Exploding grandma; Going to miss Sister Dangerfield; Teaching Gabrele at the pensão

Hello my dear family! How are all of you doing?

Life is great for me! What a great wonderful fabulous week we had in Santa Cruz do Sul!! I have decided I REALLY love being a missionary in a trio! It is so great! This week I think I laughed more than I have laughed in my whole life...on the streets, in our apartment, during planning... Sister Dangerfield and Sister Ferreira and I had a lot of fun. Haha, just one example: so on Friday night as we were planning, Sister Dangerfield started to tell a story about an airplane exploding...but instead of using the word for airplane "avião" she used the word for grandma "avó". hahaha...I kind of assumed what she had meant, but when I saw the shocked/concerned look on Sister Ferreira´s face as she imagined a grandma exploding in flames, I couldn´t help myself and burst out laughing :) It was funny. We also had some amazing teaching experiences together...some of the best lessons I´ve had on the mission. I loved it all!!! And, like all wonderful things, it went way too fast... :(
Yup, tomorrow is transfers. And Sister Dangerfield is going to leave us :( :(
I know that by now I should be used to transfers and companions leaving and everything....but I´m super sad! One transfer was way too short! I really am going to miss Sister Dangerfield...she is so quick to love and to serve and she makes life so much fun...and her testimony brings the spirit immediately to the lesson. It´s not going to be the same in Santa Cruz.... :(

BUT! I´m super excited for a new transfer in Santa Cruz do Sul!!! This city is so wonderful....and did I tell you that the members are AMAZING??!! We had so much help from the members this week. Daniel and Priscila came with us on Monday to help us with the young couples that we are teaching and then on Saturday night Daniel and Tatiana (another couple from the ward) invited us for dinner at their apartment with Cristiane and Guilherme. I was nervous that Guilherme wouldn´t come...he is so timid sometimes!! But with a lot of persuading we got him to come. The dinner was perfect! Guilherme really liked Daniel and they talked and talked and talked... We had planned a lesson to teach, but we didn´t even need to worry because Daniel had it all taken care of. We watched a "mormon message" with President Monson talking about the things that matter most and then talked about the gospel and how it helps us have stronger more loving families. It was perfect!! And the best part....after dessert (no that was not the "best part" that I was talking about) as we were leaving the other Daniel called us and asked if he could help by picking up Cristiane and Guilherme for church the next day. :) I love this branch!!

Do you remember Gabriele, the 19 year old girl that we met at the bus stop? Wow...she is amazing! Gabriele studies and works 2 jobs so it is hard to find her at home during the week...but this Saturday we were finally able to teach her. She lives in a pensão (a house with 10 other girls) so we were teaching her in the main living room area. It was such an amazing lesson...I don´t know why but the Spirit was so strong! I´ve never felt it so strong during a lesson on my mission. We gave her the Book of Mormon at the beginning of the lesson (different than usual...normally we give it to them as we are finishing the 1st lesson) and the minute she had it in her hands she opened it and started reading. Really reading! Like she was super interested and excited to find out what was inside. We taught the message of the restoration of the gospel, and like I said...the spirit was so strong. The words just seemed to flow naturally and easily...and I was feeling so happy! And then, as we were just finishing testifying about the Prophet Joseph Smith and inviting her to pray to know for herself if these things were true....out of nowhere the landlady burst into the room! She ran in yelling and screaming with her hands waving in the air "Right now! Get out! This is not a Church this is a pensão!" !!! It was crazy!! She was shouting and talking a million words a minute. We calmly told her that we were sorry and that we would leave and quickly ended the message and left. It was funny though....as we left I realized that, in a normally stressful and awkward situation, I was feeling amazingly happy and calm. I couldn´t stop smiling! And as we walked, Sister Dangerfield and Sister Ferreira and I talked about what had happened, and we realized just how much the Lord had guided that particular lesson. The Spirit had been so strong and we had just enough time to teach the restoration. We had even been able to give her the Book of Mormon and explain about it before the lesson....it was all perfect!! I really really liked Gabriele too...she really seems to be looking for something in her life. I know that we´re going to be able to teach her again....we´ll just have to find a new place next time. Or convert the landlady first :)

So! It was a great week :) Santa Cruz is becoming beautiful....the flowers are starting to bloom and the streets are getting freshly cleaned and painted for...OKTOBERFEST!!! :D
And our district is getting ready for the dedication of our new chapel. It´s so beautiful!
Good things are coming ahead!
Life is great! I love you all!!
Love, Sister Jamie Gee

Dia do Gaúcho! Now in a trio! The gospel gives us so much peace!

