Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Cordeiropolis


Sister Monteiro´s mom passed away this week. I am so thankful for God´s amazing and wonderful plan for every one of us. Hate that there isn´t anything that I can do.

Well, we´ve been working here for a week and miracles are happening. We have this dear woman named Maria who was baptised about 5 years ago. She has 8 children and many many many grandchildren. Some of her family has been baptised, some have not. We're working with them and going to baptise two of the grandchildren next week!!! Two of her daughters are eternal pesqus, they go to church, sing in the branch, do everything but one can´t get baptised because her husband doesn´t want to marry her and the other one for a reason we've not been able to discover. But they all seem to love us.

Our branch, well, it´s tiny. 40-50 people and only 5 or 6 men who hold the priesthood. Our branch president is an implant from the stake. The elders here have honestly not been doing anything, and before that the branch was shut and before that they had elders who were fubekas. So, trying to turn things around. S.Cleise is being wonderful, she loves to work and it seems to be going well. I hope that we can make this branch strong enough to become a ward, but we need the help of God. We prayed to the Lord for guidance about where we should go and what we should say. We are meeting people and are going to make miracles here, I believe that. There are many times when we feel like we are not doing our best, that the conditions are not in our favor, but I promise you that if we turn wholeheartedly to the Lord, he will strengthen us and he will make our weaknesses strong and we will be able to walk confidently and when we meet our God, meet him with happiness and not with guilt. I love this gospel, love the opportunity to be better every day, even if I still feel inadequate most of the time. Keep walking, keep being you and let God smooth out the wrinkles in life. I am so thankful for my Savior, for his mercy with me. I need to be better but I have the desire to be an instrument in His hands and He will use me. Thank you all for our prayers and for the examples you are for me.

For Easter, instead of small chocolate eggs, people give out these giant chunks of chocolate that are in the shape of an egg. I got 3 and everyone is giving everyone chocolate....not like I´m complaining. But, it was sad. Not a mention was made of Easter at church on Sunday. I don't get it. Well, looking forward to talking to you on Mother's Day. Love you all!

S.Stapley

Cordeiropolis

So, first off, WOW! Eduardo got the priesthood and he´s going to do temple baptisms today. I´m happy!!! Secondly, God does have a sense of humor, because like always, I got transferred. Wasn´t expecting that. My dear people in the office didn´t tell me. I complained to one of the assistants that I get a new companion every six weeks (we´re friends) and he was like, Welcome to the Club...so yeah now to add to Monterio, Wagner, Carvalho, Poast, Forsyth, Costa, and Monaco, we get to add S.Cleise to the list...and wait for it, we opened an area!!!

Yeah, I´m opening an area. It´s called Cordgiropoles and it's a small city of 20,000. Mom-if you want to look it up, type in Rio Claro, that´s the city closest to it. It´s a branch and we are still kind of trying to find our way around. The elders did a good job here, from what I´ve seen and the branch seems excited to have us. Oh, but the elders have totally different standards when it comes to having a clean house. We spent 3 hours yesterday and this morning cleaning and washing everything. Seriously, I will never complain about college dorms again! We´re meeting the elders' investigators and starting to work. I´m really excited!!! This place is beautiful, lakes and trees. Should be fun.

I saw my friends at transfers, everyone is doing well. Love seeing old and new friends, Elder Rassumsum told one of his comps about 'Stapley Stars'....I´d like to think that I´ve changed.

I´m excited to roll up my sleeves and work. Should be a huge adventure. Love you guys,

Shannon

Monday, April 18, 2011

Sumare

Amazing shout out and 'hello' to my new friend, Kimberely- from New Zealand, who is waiting for her mission call! (She googled Sister Missionaries' blogs and found mine and wrote a 3 page letter!!! She is totally awesome!) Congratulations and I'm sending you a letter, although I´m not sure when it will get there. :)

I'm writing this from the Campinas temple. It´s awesome!!! I get to go do a session in an hour. YEAH!!

So, this week has been hard. My comp and I have some differences that are affecting the work. Staying home and being lazy is not why I chose to come on a mission. Urg, I may not be able to speak the language that well or be able to teach amazingly, but I am a workaholic. If I am not working my best every day then I feel like I haven´t accomplished my part.

We had a multi-zone conference and I got to see some old friends. That's always a boost. It was really good. I learned alot about repentance.

We have a wonderful investigator. But, the ward leadership said that there were some concerns about us baptising him because of his past, that several members of the ward would not be pleased if he joined the congregation. I just kept my mouth shut (aren´t you guys proud?!) and nodded. Right after, in testimony meeting, this investigator bore an amazing testimony, it was awesome. He said that he knew the church was true and thanked everyone and talked about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Many people looked dumbfounded after he spoke.

Keep looking on the bright side of life. This is God´s work and if He can turn a rock into bread, He can help me change. As it says in D/C 4, faith, hope, love and charity qualify us for the work, but the first thing we need is a desire to work in this Gospel. I may not have enough faith, hope or love, but I have a desire to change. And I will, I will change and be better.

