Gustavo and I met when we were teenagers in the church, we were part of until today.

The
year was 2013 and I was 15 years old, and Gustavo was 17 years old and by far this is not a
love story at first sight, after all, at the time we were dating other people, but since we had the
same groups of friends, we were always together. we went growing closer as we participated
in activities together at church and we found out we lived very close to each other, so we
always went together to church and going out with friends. As time went by, we became great
friends, I was going through the end of my last relationship and he was given me support, we
wore studying the Bible together and go to each other's homes, we grow in maturity, age, and
companionship.
In 2016 we were already best friends, Gustavo had been dating someone else for more than
2 years, but their relationship wasn't very good, so he decided to break up and in January
2017, shortly after the breakup we decided that we wanted to be together because we knew
we liked each other too much to pretend like nothing was happening. So, on the 12.01.2017th
we started dating.

2 months after we started dating my mother and stepfather were in the process of moving to
Canada and there was always the opportunity for me to go with them, but I didn't think twice
and stayed in Brazil. I didn't want to end my relationship and I had just started a new job and
I couldn't see any reason to leave the country at that moment. My parents didn't really like the
idea, after all I was only 19 years old and I was leaving the opportunity to live abroad because
of a recent relationship, so all this turbulent beginning of dating only made us closer to each
other and our love was genuinely growing, the desire to have a future together was bigger
than everything.

After 5 months of dating, we already had the huge desire to get married and be a family. At a
dating celebration dinner, Gustavo wrote me on a napkin the promise that we were going to
get married, as a joke contract and I couldn't help but register it.
 “I, Gustavo Martins Lopes, bearer of
CPF:075.889.524-07, declare in good conscience
that; I will live forever beside Marcelle Andrade
Soares, future Mrs. Martins. Awaiting acceptance,
yours sincerely, Gustavo Martins. Recife, June 16,
2017.”

Before continuing with the story, I need to talk a little about how my parents' first months in
Canada were, they always wanted to leave Brazil, my stepfather, when he was younger, went
on an exchange program to Spain and his sister lives in the United States, so the dream of
living abroad has always been something real in our lives, when I was 16, I started a theater
course and auditioned for the New York Academy university, where I gave a presentation in
English and got a scholarship to study there, but the investment to live in New York was too
high and we didn't go forward with the idea, but this opportunity rekindled the flame in the
hearts of my parents who began to see life in Canada, what it would be like to immigrate,
study, live, make a home, then After 2 years of dedication, they sold their things in Brazil and
after my mother went to Seneca College, in Toronto, they decided to leave for Canada, just
after 2 months of my dating. Here in Canada, my parents fell in love with the country,
education, health and especially safety, while my mother studied Broadcast and TV, my
stepfather worked as a salesman in a flooring store. Just after 2 months of them in Canada,
in May 2017, I came for the first time to see the country and bring our two dogs, who until then
lived with me and my grandmother. When I got to know Canada I had a good feeling in my
heart, but I knew that it wasn't my moment here yet, I was dating, I was in a selection process
to move up in the bank, so it didn't make sense to be with them, if my heart I was somewhere
else, I know that for my parents, it wasn't easy, I'm their only child and at that moment I was
choosing to follow my life away from them, even if for a while. In my days in Canada, I sent
several photos and videos, because Gustavo had never been here, each photo he got more
excited, each video he replied “we need to know this country together”, we didn't know what
the future was waiting for wait for us.

Back to Brazil and our history our first year of dating was intensely fun, in Brazil we have the
custom of wearing dating rings that are not yet an engagement ring, but it demonstrates the
commitment for the future and Gustavo gave me these rings after 9 months of dating. We went
to many family parties and church events and hung out with friends a lot.