Oí Família!
Hello! Sorry for not writing yesterday. We couldn´t use the internet because it the 20th of September is a huge holiday here in Rio Grande do Sul...Dia do Gaúcho! I love it when holidays fall on P-days....we got to watch the horse parade (awesome!) and visit the beautiful cathedral (the tallest in all of South America) and eat ice cream in the plaça. It was kind of nice having everything closed...we didn´t even have to worry about shopping or using the internet! I´m pretty sure it was my first relaxing P-day on the mission :)

So do you want to know the most exciting news of the week? We are now in a trio!!! Last Saturday Presidente Pavan called us to tell us to set up a new bed and rearrange the apartment for a trio, because a new sister was coming to work with us in Santa Cruz...and that she would be here Monday morning! Sister Carine Ferreira is from Novo Hamburgo and was serving a mission in the Bahia (north-eastern Brazil), but had to come home for a minor surgery. She stayed in Novo Hamburgo for a few months and now she´s going to work for a transfer in our mission until she goes back to the Bahia on November 8th. Awesome, huh? She is so fun and is was great to have a real gaúchan to celebrate Dia do Gaúcho with! Haha...she even taught us the Hino da República yesterday morning..."foi dia 20 de setembro...precursor da liberdade!!" My first gaúchan companion!! Now I have someone to drink chimarrão with every morning!!! :D

I love being in a trio on a mission....it just seems like a party every day and even the lessons seem easier to teach with three. We have had some great experiences these last two days. Monday was the best! Priscila and Daniel (a young couple in the ward) took advantage of the 3-day weekend and came with us to visit Christiane & Guilherme and Ana & Nilmar. It was perfect. The lessons and testimonies were powerful and the spirit was strong...and both Guilherme and Nilmar really liked Daniel and seemed more comfortable with the idea of coming to church next week. I especially liked the lesson with Ana. She came to church last week and loved it (Nilmar didn´t come with her...but I think he´s coming next week!). Ana told us that she has been reading the Book of Mormon every night and knows that it is true. She said that she never felt so good inside any other church that she has visited. She is amazing!!

We also had a great lesson with Fernanda last night... Sometimes it is difficult to teach because she is always busy and running from one thing to another, but last night we found her at home, alone and crying. Her mom died a few months ago and she told us that she was missing her a lot that day... Fernanda started telling us how she feels like she has an emptiness in her life and she is searching for something to fill it. We had planned to teach her the message of the Restoration again because it had been a while since she had heard it...and it was perfect! We talked about the love that Heavenly Father has for her and how His gospel will fill her life with peace and hope. As we told the story of the Prophet Joseph Smith and bore testimony that Heavenly Father does talk to His children again through living prophets and reveals His perfect plan of salvation through them, Fernanda just started to cry and cry. She said that she believes that it is true :) I don´t think that I have every felt the spirit so strongly during a lesson...it was wonderful and it made me so happy. The gospel gives us so much peace! I love being a missionary and being able to share the message of the restoration of the gospel every day with our brothers and sisters who are searching for that peace. There is no greater happiness!!!!

