Small miracles‏

Hey everyone!


So this email is a rewind to 5 months ago...I´m sitting here in the same old internet place close to the mission office in Santa Maria, next to Sister Draut! No, I didn´t get transfered, I came just for today to renew my visa. (Funny story - me and the other two American elders in my group and our companions traveled the 7 hours here and went to go renew, but the secretary had forgotten a part of the process, so we can´t even renew them. But...it´s all good!) So Sister Draut was transfered BACK to Camobi on Tuesday, so I get to hang out with her and everyone here in Santa Maria for a day! Sister Lopes as well - she´s now in Ipiranga (it went back to being Sisters....President changed a lot this transfer!) So it´s good to be back and see everyone.


But aside from that exciting part, this week was pretty good! The best part of the week was a woman we´ve been working with - I put her name, but decided some stuff was kind of personal, so we´ll call her Maria. So, it was amazing to see what happened with her this week. We´ve been working with her ever since we got here (or, there - Uruguaiana). She´s amazing - just one of those people who accepts the gospel with an open heart and absolutely believes it from day 1. She´s young, I would say not even 30, but has 6 kids, the oldest 11 and the youngest 2 months. She lives way down at the edge of the town, literally on the river (it was pretty far away at first but with all the rain lately, it´s up to 20 feet from her house). She´s what people here call humble - has a house made of 2x4s with a dirt floor, etc. She´s amazing, and has such an easiness and willingness to believe - when she prayed about the Book of Mormon she got the answer to "keep moving forward" with it, so she knows we´re sent from God and is willing to do whatever He wants her to do.


So we´ve always known she was that amazing, but it was even more awesome to see what happened with her this week. So in a meeting last Sunday with the ward leaders, we were talking about all of our investigators. We mentioned her and how great she was, but that something always happened to keep her from coming to church (her baby had to go to the hospital, etc...) So our ward mission leader said, "She´s really poor and has all those kids....can´t we do something for her?" We wouldn´t have said anything about it, but the response was amazing. The stake counselor got excited about it and so did all the other leaders, about helping out this woman they had never met. They decided to get together all the clothes they could for the kids, the ward mission leader and the bishop´s counselor planned a visit there to ask if they could take them, and....it all happened.


Normally we have meetings like this and it´s kind of normal for none of the plans to happen, but the response about Maria was amazing. They got together all kinds of clothes, the visits really happened, she accepted the help, the Bishop´s counselor and his wife hit it off amazingly with her and planned to go there Saturday night just to hang out, them and all their kids...and we became background players in her story, which we couldn´t be happier about. Suddenly she was surrounded by a ward family, offering to help her out when she needed it and truly becoming her friends. And the best part was seeing her and all of the kids in church yesterday! They came on foot (kind of an accomplishment, they live in the farthest neighborhood) alone, no one went to go walk with them or pick them up, they just came. I was so happy! This is how it´s supposed to be - we should be just minor characters in introducing people to their ward family. Our ward has been so weak, and it´s hard for the people to get along about anything, but they all got together behind Maria and the result was incredible.


The best part on Sunday was showing them the baptismal font. "Maria"´s neighbor, who actually really is named Maria, was baptized in May, and it turns out they´re actually relatives through marriage, but neither knew the other had ties to the church. So her neighbor said, "That´s where I was baptized! I hope you´ll be baptized too." And she said, "Yeah, that´s what I´m on the path for!" She´s so great - she´ll be an amazing member of the church. I´m so excited for her, and for our ward for being so amazing:)


So that was my story of the week! Everything´s going well, we have some really good people, and the members are getting more and more excited to help us, so it´s wonderful. It´s great working with Sister Cantuara, so....I couldn´t be happier! I´m so glad to be here, and I know it´s exactly where I should be. Sunday during sacrament meeting I was just filled with such an amazing feeling of happiness and peace, the kind that only comes from serving the Lord. I know more and more every day that this gospel is true - you don´t get that kind of feeling from a lie. Thank you so much for helping me get here! I love you all so much and am still praying for you always! :D


Til next week,
Sister Madsen