19 December 2016

19 December 2016

oi familia! im sending a lot of pictures today because i finally can! some are of the christmas conference and also when i got the christmas package with cookies! Also, at the conference, i got the envelope with all of your letters and i loved them! especially all of the halloween stories from the Kate Alli and Madelyn. i´m glad they love candy and the moon bounce so much! 

I look forward to skyping with you all domingo, it will probably be about 4 or 5 here, but i don´t remember exactly the difference in time. 

This week was good, the Christmas conference was fun, and we are excited for a bapstism this saturday! Gabrielle is a 12 year old girl in a less active family that we are working with. they are awesome and everyone supports her baptism! We are also continuing to wkr with pedro and his 2 kids and their neighbor. they are all interested and humble, it is just difficult to get them to keep commitments. 

This week i learned more about hope and how hope means working with pacience even when it is hard and trusting that God will fulfill hiss promises. 

I love and pray for you guys, enjoy the christmas season and see you Sunday! :)

12 December 2016

oi familia! how are you all doing! excited for christmas!

this week was challenging but good. i dont know if you heard about the plane accident but here it is allover the news and it is very tragic. yesterday we had an area brasil conference broadcasted from salt lake and elder holldand and sister oscarson spoke (sister oscarson spoke portuguese fluently and elder holldand bore his testimony in portuguese which was cool). tomorrow we have our mission christmas conference. the work is going well, there were some dissapointments this week but i am able to elarn from each one. i would love to write more but this computer had problems and my time is now up i'm sorry!

5 December 2016

oi familia!

it was a very crazy week, but a really good one. i can´t believe it is already december, the holiday season is going to fly by! happy sinter klaas day tomorrow! 

this week we made a lot of progress in this area. We had a baptismal date marked this saturday for Igor, but we will have to postpone it for a little while. But, a young woman who has been investigating for over a year will likely be baptized this saturday! She has been ready, but her parents would not give permission, but finally they gave permission so that was a miracle! We also started teaching a man named Pedro and his 2 kids (8 and 10 years old) that are really great and humble and they came to church yesterday and loved it and want to keep coming. They are a bit quiet and don´t say much but we are going to help them understand more. But the kids are so sweet i love them! I love Cruz Alta there are so many great receptive people being prepared that we are able to find each day and there are so many progressing! 

This week i was able to learn a lot more about the importance of charity and not just doing what you are supposed to, but really becoming a disciple of Christ that loves and serves others. It is when we develop charity, the pure love of Christ that we will be happy and content where we are, develop other attributes of Christ, and really change our nature. I had an experience this week where we found an inactive member and she was very cold and just reluctantly let us in to her house to share a message. it could have been easy to treat her the same way and not show much love or care for her, but i tried really hard to just treat her with love, get to know her story and really help her. she started to warm up a bit, we shared a scripture that the spirit prompted me to share and it was perfect for her situation. she said at the end that the scripture was just what she needed to hear. she said at first she didn´t feel like recieving a visit, but she was glad she did because it helped her and she wants to go back to church.  I learned that when we show charity and love for people, they can feel God´s love for them and there hear can be softened for the spirit to enter. 

I hope my englsih is making sense. i hope you all have a great week, i´m thinking about you all in this christmas season, remember to think about the love of the savior this week and try to help others feel this love too!

28 November 2016

oi familia! i hope thanksgivng was good. i am happy for rebecca and her blessing, the fotos were so adorable! i heard people say that mitt romney was chosen to be the finance secretary for president trump, is that true. (sorry this keyboard does not have a question mark...)

this week was great, it was physically callenging, but there were lots of blessings. a lot of less actives went to church on sunday for the ward conference. we found a lot of new investigators and a lot of couples and families. We also ave an investigator, Igor that is 16 and he wants to be baptized and has been going to church by himself for a while now. He just studies and works all day so it is hard to find time to teach him. but he is great and will hopefully be baptized soon! We are also working with Helena and Joel, Alceu and Elissangela, and Lucas and Luciele that are alll great couples with so much potencial! there is a lot of work to do here and i am excited!

the conference with elder Costa was so amazing, he told a lot of stories and gave a ton of great advice and it was really spiritual. He was also hilarious all the missionaries were laughing practically the whole time! 