Love ya-

Shan

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Sumare

First off, this week was a week of miracles. On Thursday, some members randomly showed up at our house with bags and bags of food for us...seriously, how wonderful! We were able to baptise Edwardo between General Conference sessions, it was awesome and his family was all there. Most of the youth in the ward were there, and so were all the missionaries in our zone. We sang some songs at the baptism and one of them was Called to Serve, which led to all the missionaries singing the mission anthem. One of our young men, Erick, got called to serve a mission in Manaus. Erick will go to the CTM the end of May, so I´m thinking he´ll miss Eric by one day. Sad, but he´s excited. I´m so proud of him...he´s awesome.

To add on the endless list of jobs I have acquired on my mission, dog catcher and marriage counselor were added this week. See, we ran into the lost dogs of one of our members (who were on the other side of the city) and had to get them home. They were nearly run over by cars 3 times, but miracles happen, and we got them home, it took nearly an hour. Marriage counselor is a tad harder. See, we finally found out why a member in our area doesn´t want to get married to the man she's been living with for 19 years and they have 4 kids. (The kids are all baptised). I won't say more here than that he's been very unkind to her. Now, part of me wants to tell her to move on and that she deserves better than that, BUT the missionary in me knows that everyone can change. The atonement and everything else, communication and a true change of heart. But still, it´s complicated and now everyone in the ward is finding out and beginning to take sides, which is not helping much.

We´re working well and I have no complaints about my comp. You see, we are totally obedient to the letter and the spirit of the rules. When you are 100% obedient, the Lord will bless you.

Family- hope you're having fun in Hawaii!
Love you,
Shan

Friday, April 1, 2011

Sumare

Wow, first off, Mom's on a painting and DI spree?!...Meg make sure all of my stuff is hidden! Oh, and if you guys wanted to be nice and mail me a new journal with my camera it would be highly appreciated. Oh, hair ties too.

I am not allowing myself to think that Eric is going home in 10 weeks. Nope, not going to happen.

Meg-you look so grown up in the picture. You´re so pretty.

To recount on the life of Sister Shannon Stapley-

1. Is back in Nova Veneza (30 mins from Campinas) where she served with S.Wagner
2. Is working with a Brasilera, Sister Monaco
3. Is eating a TON, and will probably gain some weight
4. Has read Jesus the Christ AGAIN, because her companion was sick for a week.

And now, miracles happen!!! I pretty much spent all of last week on divisions with some women who are getting ready to serve missions. S.Monaco had lost her voice and has allergies and was unable to work. Then on Sunday, we went to church and had 5 investigators there. One young man, Diego, (Meg, he´s 16, very very very faithful, cute and plays soccer) and his friend, Nailson, (Erynn, he´s 19, practically perfect and leaving for a mission the day he's been a member for 1 yr.) brought their friend, Edwardo, to church. We taught him and he is super Elect. He accepted baptism for this week!!! While we were teaching him the first lesson, after Diego, Nailson and one of our young women, Camilla, bore their testimonies, I looked around...and to my surprise, I realized that I was the only one out of all 6 of us (including my companion) that was born in the church. Mom-it was amazing, I saw you in all of them. I got to bear my testimony about how amazing this gospel is, and how their choices, the choices they made to be baptised (all of them have less than 1 year) will change their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren. This gospel rocks!!! Truly, where else do you see these teenagers growing and becoming the heart and the lifeblood of a church? All of my brazilian comps are converts or are the children of converts. How awesome is that!!! And, I am as well, thank you Mom!!!

We´ve taught Edwardo the word of wisdom and we´re going to teach him about the Sabbath tonight. Should be good!!! We´ve also been working with his mom and truly it works!!! This gospel rocks. His mom was a little hesitant about the church (you know, we have devil horns and all that jazz) but after we explained about the church and taught the WOW/first lesson, she was okay with it. After we left, Nailson went to visit. He just talked about the church and now Edwardo´s mom is going to feel good with him being baptised!!! Awesome!!! The next day, all she could talk about was how much Nailson´s changed and how amazing and wonderful he is...yeah, I´m proud of him!

We´ve also been helping other investigators. Most of them need to get married, but truly this week has shown me the importance of members. When they help, family nights, references, testimonies...it´s perfect. Invite anybody reading this to help, to seriously think of the joy that we have because of this gospel, how God moves through small things, not through huge events to bring people to him...one testimony could change the world, look at Joseph Smith. Make the difference. Be the difference. I love each and every one of you guys (and it would be awesome to receive letters, packages, cards, you know, any signs of affection that you remember the skinny white girl who is trying to serve the Lord!) I pray for you.

Oh, one more thing. Yesterday after lunch we were at a members house because it was raining cats and dogs...and so we started helping the member with laundry. She had a bucket of socks and asked that we match them. Immediately, I sorted them into whites and colors and designs and began matching and folding them with speed and efficiency and my companion just stared at me like I had grown two heads..."what?" I asked. She said, "How do you do that?" I said, "what do you mean?" She said she had never folded socks (she´s the youngest of four.) I had to explain to her and to this dear Sister that I'm the oldest of 6 and so we had 8 people in the house which equalled a minimum of 56 pr of socks a week. This was a normal job. I finished in 5 mins. It took Sister Monaco 20minutes...so I helped her. Good to know that my years of cleaning and helping to take care of kids taught me something!

Love ya-

Sister Stapley