8

Well, it happened again today. I woke up just trashed from a difficult night's sleep. The last few days have been draining, and especially yesterday. . . I looked at my appointments for 9, 10, and 11 and wondered how I would be able to do anything worthwhile for those missionaries. But all three appointments were great! Heavenly Father helped me and carried me and enabled me to say just the right thing to help each one. It made me feel so good to see the light come on in their eyes as they caught hold of who they really are and how much Heavenly Father loves them! And the neat thing is that there is no pattern to it. I say different things every time, things that seem to be coming out of the blue.

The funny thing is that I have to start talking before it happens. The first few sentences I say don't really say very much - then I notice that I start saying something else and I see the missionaries start to pay really close attention to what I am saying. They start taking notes and writing things down. Sometimes, they say "That is exactly what is in my patriarchal blessing." And they start getting excited about the vision of their gifts, or their future, that they have caught.  I think about that scripture, "Open thy mouth and it shall be filled (Moses 6:32)."

April 10- 14

I have been in Goiânia. It is in the interior of Brazil, with wide open spaces and it looks like "Big Sky Country." I was there for zone conference, which I taught on Tuesday, Thursday, (and Friday morning on zoom for missionaries out in Uberlandia).

I also got to do fun things like help get the pizza for lunch on interview days. I taught three different types of classes, which I loved. The mission leaders told me the kinds of challenges they were having in the mission, and I created the classes to fit the needs. Lots of fun!

On Wednesday morning, I counseled missionaries, but in the afternoon, Sister Hancock and I went for a drive of a couple hours out into the country. It was beautiful and green and reminded me some of the mountains of Virginia. And every evening, we watched Korean rom-coms together and talked and laughed. President Hancock thought we were crazy, but we had such fun!

April 20

Now I am back in Sao Paulo and back at work. I really missed the slower pace of life in Goiania, but I am happy to be able to help missionaries. 

Before I end, I would like to share a wonderful story that my friend, Sister Ingrid Jost, shared with me. As she works with BYU-Pathway, she got to see this first-hand:

She said that there was an American missionary in Brazil who was transferred home to a service mission. He wanted to continue serving in Brazil and volunteered to lead a group of EnglishConnect3 students for BYU-Pathway. But they didn't need anyone for EnglishConnect3 in BYU-Pathway for Brazil. So, he led a group in Africa for a semester. The next semester, he again asked to lead a group in Brazil. He was given the best time and day (8 pm on Thursdays), but no one signed up for his class. They wanted to be in the classes of other leaders, whom they already knew.

There was one mission, however, that was starting a new program, in which Brazilian missionaries would learn English. Again, no group leaders were needed - but the senior missionaries coordinating all the groups for the mission needed an assistant to help with all the groups. The assignment was given to him - and he found out that he was being assigned to his old mission, to help his old companions and friends in learning English. One more evidence of Heavenly Father's love! 

Have a wonderful week - and please leave comments!