In October 2018 we took our first international trip together, to Miami. My cousin was getting
married, so the whole family was going to get together, including my parents who were in
Canada. It was a quick trip, we spent 5 days and shared a hotel room with my parents, but it
was a nice trip.
After my return from my first trip to Canada, already in 2017, Gustavo started dreaming of
doing an exchange program to Canada, he wanted to know more about this country and take
advantage of the opportunities, so in 2018, after getting his American visa, he took the ETA to
be able to come to Canada, but unfortunately the exchange did not happen, Gustavo had just
started his new job (Audit) and had no way of saving so much money to spend a month doing
the exchange, knowing that he would pay almost 3x in everything due to the exchange rate of
the Canadian dollar against the Real, but in any case this was not an impediment, we
postponed it a little, but we decided that on our vacation we would go to Canada, Gustavo is
the typical person who researches everything about the place, he already I knew the average
temperature in Toronto, which tours we were going to do, how much we were going to spend
on transport with the TTC, how much food, which place we could stay that would be close to
the bus stop, which market we would go to buy us breakfast and dinner, literally everything he
had planned. Then, In August 2019, we were on vacation from our jobs and decided to take a
trip together, we thought of some possibilities, because I had already visited Canada other
times, but Gustavo had not yet, in the end we decided to visit my parents in Toronto, but it was
a surprise trip, and we didn't tell them we were going. We arrived from the trip and went to
AIRBNB, we slept and the next morning we took the subway to my mother's house, and she
almost died of joy when she saw that we were there?

We enjoyed this trip a lot,

we went out a lot, traveled to other
cities near Toronto and got to
know several places, from the first
day we started to see life in
Canada as a possibility of a better
life. So many beautiful places,
safe and close to the family,
during this trip Gustavo and I
talked several times about the
possibility of living here one day,
but there was still no prospect that
this would be a reality.
The next topic will be written by me, Gustavo, the trip had a plan, which was to surprise
Marcelle's parents and visit Canada, but there was a plan within the plan, which was to ask
Marcelle to marry me after talking to the her parents, my family has very traditional roots, my
grandparents got married in 1959 and are still together even today, even if one of my
grandparents died. When my parents get married, my father asked my mother for my
grandfather's hand, so I couldn't do otherwise, Marcelle always made it clear that she wanted
to marry me and I wanted to marry her, but I know that her parents had this pain, the man who
took our daughter from us, who took away the opportunity to live in Canada, our relationship
it had been very short, 2 months before they came to Canada, plus the 5-day trip to Miami,
plus 2 trips by Marcelle's mother to Brazil, so on August 13, 2019, in their apartment, after
talking, I said to them, “I want to marry your daughter, who I want to give everything possible
for her to be happy, wherever she is”, that night they blessed us and I was already calm that
this was the family I was going to be a part of forever. On August 14th, I came up with a plan,
we were going to Casa Loma, then to the CN Tower, I thought the proposal needs to be at
some Canadian landmark so after a lot of nerves and walking a lot, we waited hours to climb
to the top from the CN Tower, my plan was successfully realized.
 On August 14, 2019, at the top of the CN tower,
I proposed. Canada is part of one of the most
important moments of our lives and I couldn't
think of a better place to become a bride.

That day was marked in our lives in an

inexplicable way. We immortalized the maple leaf and kept it in a frame until today.in our lives
in an inexplicable way. We immortalized the maple leaf and kept it in a frame until today.

After this trip Gustavo fell in love with Canada, he joked with friends and relatives saying that
he could not talk to anyone for more than 5 minutes about Canada because otherwise he
would quit his job and go live there. In fact, Gustavo's job was a point that gave us hope of
being able to live in Canada correctly and quickly, Gustavo worked as an Auditor, at BDO, one
of the 5 largest Audit companies, which has units all over the world, including, several units in
Canada, so Gustavo at that time focused that he needed to finish his studies, learn more and
more about the world of Auditing and its regulations so that maybe one day he would have the
opportunity, come to Canada to work in one of the Big Five.

That same year, before I was proposed, I was living with my grandmother, but she was going
to move to another city, which would be far from my work, and I would have to rent an
apartment by myself, so at the same time, Gustavo and his parents invited me to live in their
house, avoiding an extra cost and already with the certainty that from there we would go to
our own place.
After the trip, when we returned to Brazil and decided that we were going to get married in
November 2020, in order to be able to prepare a wedding party in which all our family and
friends were present, we started to sign the contracts with advisory, party house, buffet,
decoration, among others, but the Covid-19 pandemic transformed our plans, with everything
closed, we had to postpone our wedding until April 2021, with the hope that the pandemic was
already over.

At that time, my mother had already finished college and my father was already a supervisor
at the store where he worked, so they decided to enter the PR, and due to a change in the
law, I was able to enter the process, even though I was not living in Canada, after the trip and
with the PR process finished, I would need to travel to Canada to stamp my passport,
performing the “Landing”. The process should have been done since April 2020, but with
closed airports I was only able to travel in November and thus have the PR.

