Food Storage (Week 82) — Called to Serve in Cuiaba

Nuts this week was definitely a different one. We had very little success finding new people and 18 (almost all) of the appointments we had set for this entire week fell through… largely due to none other than... you guessed it - coronavirus. Even Sacrament meeting was cancelled hahah. There is no doubt in my mind that God takes care of and loves His missionaries. This week we saw small miracles every day and it kept us movin!

Thursday we were walking down the street to an appointment and the sun was just railing us. We finally get to the this lady's house and she told us to come back next week. We were feeling pretty dumpy. We decided to say a prayer on the sidewalk and we kind of just told Heavenly Father that we want so badly to find people who are ready, and we are willin to keep searching, but we asked Him to guide us. Right after we ended the prayer my comp had a feeling to call this one member who we had called like 6 times because she told us her neighbor wants a visit, but she never answers. We dial her up and she answers in like 3 seconds hahah and is like Elders come to my house right now! We end up meeting her friend Maria Tereza who just moved here from the state of Amazonas, and she just sits us down and goes "alright I need you guys to tell me all the guidelines of the Church of Jesus Christ and what I need to do to become a member" haha. While my companion was searching for the prank cams around the room I started talking to her about the Restoration. It really seemed too good to be true but I was just thinking if this is a prank it wouldn't even bother me. When my companion gained conscientiousness again we taught and finished teaching the Restoration, and sweet Maria was taking freaking notes during the lesson hahaha. After the lesson she was just so grateful and kept thanking us. I was just thinking there has gotta be some back story, but I couldn't let my curiosity snoop too much. We were chatting with her and she goes "one of my biggest dreams is to move to Europe to work as a caregiver but I need to learn English and Spanish first". I look over to my very Latin companion extremely puzzled and he just goes so... is it normal for you to just have ridiculous amounts of luck?! She just looked at us so confused and Elder Ciocia goes I'm an Argentine and speak a little bit of Spanish haha and my companion here is an American soooo we’ve got English covered too. She just started laughing and goes "God loves me so much hahaha"!! She proceeds to tell us how God always responds to her prayers! She said this morning while she was washing her clothes she was pleading to God to send her people to teach her the truth because she was feeling like she needed to join a church. Boggled and humbled, I left that lesson with certainty that Heavenly Father listens to our prayers, and puts us through hard times to strengthen us. I promise He listens to you!

Shout out to my mom for the package.🍀 Just what I needed. Also we had a service project and we cut down some trees with machetes. It was really renewing helping an old lady, and reminded me of home. T'was a tender nugget of mercy indeed. <3