Sis. Del Guerso

PS here is a sweet letter that Sis. Del Guerso sent me in response to my Mothers day Card 

Querido Elder Iverson

Amo você demais!!! Sua calma e tranquilidade ao lidar com as pessoas e os desafios me encantam.

Continue assim, você será muito abençoado em tudo na sua vida. Com certeza sei que é um excelente filho, irmão, amigo e será um excelente esposo e pai. O Senhor confia muito em você e na sua liderança e o Presidente também. Obrigada pelo carinho e pela dedicação ao servir nesta grandiosa obra de salvação. Um forte abraço da Sister del Guerso.

Dear Elder Iverson

I love you so much !!! Your quiet and calm when dealing with people and challenges amaze me.

Keep it up , you will be very blessed in everything in your life . Certainly I know you are a great son, brother, friend and will be an excellent husband and father . The Lord relies on you and your leadership and the President as well. Thank you for the love and dedication to serve this great work of salvation. 

Hugs: Sister del Guerso.

Views of Cerqueira César

Palista

Jenga Building

Museum of Art

Hello Big City -Cerqueira César

This week was a great week here in SP. In the transfer I am here in the middle of the city. IT is so awesome. Lots different from where I was.

There are many homeless in our area and most other's live in apartments. And the streets smell like pee. So it makes us grateful that we don't live in a big city.  There is a really rich area in the city that makes us think we are in the USA when we are there.  We also have a famous street in our area, Palista.  It is like a Time Square or Las Vegas Blvd.  It is a very nice commercial street.  It has every nice car dealership: Lamborghini, Ferrari, Ashtyn Martin, BMW, etc.

I got here last Tuesday. And the work here is different. We have to work a lot more with the members. The people on the street don’t stop. We talk to the people in the street we stop them and we talk to them. In other areas it is very easy because the people stop to listen. Here the people just cruse on by, some don’t even look at you, some make excuses, and others just get mad. But that is what the mission is about. 

We had an awesome experience this week. This ward is a little bit cold as far as the missionaries go. We visited a convert and I had the impression to challenge her to share the gospel with her neighbors (she lives in an apartment building with 20 floors, 10 apts on every floor) and she got excited and started taking us to all the people on her floor. We visited 8 people, and were able to teach 3 of them in the moment. The woman who is Sandra, was so happy with the situation that she said I have more people to share with. WOW. What the spirit can do to us. She got so excited that she knocked on a door that she didn’t even know, and we started to teach the people, and we now have a new investigator (felipe, see the pics) because of her. IT is so essential that we as member of the church of Jesus Christ share the gospel. We need to do it. For no other reason then God tells us to do it. So that is a great reason to do it. :) 

Our new investigator Flipe. He loves the Book of Mormon.  He speaks English and is 19. He likes us :)

These days here in SP are cold, like it was totally comfortable to wear long sleeves the whole day. Something that is not normal here. It even got to the point that I wore a sweater at night. The cold is coming, but the work is on fire as we keep working hard here in Cerqueira César. SP doesn’t know whats coming ;)

Happy Mothers day to all moms and missionaries 

❤🏢 

Elder Iverson 

UTAH Elder's Ripping it Up in CC

This large apartment building that looks like it could be in a horror movie is where we live in Cerqueira César.  It is a large city with many apartment buildings. There are more people that live in one apartment building that in the whole of Plain City. So the work will be interesting.

Of course we had to get pizza to celebrate our new apartment and new area and two Utahan's working together in Brazil.  The pizza is half chocolate and strawberry and half normal.  I of course had to try eating them together. 

Good Bye Good Friends in the Rose Garden

My friends, Elaina and Juanaldo.  I love them. They own this restaurant and love to feed the missionaries.  They love your oatmeal cookies, mom.

This is Gabrielle.  He was baptized while we where here.  He gave me a shirt from a Brazilian soccer team.

 

I got another shirt (it's a little large :) from the same team from Vagner and his family.

This was our last FHE in the Rose Garden.  We had to get our favorite 10 liters of ice cream.  This is an awesome family,

Goodbye Rose Garden

Funny sign in our area. I guess they ran out of uphill signs so they turned a downhill sign upside down.

This was a fabulous week. We were able to work hard and the results, while they weren't what we wanted, we could work hard and see God helping us. 

We were able to talk to many people this week who were very humble and neat people. We talked to Erika, who is incredible - a person that is so ready to live the gospel. And Viviane who also was able to receive an answer. And also our new friends Bruno, Lucas, and Gabriel who were all baptized recently.

We see that God wants the work to go forward, but in all things there needs to be opposition. And recently we taught a married couple (Jonathan and Viviane) they are members of another church and we taught them first about the family and the eternal nature of the family. Then we explained about the Restoration; we invited them to read and pray about the BoM so that they too can know it is true. When we returned on Sat. they both had read, and they gave us their report and Jonathon was very unsure. (his dad is a pastor of another church) and he doesn't feel like moving would be right. When we asked Viviane she said that She thinks differently, but that she needs to follow her husband.... 

It is so incredible that God will give us an answer based on our real intent. Viviane was willing while Jonathon was a little stubborn, We invited him to ask directly and with real intent so God can give him his answer. The member that was with us was able to bear strong testimony and he actually started to tear up as he talked about his family. We could feel the spirit so strong, and we were moved, but sadly the spirit can’t touch a stubborn heart so easily. And they didn’t come to church yesterday as they had promised. I pray for their success and that in the future the missionaries can reach them. Elder Stevens will still be here to help them out.

I know that we need to be ready to hear what the spirit tells us. He can tell us anything we need to know. And he is ready, when we let him, he will help us out. He can help us strengthen our testimonies of The Savior Jesus Christ. We as missionaries are dependent on this divine power of the Holy Ghost.

I love you all. 

I’ll be leaving the Rose Garden to head to the center of the city. It will be a great change for me. I will be companions with another fellow Utahan. Good things to come from SP 😃

Elder Iverson 

Vagna did well with our three knifes and cups lesson.  I think he may have seen it before.

Erica and Marianna.  Erica is an amazing lady with a strong testimony. I pray she will be baptized soon.

Fernando is a great guy in our ward. He feed us lunch.

We had to get pizza to celebrate Elder Canvacanch turning 25 years old!

The mission has been hard on my suitcase.  The wheel broke on the first transfer and the handle on the last.  Duct tape will get this home to Utah.

Cooking Update

I made stroganoff and rice for our last meal in the Rose Garden.