I love you all!!! have a good week!!!
Love, Sister Jamie Gee

I love being a missionary and I love Santa Cruz do Sul!; Crazy dog story

Bom dia, Gee Family!
Another wonderful week in Santa Cruz do Sul!
Friday was a day of training in Santa Cruz...it was great! Sister Braga and Sister Lira came from Venâncio Aires and Sister Oliveira and Sister Grant came from Rio Pardo...and all the elders from Santa Cruz, Lajeado, Estrela, Presidente and Sister Pavan and the assistents. From 10 am to 5 pm we got to listen to trainings from the president and the district and zone leaders, practice lessons and teaching techniques and interviews with the president. I learned a lot! It´s amazing how excited I feel to work after every one of those trainings...it´s great! Presidente Pavan had some exciting news for us...well, at least for Sister Dangerfield and me. He said that "logo logo" (that means super soon!) there would be a new branch in Vera Cruz. !!!! That made me so happy! Vera Cruz is a small city about 20 minutes away from Santa Cruz that is part of our area, but because it is so far away we only get to visit about twice a week. There are so many members in Vera Cruz, but it´s really hard for most of them to attend church regularly when the chapel is in another city....it´s going to be so good for them! And whoever the lucky missionaries are that are going to open the area are going to love it...the people in Vera Cruz are so loving and accepting and really great to teach. Oh, and guess what else...at the end of the training Presidente Pavan handed out new portable DVD players for each apartment so that we can use the new Preach My Gospel dvds during study time. Crazy, huh? Missionaries are getting more and more "chique" all the time :) It felt like Christmas!

And the rest of the week was great too...I love being a missionary and I love Santa Cruz do Sul! We met, Gabriele, a really sweet 19 year old girl at the bus stop and, when the bus ended up never coming, walked with her the 40 minutes to her apartment that just happened to be across the street from our investigator that we were going to visit. She is great...smart and nice and fun...and we got a lot of time to get to know her and talk about the church as we walked. She seems really interested! I´m excited to go back. We had the sisters in Rio Pardo ask Elizângela to write her testimony about the gospel for Tatiane..and it was beautiful and perfect! I know that it is going to help Tatiane have more desire to have the same change and light in her own life. And Rafael, Alice´s husband, is back at home! I was so happy to hear that...and the best part, Alice knows that it was a miracle from God that her husband is still alive and thanked us for our prayers for her family. She is excited to know more about the church and to visit.

Oh, and remember how I told you that my love for dogs was dying? Well it died. Seriously....gone. Remember how I had told you when I was in Rio Pardo that the worst had happened and was over?? Well, that´s what I thought too...until yesterday. So last night Sister Dangerfield and I went to visit Laura, an older lady and recent convert, and her friend, Geni, that we´ve been teaching for a few weeks (Oh, by the way...Geni came to church last Sunday and loved it! When the members came up to introduce themselves and to welcome her and tell her to be sure to always visit she kept saying over and over again "Amen! Amen!"...haha! It was great). Well anyways, we had just entered Laura´s yard and were helping her in her backyard with her vegetable garden and chickens while we waited for Geni to get there...when her huge dog, Fritz, came up to me, lifted his leg.... and went all over my skirt! And really....he´s a HUGE dog....my skirt and legs and shoes were soaking wet! I just stood there for a while in shock, not believing it....and finally Laura and Sister Dangerfield looked over and saw. Yup, once again I had to stand there helpless waiting for them to stop laughing enough to come and help me.....:) The lesson was an...interesting one...I think it was hard to teach sitting in a cold kitchen with Sister Dangerfield´s coat over my legs and Laura´s giant flip-flops while my skirt was hanging on a chair with a fan blowing on it to help it dry faster..... It seems like Geni was still feeling the Spirit though because she accepted our baptism invitation and said that she was reading from the Book of Mormon every night! So it was a good night and I was smiling the whole coooold walk home. But really...can you believe it???

Well family, remember that I love you lots! Thanks for being the best family ever!
Love,
Sister Jamie Gee

Springtime in Santa Cruz do Sul; Heavenly Father´s perfect love and His perfect plan

Helloooooo Gee family!
What a great week! What a beautiful day! The sun is shining and it is actually getting WARM here in Brazil! I really love spring...and Santa Cruz do Sul is the perfect city to be in to enjoy it! This city is gorgeous...different than any other Brazilian city that I´ve seen and the streets full of trees and flowers and birds...it´s beautiful!
So guess what! Tomorrow is Brazil´s Independence Day! The 7th of September....last year it was on a Tuesday (P-day!) so Sister Gibson and I got to watch the parade in Montenegro (has it really been a year??) but I´m not sure how much Sister Dangerfield and I will be able to see. Our apartment isn´t too far away from the center, so maybe we´ll be able to see something from our balcony during study time :) I don´t think Independence Day is a very big holiday here though...at least not in Rio Grande do Sul. Everyone is much more excited for Dia do Gaúcho in a few weeks (20th of September)!

