Wall Street
Hey friends! Welcome to New York! It's been waitin’ for me. Specifically Wall Street, that’s right, I have been called as the financial secretary… well one of the 5 that we have. It was also transfer week and the novinhos got here. On top of that we had a Mission Leadership Council and two other missionaries getting here late. It has been crazy. Oh and yes, working in the office means I have Saturday P-Day so don’t worry if you don’t get emails on Mondays haha.
Wall Street
Say hello to mission São Paulo Leste’s newest financial secretary. Anything that has to do with anything passes on my desk. Literally everything. From buying a piece of bread to paying for mission houses. Okay the good thing is it is not just me, there are 5 of us. Four in the office and one out in the field that will help open the next mission office. In the office it is; me and my comp, we will be the ones to officially split the mission. The old financial secretary is also here training us but he should only be here for two weeks. Lastly, we have our senior missionary who is also a financial secretary that will stay here for two years. We have a financial team. I know you are probably wondering why. Well, we are currently migrating systems, preparing for the mission split, and maybe most stressfully, preparing for an audit, the first one in two years. On transfer day I got to the office after a long day of travel and within three minutes I was already paying bills and learning the systems, paying late rent, scanning documents, and reporting purchases. Boy I didn’t even get a second to breathe.
Novinhos, MLC, More Novinhos
Bright and early Wednesday morning all the new missionaries arrived here in mission São Paulo Leste. When they got here I had so many flashbacks to my first day, it was the exact same but I was just on the other side of them. It felt so weird. We gave an orientation about money and solved some problems. I could not tell you what the problems were, I just know I had to solve some hahaha. That is most of my life is solving problems. After that we got ourselves invited to President’s house for lunch, usually secretaries are not invited to the novinhos lunch but with all the work we had done we managed to get invited. I was not expecting that. His house is super super nice. The last mission President bought it and gave it to the mission. The food that President's wife made was so good and she topped it all off with some açaí. After lunch we got sent back to the office to be there when the novinhos got in. I love that job because I get to be the smiling face I wished I had on one of the longest days in the life of a missionary. We got them all moved into their house for the night and we move on to Thursday.
Thursday had two big things, the novinhos training and MLC. Why do we schedule them on the same day? Don't ask me, I just handle the money. However, for being someone that “just handles money” I sure do get involved in a lot of stuff, that's just who I am haha. I love it though. During the training we had to set up tables and chairs for lunch and help the caterers unload. After that we did some office work and went to grab some lunch. Then the hecticness began. MLC was in 2 hours and all the tables that needed to be in a different chapel were in the office for lunch with the novinhos and the novinhos were still eating. We made a call to a member to help us transport the tables. We had 10 minutes to get the novinhos' lunch wrapped up and the tables downstairs to load into the truck. That's the 10 minutes that 2 hours of hecticness started. We got them loaded but we had a new problem, who was going to go set up the chapel for MLC? The housing and materials secretaries were getting the new missionaries their belongings, the technology secretaries had to set up their cell phones, and the APs had to send the novinhos to their areas. That leaves the two “financial” secretaries, me and my comp, to set up. We got an Uber and headed to the chapel to set up with only an hour until MLC. Luckily we got everything set up on time and ready to go. Does that mean that the meeting started on time? No, it never does, in fact the APs and President were still at the office, but hey I did my part.
During MLC my comp and I did online work for all the leaders that were in the meeting. We made over 150 phone calls to zero the referral sheet that the mission has. We helped set up dinner and handled some other random issues. I am telling you there are a lot of random issues. We did get to have dinner with everyone though which was super nice and I got to see a bunch of friends again. Blessings come from hard work for real. We cleaned up and headed back to the office to get the Elders and Sisters that were going to stay the night into their houses. We handled that stuff and our crazy Thursday ended.
Friday was a Holiday so the office wasn't supposed to open, but you know how it goes when something is not supposed to happen, it always goes wrong. We had two new missionaries get in Friday morning so we had to open the office to receive them and get them all set up and ready to go. Handled some office stuff… like the mission card getting blocked… then got to go to lunch with a member. The funny thing is that we had to carry our chairs to lunch. Super random. Remember the tables that were sent to the chapel from the office for MLC, well we had to get those back to the office. The same member came to the office so we sent him to go pick them up. Great, all the problems solved… just kidding you thought. We now had to get the new Elders to their areas with their trainers. I had never bought bus tickets before but there is no better way to learn than being thrown into the fire. We got it figured out at 4:30pm. What a (holi)day. We finally got out to go to work. We made about 60 more phone calls (not exaggerating) and then finally hit the streets for the first time in the week. That is transfer week in a nutshell.
Random
We went to lunch with the mission doctor today. He took us secretaries to Outback and I ate a whole rack of ribs with brownies and ice cream to follow. He and his wife are so so funny though. They told us a bunch of stories about some of the most random jokes
I had to order 40 pieces of bread for the new missionaries’ breakfast, I don't think the lady was a fan.
My comp got asked to kiss someone's girlfriend.
My best friend got to stay the night with us since he lives far away
I get to learn legal Portuguese now
Quotes
“No blood, no one died, we are all good” [Elder Gibson, 4/29/2026]
God's Hand
Seeing friends again (maybe for the last time)
Working under pressure
Inspired problem solving
Hearing testimonies of the senior missionary couple about serving a medical mission
Being able to give an inspired blessing in Portuguese
Spiritual Thoughts
The thing I thought a lot about this week is that this truly is the Lord's work. He directs and oversees every part of it. As a financial secretary I work a lot of money but it's not just any money. It is sacred. It is tithing money that has been faithfully donated by members of the Church and consecrated for use in His work. We do not take it lightly, we don't just throw it around. Every single thing is recorded, checked, documented, checked again, and approved on many different levels. The blessings the Lord gives us, from money to talents, are sacred and should be used with care, purpose, and to expound His work.
“For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” Moses 1:39
I definitely forgot something with how hectic this week was but I am done writing for today so it's gonna stay that way haha. I hope y'all have a great Sunday and make it to Church! Love y'all and until next Saturday!
Tchau T,
Elder Urbano
