Week of Miracles!

Oi familia e amigos! 

This week was crazy!!! well, really not the week. Just these past three days. We had a crazy time trying to help one of our  investigators get baptized. 

Cleiton is super awesome. he is now the only member in his family because he was baptized on Saturday!!!! 

We went there and first miracle, we were able to finish teaching everything. We almost weren´t able to because he had some activities and wasn´t able to meet with us everyday. The day of his interview we lost the church keys and a member went and picked Cleiton up and then let us use their house for the interview. We didn´t have the keys to go and check on the font to see if it would fill up because the last couple baptisms there has been a lack of water and it was really difficult to baptize people. But we were able to borrow some keys and I spent almost an hour cleaning a baptismal font for the first time in my life. It was gross.

Then the day of the baptism, we left early to fill up the font, praying with all our hearts that we wouldn´t run out of water. The font filled up in ONE HOUR and could have kept going!!! It was amazing! And our bishop showed up to fill up the font because he didn´t know that we were planning on coming! So we went to lunch, and then went to Cleiton´s because we needed his mom´s signature so that he could be baptized....except that she wasn´t home! Of course not right, everything bad that can happen to prevent a baptism will happen. We got a member to drive us with Cleiton to where we thought that his mom was and then had to call her and ask her to come out! BUT we got the signature! We thought everything was good....and then we showed up to the church. Cleiton was already there, and so were a couple of members. But the friend that was supposed to baptize Cleiton, from another ward still hadn´t shown up. We called him and he wasn´t planning on coming. He said he didn´t know when it was or where it was and we were just like WHAT?! But another member went and picked him up, and in the end....CLEITON WAS BAPTIZED!!! :) 

So...moral of the story. I am very grateful for the members here in our ward and that they are super willing to help us out and give us rides, pick up investigators and friends, and also for offering their houses for our baptismal interviews. BE MEMBER MISSIONARIES!!! :) Love you all! 

And then the confirmation....the member who was supposed to confirm Cleiton didn´t show up. But it´s ok! He was confirmed. 

It really was a week of miracles! 

Well, other than that, I learned how to be a better missionary, our trio gave a training in district meeting and we are all really tired from the craziness of the last three days. But yup, love this area, love the members, love the people and love all of you! 

Hope you are all doing well. 

And if any of you would like to write me letters...I promise to write back! Ask my mom for the address! LOVE YOU! :) 

Have a wonderful week! 

This is my Lion King moment with the Book of Mormon in front of a ship in the Historic Center of our city

Remember who you are and what you stand for! 

1 Peter 2:21

Sister Wilkins

EMAIL ADDRESS:  madalyn.wilkins@myldsmail.net

MAILING ADDRESS:

Sister Madalyn Wilkins

Brazil Florianopolis Mission

R. Felicianos Nunes Pires, 42 Centro

88015-220

Florianopolis-SC Brazil

Cleiton's Baptism

We went to a musuem.  This is how they made sugar...I think.

Keyboard trouble......

Hey fam e amigos! 

Well, having a little keyboard trouble today and not a whole lot to say, so it´ll be pretty short. 

This week was good, we have a lot of work. We have one young man we are teaching, Cleiton. He has been coming to church for 3 months and he can finally be baptized! We taught him 4 lessons in 1 this week, which was seriously a miracle. But it was so cool! He´s so awesome and understands really well. And he is really excited about his baptism! 

We are still teaching the kids, 8 and 11 years old, and they are so awesome. We taught them about prophets and asked them to pray and ask if Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet and they both did and both said that they knew that he was a true prophet and it was so cool! We also taught the first vision and they were both really happy to know that the true church is on the earth! 

I am amazed by children. 

Also yesterday we went to church and had 5 investigators and 7 less actives there. MIRACLES!!! Every less active we visited this week came and it was amazing!!!! I am so grateful for the help that this ward is giving us to get the people we are teaching to church. 

Well, things here are good. Hope you are all doing well! 

Love you all! 

Sister Wilkins

Check out these Churros!

Our district

Ocean selfie

Happy Late Mother's Day

Oi família e amigos! 

I hope you are all doing well and that all you mothers out there were treated well yesterday! Happy (belated) Mother´s Day. Thank you, Mothers for always supporting your children and for giving up your time and dedicating your energy to helping us. 

A special thanks to my mom, who is the greatest mother I know and who has helped me more than she knows. Thank you for your example and for helping me to get to where I am today. Love you mom! 

