Maiara;

Querida Família,

Happy 1st day of February! How are you all doing?

This week was wonderful as always! Sister Oliveira and I are happy and busy with many many families to teach!! This Sunday in church we gave a special training during the combined Relief Society and Elder´s Quorum Meeting about how the members can be more involved with the missionary work. It was great...and I can tell that it worked too because we´ve already had many members call, excited and ready to help! :) Yesterday we got a lot of new references and we had many members come with us to teach lessons and meet the people we´re teaching...it makes a huuuge difference when we teach people that already have a friend in the ward. It is wonderful and I know that it´s going to help us have a lot of success during the rest of this transfer!

The greatest night of the week was Sunday night when we had a Noite Familiar with Deise and her family. Deise just returned from her mission in Rio de Janeiro this Wednesday...and it is easy to see that she was a great missionary! She is filled with light and love and excitement to continue doing missionary work. Haha...so much that I´m pretty sure that this month, before Deise starts school, we´ll be working in a trio! Haha, it´s hard for me to call her Deise because in my mind she is still Sister Wolf!

On Sunday night we decided to have a Family Night at her home with her family (she is the only active member in her family) and her 13 yr old friend Maiara. As we walked with her to meet Maiara, Deise told Sister Oliveira and I that she wanted to work with us to prepare Maiara to be baptized this next Sunday.....!!!! I was very surprised and I could tell that Sister Oliveira was too...but she was bursting with contagious enthusiasm and excitement, and of course we agreed!

After meeting Maiara I began to understand why Deise was so confident. Nossa!! I have never met a young woman so sweet and kind and beautiful and prepared by the Lord! She had gone to church with Deise a few times before she left for Rio de Janeiro, and had loved it. We taught her the 1st lesson about the restoration of the gospel and I was amazed at her questions and comments...she is super smart and understood everything so quickly. It was a powerful lesson too....with the 4 of us missionaries (Sister Oliveira and I, Deise and her boyfriend Jonas, who just got home from his mission too) taking turns teaching. I especially liked when Jonas told about the First Vision...he taught in such a personal loving way and there was a very strong and peaceful spirit. Haha...even Alana, Deise´s 14 yr old sister, had tears in her eyes and said that she was feeling so good that she wanted to be baptized again! :) It was wonderful... Afterwards we invited her to read and pray that night before going to sleep and invited her to be baptized the next Sunday after church. And she accepted!!

Then the next day Maiara told us how she had read and prayed about the 3 Nephi 11...the chapter we gave her to read. She told us how she had prayed and then read and then prayed again. And when she didn´t feel an anwer she reread the chapter, slowly and pondering every verse so that she could understand the hard portuguese. She said that she did this 3 times, praying very very strongly...and on the 3rd time the answer came. :) Maiara said she was filled with a feeling of joy and felt like this day was going to be the start of a life of wonderful and happy days! She was so happy and is so excited to be baptized!!

Wow...I learned a lot from that lesson. First, I learned once again that Heavenly Father loves every one of His children and will always speak to us if we´re willing and ready to listen. I also learned a lot from the way that Deise and Jonas taught....very lovingly and powerfully...it brought the spirit very quickly. And, of course, it was a wonderful wonderful lesson for me of faith and boldness! We should expect and seek for miracles like these...every day of our lives! I know that Heavenly Father is very willing to bless us with more miracles than we can imagine...I think that many times He is more willing to bless us with miracles than we are to receive them! The only thing that we need to do is have faith and perfect confidence in Him, and then act with boldness and with courage!

I am very happy to be a missionary and very excited for the next 11 months that I have here in Brazil. I know that they are going to pass quickly...even more quickly than these first 7 have flown by...but I know that they are going to be full of wonderful days and people to love and lessons to be learned and miracles to see!

I am glad to hear that you are all happy and well at home! Thanks so much for the emails...you make me feel loved! Remember to always be grateful for the many many blessings that we have. There is nothing like a grateful heart that will bring more happiness and joy and peace to your life! I am so thankful to have you all as my brothers and sisters and mom and dad...you´re the greatest! I love you!!! :)

Love Always,

Sister Jamie Gee

PS....guess what Sister Oliveira and I are doing tonight....going to Alcoholics Anonymous!! It should be fun :) I´ll tell you more next week!