This week I learned to depend a lot more on the Savior and the atonement that is always there to give us strength and comfort. I am learning to be greatful for challenges because they give us the opportunity to be humble and feel closer to God. They also give us the opportunity become more like Christ. I studied about how there is opposition in all things and when we have challenges we are presented with a choice and we can use our agency to chose to develop a Christlike attribute. This is how progression works. I learned a new mindset that whenever we face a challenge, instead of complaining or feeling bad for ourself, We can think of what Christlike attribute we have the chance to aquire, such as pacience, love, or faith. Then we can think of the choices necessary to aquire it and do that. 

Have a great week :)

Zone Conference with Claudio R M Costa, November 2016

21 November 2016

Oi familia!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!! I forgot about Thanksgiving until today.... I don´t think we will do anything here to celebrate it.... but give thanks! Also that day we are going to have another conference in Santa Maria, this time just half of the mission together in each copnference, but Elder Costa (the Brasil area president) will come to speak to us. i am excited!

I am loving Cruz Alta!! It is a pretty big area with lots and lots of big hills. It is a nicer city and it is an area way fancier than in São Gabriel, and we serve in a ward. We don´t split the ward with other missionaries like i have in the past, but there are 3 other wards in the city. We are finding a lot of inactive members and recent converts that we need to work with. there are some good investigatorsl, and we are working to find more investigators with potential. There is an older couple that are great and humble, they just need to go to church, but it is hard for them because they have a daughter with mental problems that they can´t leave alone, nor bring to church with them. 

I love my new companion Sister Vicente! She is from Sergipe in the northeast of Brasil and she is really nice and funny, we are getting along great. I am continuing to learn a lot everyday and I am excited and hopeful for another great transfer! Here we live in an apartment with the Sister training leaders and right now they are a trio and two of them are americans. It is fun i love everyone in our apartment. I am also getting excited for Christmas, which I will pass here and we are starting to give out passalong cards for the enw video that i think comes out on the 25th this week. you all should watch it and let me know if it is good! 

I hope you all have a great thanksgiving, eat lots of good food, enjoy the cool weather, spend time with family, and let me know what fun things you all do! 

A thought I can share related to thanksgiving are the following:

``A grateful heart is a happy heart´´

Today i was studying about humility and learned that one way to show our humility is through our gratitude for the blessings that we have. When we express our gratitude to God, we show our love for and trust in Him and we are able to recognize the blessings and miracles that He has already given us. And we are happy! 

Have a great week :)

14 November 2016

oi familia!

happy birthday dad!! 

it sounds like the elections were really crazy, everybody was asking me about it here, but i knew nothing to respond. but even being here, i am glad that´s all over. i´m sure everything will turn out!

This week Angelita got married and baptized!! and Eliane also got baptized! there were also 4 bapotism in the other branch and we had a program all together which was great, the missionaries sang, and afterwards we had an activity that the missionaries planned called ``pie in the face´´ which was fun. this week was very busy.

I will be transferred to Cruz Alta and my companion will be Sister Vicente (a brasileira) i think she is from the northeast. I am excited to get to know a new city, ward, and companion, and face new challenges. i don´t have much time to type but i hope you all have a really great week!!

love

sarah

7 November 2016

this week was very hot! i´m a little scared for the summer heat that will come here. an elder said that here in the south it is hotter in the summer than in northern brasil! this week was also crazy because i had to travel again to santa maria to renew my visa along with the rest of my district form the CTM so it was cool to get to see everyone and now i can legally stay in brasil until december 2017!

so we were really blessed this week with a lady that moved from Livramento (another city in the mission) who is engaged to a member in Livramento and she has been going to church there and talking with the bishop there and everything and she moved to são gabriel to work and wanted to find the church here, meet the missionaries, and be baptized as soon as possible! her baptism is makred for this saturday together with Angelita!! we also were able to have lots of investigators at church on sunday. It was fast sunday and it was an especially difficult fast with the heat and everything, but i know it helped us have so many miracles and the work here is really going great!

this week will be very eventful with the marraige of Angeltita, the baptisms on saturday and we will also find out about transfers and i am guessing that i ill be ransfered, but we will see what happens! 

This week i was able to see that perserverance and patience lead to great blessins! have a good week everyone i love you!

31 October 2016

oi familia!

Happy Halloween!! It does not look or seem like halloween here. I hope you all are doing well, anyone have fun plans for Halloween or cool costumes? 

I attached some pictures form the zone conference last week. 

This week was a hard, but great week. Angelita is great,we are making plans for her marraige and baptism. we also are working a lot more with innactive members and part member families and were are finding great new investigators this way. 