Speaking of Dia do Gaúcho...Jane and her family are sooo busy with their gaúchan store these days. It´s been hard to find time to teach them! Jane sews about 30 "vestidos de prenda", the gaúchan dresses, every day!! They are gorgeous and covered with really detailed embroidery...beautiful! And a Lot of work! Every time we go over she is working and sewing and cutting. Her husband, Pedro, is working like crazy these days too...he´s traveling almost every day these week to sell at different rodeos all over the state. They are so sweet though...every time we go over Jane takes time to listen to a message and to make us feel like royal guests. And their two sons João Pedro and Marco Antônio are awesome. I love this family!

We also had a sad experience this week... So the first day that we met Jane, she gave us the names of some of her friends that she said would like our visits. One of them, she had said, was particularly needing it. Alice and Rafael are a young couple that live down the street with their 4 year old daughter. Jane told us that Rafael had very serious brain cancer and had not been doing very well lately. When we went by the first time we met Alice as she was leaving her home. She was so nice and happy..I really liked her right away! Alice told us that she would love to hear our message and asked us to come back the next day after lunch. But the next day when we went back there was an ambulance in front of their door and a lot of doctors running around. Alice saw us standing on the corner as she was getting into the ambulance and she told us that Rafael was going to the hospital and asked us to come back the next night....she looked like she was in a dream, like she wasn´t really believing what was happening. The next night when we went to Alice´s home we found her right when she was leaving again. She just gave both Sister Dangerfield and I a huge hug and began sobbing and sobbing and told us that Rafael was in a coma and the doctors had told her that he had just a few days left to live. She cried and cried and asked us why God was letting this happen when she and her 4 year old daughter needed their husband and father so much. It made me so sad to see her cry and to see her feeling so lost and alone. We testified to her of Heavenly Father´s love for her and knowledge of her and promised that He wanted to fill her with peace....and then we just hugged her and cried with her. I felt so much love for her...a woman that I had just met and hardly knew, but in that moment my heart filled with the love that I know that Heavenly Father has for her and I felt like I was hugging my sister. I´m so grateful for the knowledge that we have of Heavenly Father´s perfect love and His perfect plan. I´m excited for her to hear the good news of the plan of salvation because of our Saviour Jesus Christ!

I also met Fernanda this week, a 21 year old girl who is so sweet and kind. Her mother used to receive visits from the missionaries, but died this year in May. You can tell that Fernanda misses her a lot...she told us that she knows that her mother would be so happy to see her receiving our visits and learning more about God, something that she hadn´t given much importance to before her mom had died. We taught her about the Plan of Salvation and talked about the how her mom was learning the same things in the Spirit Would that we were teaching her right now. :) I think that she really liked that thought.... I really like Fernanda and she really seems to be looking for the truth. The only problem....she works every Saturday night from midnight to 8 am Sunday morning at a bar....that makes church early Sunday morning a little difficult...hmmmm...

Oh, and one more story....this week when we were talking to Cristiane about the Book of Mormon she told us that she and Guilherme have been reading it together every night. Christiane said that the first night she had invited Guilherme to come read with her and he just grunted something in response without moving from the computer where he was sitting....not at all interested. So she said that she just started reading out loud from 1 Nefi 1, not even sure if he was going to listen or not. But after reading 2 chapters straight, she realized that they both were really enjoying it! Cristiane said she asked Guilherme if he had been paying attention and just to make sure asked, "Who was the brother of Nephi that listened to him?" and he said "Sam, of course!" And then when she asked if they should stop of if she keep reading chapter 3, Guilherme said "Keep reading...it´s a good story..." hahaha! :) That made me so happy! I´ve already noticed the difference in Guilherme´s attitude during the lessons...he really is starting to participate and to seem interested in learning more. On Sunday we walked to church with Cristiane (a Beautiful morning!...and an hour long walk!! we are so blessed in Utah!) and she told us that she never had thought that Guilherme would come with her to church, but that now she really believed that someday soon he would! :)

Mom! You´re amazing and inspire me and the pictures Dad sent are incredible!! Good job on your triathlon!!!!!!
Well dear family! Have a wonderful week! Thanks for the emails and pictures...(and the BYU football updates...go cougars!!) You guys are the best and I love you tons!!!
Love,
Sister Jamie Gee