April 27

Mom and dad!

yesterday and today have been crazy! We had two baptisms yesterday. Matheus and Ana. They´re brother and sister. They are super cool. We´re going to baptize the mom next month I think. She´s already ready to be Baptized but she has to get married with the guy she´s engaged with. He just happens to be a member and he´s finishing a divorce.....hopefully he´ll finish it all quickly. Then today we went to a place called Pico de Jaraguá. It´s the highest poin in Sao paulo. It was really cool! We were able to see about half of sao paulo. I think we´d have to be almost in space to see all of sao paulol. I´ll try and send photos soon. But man it was a hike. I haven´t walked and climbed so much since high adventure! We got to the top completely covered in sweat! I took pics of this animal that looks like an ant eater. They got real close to us. Oh and we also saw monkies. And I got pics of the first squirrel that i´ve seen in brazil! haha. We got back and ate lunch in 20 min then we took a shower and changed clothes. We´re emailing now and we´ve got an hour before we have to get to a meeting. So much for a day of rest! Oh and this friday we have a meeting with our mission and the sao paulo interlagos mission with one of the members of the presiding bishopbric. I think he´s french. This past week went by fast and right now we´re just trying to find new people to teach. We spent saturday morning knocking down walls inside a house of a member. that meant slude hammers and mini jack hammers. I don´t know why but it´s always so cool to knock down walls. 

So I can´t believe that the move is actually happening. It´ll make me sad that we won´t be in ohio anymore. But i hope everything goes well with the move. I love you all and stay safe!

April 6th

Hey Everyone! 

So it´s been a while since I´ve sent an email to you all. The mission has been going good! We got really close to baptizing a woman but in the end she wasn´t able to keep a few commandments. We got hope that she´ll be able to change her life. We´re working with another family that is part member and they are really cool. I really like my area but sometimes i miss being in rio grande da serra because it´s so much more peacefull there. I´m in the city and there´s just so many people and traffic and music. But it´s cool.

So General conference was pretty darn cool! The saturday sessions were spent a lot on families and marriage. The sunday sessions more on principles of the gospel. I really liked the talk by Wilford W. Andersen about the music of the gospel. These men and women really are inspired. Dallin H oaks burned about half the church when he talked about having cellphones out during the sacrement and how many members don´t give lots of attention to things of the gospel. There´s some great lessons to be learned.

      So we had a cool experience the other day. We passed by the house of a recent convert who´s about 60 years old. Everyone calls her bela (this means ´´beautiful´´ in english) She had been sick for the past few days and this day she was really really bad. Massice headache, high fever, vomiting, lots of body pain and a very dry mouth. We talked with her for a bit and then we gave her a blessing. I annoited her and did the first part of the blessing. But right before I did, I told her to think about the most beautiful place that she´d seen. My comp put his hands on her head and then I (becuase of there wasn´t a lot of space on the bed) put one hand on her head and one on my comps shoulder. And for a few min the noise of the world faded out. As my comp was talking (and I confirmed that he felt it too) we began to get really hot. We had sweat going down our cheaks. We finished the blessing and Bela sat their for a second. She opened her eyes and began to cry out in joy. She said that she no longer felt pain in her stomach, the moisture was coming back to her mouth, her fever was going down and she was able to sit up. She then said ´´you know what place I was thinking about in my head?´´ ´´what place´´ I asked. ´´The temple.´´ 

It´s amazing what happens when we put the power of God together with the strong faith of one of his children. Always remember that this is the True Church Of God. And even when we feel helpless and lost or sad or confused, there is comfort to be found in our Savior. I love you all and hope the best of everything for you guys.

Love 

Elder Shannon

March 2

Hey everyone!

 So I´ve had some crazy 2 weeks. I had that mess of transfers 2 weeks ago. Well last monday we were returning back home and we got a call from the office. They told us that I along with another Elder in our trio were being transfered again. I was getting use to that área where i was and now I was being sent to another área. I think presidente wants to send me to every zone in our mission. So we had 3 elders to carry 4 suitcases and backpacks and side bags. We had to a bus and then the subway. But now im in a new área here in são Paulo. It´s called saúde. It´s a cool área. But since it´s in a thick part of the city, there´s not a lot of Peace. I´m with Elder s. carasai. He´s from the South parts of brazil. Rio grande do sul to be specific. He´s only got 3 months on the mission but he´s a cool guy. It´s a good área here and there´s some cool people. We also got a ton of rain the other day. There was a part of the road so full of water that when cars passed, the water was almost at the top of the wheels. We got pretty darn wet and im feeling the aftereffects of cold rain. Oh and i´m in the only área on the mission where we have a member who washes our clothes for us!!!! I can finally take a break from having to wash clothes. Time seems to be passing by quickly and I´m learning a lot every day. I love you all and hope that God continues to bless you all.

Elder Shannon