Well, I am in this new area, Fazenda do Max, which translated literally means Max´s Farm. And that's about what it is. Our area is really pretty small compared with what I am used to. We have a couple small family-owned markets and bakeries close to our house, but I don´t think that there is a real market here. And there is only one lanhouse with five computers in the whole area. There´s really not a lot here. There´s about 5,000 dogs and everyone here seems to know everyone just about. But it is really pretty. There are mountains all around us and there are huge hills that we literally have to hike up to get to our investigators, but it is really awesome here. The ward is awesome and they are helping us a lot and it´s good stuff. 

Well, we had a zone training this week, our first with this new zone. And it was kind of really sad. Our other zone was really unified and everybody was friends and we laughed and joked like the whole time. We got here and I literally knew like 4 people. And it´s really quiet and pretty awkward. But the training we got was good. We learned that we need to jump off the boat. We have to get out of our comfort zone and do more and keep working harder to get the results that we want, so that was cool. 

Well, we have some pretty cool investigators here. We are teaching a couple of kids and I am in shock at how much they know and how pure and innocent they are, how much they want to learn about God and Jesus and how willing they are to keep commitments, unlike a lot of the adults here. So that is super awesome! 

Well, that´s about it. I really don´t have much to say to ya´ll cuz I just talked to my fam yesterday and they heard most of the stories, so not really sure what else there is to say. 

Hope you are all doing well! 

Love you! 

Sister Wilkins

The famous Floripa bridge.  It's legit!

A huge hill we walk in the new area.  MUCH bigger than it looks.

New Comps

Legendary Missionary: Put off Emergency Transfer for 4 Days

Hey family and friends, 

Boy do I got a lot to say...maybe the subject of the message shows a little bit of that. This week was absolutely insane. 

So the beginning of the week we were prepping Mauro for baptism, and he was completely ready. He didn´t have a single problem, and our new ward mission leader came to every single lesson we had with him. It was awesome! 

Wednesday the need for cardigans arose. We barely slept it was so cold. And it literally just dropped. From like 30 degrees celcius to about 15 overnight. And now we are cold. Although  during the day it really isn´t too bad with the sun. But cardigans are necessary a lot of the time. 

Well, we told ya´ll that we were staying in Balneario and we told all of our investigators and less actives too. We weren´t lying. 

Thursday morning we were getting ready to leave, like 11 in the morning. And the phone started ringing, I was in the middle of brushing my teeth and Sister ogle was in the bathroom. And it was president. I ran and spit everything out as I answered the phone. President asked where we were and if we were both listening, which is never a good sign. Then he said he had a challenge for us. He said that we were going to be emergency transferred. He asked if we accepted. I didn´t understand that we were going together until like two minutes later. He said there was a sister who got sick and had to go home, and we needed to be companions with the sister who was still here on the mission. He wanted us to leave on Friday. Almost in tears we told him that we had a baptism marked for Saturday and the interview marked for Friday and HE LET US STAY!!!!!! THAT was LITERALLY the biggest miracle of this week. But the rest of the next four days was a lot of tears as we had to go back and tell everyone that we were in deed leaving. It was awful. 

I cannot even begin to explain how much I learned and grew in Balneario. I am so grateful for the time that I got to spend there. It was amazing. And I sure hope that one day I can go back and finish up some of the work I started there. 

Well, MAURO WAS BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY!!!!! IT WAS AMAZING!!!! I have never seen anyone with such a big smile on their face as they came out of the font. He was so happy and the Spirit was so strong. There was so much that should have happened that the baptism shouldn´t have been possible, but Heavenly Father gave us a lot of miracles and EVERYTHING worked out. We got to sing "Lord, I Would Follow Thee" in  English, Spanish, and Portuguese and it was amazing. I was almost in tears. holy cow. It´s been a really emotional week. 

Mauro!!!

Well, we put off an emergency transfer for 4 days and so now everyone in the escritorio (mission office) knows who we are....but we couldn´t put it off any longer. And so today we traveled to Floripa, and yes, there were more tears saying goodbye to the sweet sisters that have been through so much with us, and then we got our new companion. We will be a trio. Sister Ogle, Sister Branco, and I. Sister Branco is Brazilian, and is super sweet. We are really excited now that we are here, and we think that it will be good. And we are in an area close to Floripa called Fazenda do Max, in the city of São José. It´s a lot smaller than what we are used to...so we´ll see how it goes.

Headed to Floripa!

Our District for a week

Saying Goodbye to our Apartment

But it has been really hard, and if it isn´t too much to ask a few prayers our way would be much appreciated. 

Matt. 14:28-30. keep your gaze fixed on the Lord. The second we let it drop to the world, we fall, But the Savior is there and he will catch us. Just like happened with Peter. 

Love you all! 

Have a great week! 

Sister Wilkins