When I returned to Brazil again, we decided not to wait any longer for the wedding party and
to formalize our relationship, in Civil Registry, we wanted to have our house and live as a
married couple, it didn't make sense to spend more time at Gustavo's parents' house. So, on
12.10.2020 we got married at the registry office, during the pandemic, so not many people
could enter, but we managed to film it to send to our parents who sent a bouquet of flowers
as a gift for us to celebrate this very special day. With the family that was in Brazil, we all went
out for dinner and celebrated our marriage.
We started organizing our move and moved into our first apartment together. The anxiety
was huge to have our home and we did everything our own way and it was very special. As
it was December, we bought our first Christmas tree, we still had almost nothing in the living
room, but we didn't want to
 Two months after we got married, we made another decision in our lives, we took
another important step, and so, Anakin, our first child of heart, arrives, it was an important step
because now we started to take on more responsibilities, we started to learn in addition to
taking care of a on the other, that we would be taking care of a life that would need affection,
love, attention and care
In 2021, the pandemic in Brazil still had many restrictions, so we postponed our wedding party
twice, until we decided that we would no longer have a party, also in 2021, Gustavo changed
his job, leaving the Audit, going to the area of systems analysis, allowing him to work remotely,
being able to be closer to our dog and having more quality time.
And after a year in that first apartment, we decided to move to a larger space, to accommodate
a large dog and that had an extra room, since Gustavo now worked from home and we were
planning that soon we would have a new member in the our house, so in October 2021, we
moved to our new home, a new move, increasingly happy as we were planning our lives and
with God's blessing, everything was working out. In this new apartment, we painted the walls,
tidied up the office, the living room and little by little we made the place our own, we spent the
first New Year there with friends and we started the year 2022 with lots of love and joy.
In April 2022, I decided to take a course to become a tattoo artist and, as always, I had my
husband's support in this new phase. The first tattoo I ever did was on him.

Still in April, we decided to try to get pregnant, and in May 2022, we had the best news we
could hope for in life. We found out that we are expecting a baby. We shared this wonderful
news with family and friends, and everyone was overjoyed.
In August we found out our baby was a girl. Cecília, and we had a revelation tea with most of
our family and friends. My parents who were in Canada followed everything by video call. As
our wedding party had been cancelled, we took advantage of the suppliers to hold the baby.
gender review party, we gathered all the people who are very dear to us and our pastors and
invited everyone to this very special moment.
Seeing our family grow and thinking about the best for our daughter, my parents called us to
stay at their home here in Canada so that Cecília could be born here (expected to be born on
January 12, 2023), having more opportunity for her in the future, we didn't think twice and
decided that it would be the best decision to make. So we organized everything and we came,
the 4 of us, towards Canada, towards new possibilities, on November 18, 2022, we arrived in
Canada through the Toronto airport, and then we came to the City of Red Deer in Alberta,
where we are now living , with my parents, who are giving us all the support, both housing and
financial, until we can organize ourselves so that Gustavo obtains a Permanent Resident visa
so that we can finally set up our family in Canada and that we can build our life in this country
Two months after we arrived in Canada, on January 18, 2023, at 05:14, our princess was born,
being our first Canadian daughter.
With the arrival of our princess, the certainties of our future only increased, everything we have
lived here since the day we arrived, makes us sure that Canada will also be our home, we are
already looking for Day Cares in Red Deer, already we opened a joint account at TD Bank,
we are already thinking and planning our future, for the time being I still cannot work on behalf
of Cecília. I want to use my knowledge in the financial system to be able to apply for vacancies
in the Canadian banking sector and also, I continue with my dream of tattooing people, also
being a possibility to open my company of tattoo studio, and as soon as Gustavo obtains
authorization to work in Canada, he will start looking in his graduated areas in Administration
(business) and Accounting, being able to contribute with his knowledge in this new journey, in
principle we will continue living with our parents, until we have financial stability and we can
have our own place, we fell in love with the province of Alberta, we already know Calgary,
Edmonton and the mountain regions, Gustavo already says he is a fan of the Edmonton Oilers,
even not having the slightest idea of how to play hockey and never having watched a match
before coming to Canada, our family and friends who stayed in Brazil are giving us all the
support possible, the nostalgia is great, but technology helps in these moments , we are just
waiting for the opportunity to appear so that we can, like my parents, stay in Canada and
continue our life here.