We were able to reactivate a young woman (Laisa) and her mom (Katia) and we started teaching her sister (Aline) who is really interested and accepted baptism. We have a family night planned with them this week. 

We also found another family where the dad is an active member and he has 9 kids! 2 of which were baptized, but inactive and the rest who are non members, but all the family memebrs that we have met are receptive. We were able to bring one of his sons and his grandson to the halloween dance at the church and then on Sunday the grandson along with another of his son´s came to chruch. we also are planning a family night with them. The work is very productive this way and I am very excited for these families!

This week I hit the half way mark! It feels normal, I feel about half way. I have learned so much and have a lot left to learn. I have been able to strengthen my faith and my testimony, learn a lot about effective missionary work, and develop Christlike attributes, especially patience, humility, and charity, and finally just become a stronger person. I look forward to what these next 9 months will teach me, because i know i will nevers top learning and having opportunities to improve. 

I love you guys and hope you all can always feel peace, endurance and hope through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Brazil Santa Maria Mission Zone Conference 28 October 2016

24 October 2016

oi familia! how is everyone doing? halloween is coming up! no one really celebrates it here, but there will be a halloween dance in the branch. recently everyone celebrated children´s day which is a big holiday in south america, like mother and fathers day. on november 2nd will be the day of the dead when everyone goes to the cemetary and in past years apparently missionaries spent the day in the cemetary singing hymns. they don´t celebrate thanksgiving here.. :( but that won´t stop me from giving thanks! 

unfortunatley, many of our investigators don´t want to investigate anymore, but now we have more time to move on and find the people that are being prepared. i am motivated and excited for a new week and to work more with members and less actives. don´t worry, Angelita is still continuing strong!

this week we had a zone conference in Alegrete which was really good and i got to see all of my old companions at once, it was so great! i took a picture that ill try to send next week. The conference was so good and ws about how, like david, we can overcome our ``golias´´ on the mission, witht the rocks of repentence, faith, good works, persistent prayer and patience. we also talked a lot about the grace of Christ and it was really comforting to remeber that when all is said and done, it is only through the grace and atonement of christ that anything is possible, and that with grace mircles are possbile. we have weaknesses and imperfections, but that is ok because we have the atonement of Jesus Christ.

have a good week everybody, i love and pray for you all :)

17 October 2016

I hope you had a great birthdaymom and i hope you all are enjoying fall weather! these past few days here have been really really really rainy. 

This week was crazy because we had divisions in Santa Maria again which were good and it was fun to see Sister Christensen (from myMTC district) again. Then this weekend we had stake conference and President and SIster Louza came to speak and they alos interviewed the missionaries. I am also the branch pianist (i think if i stay another transfer here i will recieve this as a calling in the branch) but i accompanied the choir sing for the conference which was fun and a little nerve-racking.... But Angelita came to the conference and met the mission president and his wife and she was so sweet and excited talking about her baptism! we are working with some other good investigators but alos needing to find lots of new ones. 

Lately I have been able to learn a lot more about and develop more Christlike attributes. Especially about love, humiity, pacience, and service. It is always helpful to ask yourself what Christ would do in any situation, and also how you would treat a certain person if he or she were Christ. Because, like many scriptures say, when we do something to or for someone else,it is as if we were doing it to Christ. Also, a themeof teh conference was becoming perfected through Christ little by litte through the small things that we do daily and through His grace we will eventually becomeperfected in Him (Moroni 7:32) 

have a great week everyone!

10 October 2016

oi familia! how are you all doing? sounds likea good time fo year there and that you are enjoying some good fall weather. I can´t believe Rebecca is already a month old! Congrats mom with the family history business!! it sounds like it is starting out great. I´m sure you all are really busy, i hope youall aremanaging everything well. 

Things ae going well here. Angelita marked a date for her marraige which will be november 9th and she will then be baptized the following saturday on the 12th! the last saturday of this transfer. We are really happy and excited. As I get to know Angelita and her background better, I grow to love her more and more and I am seeing large differences in her life since we first met her and she first heard about the gospel. She is very humble, dedicated,a dn strong after some rough experiences in her life. She has 7 children, the youngest is 2 years old and he is the craziest 2 year old i have ever met! he does not stop moving! unfortantely, the rest of her family does not show much interest in the church,but we will try to work more with them. We are working hard with our other investigators,but we need to find lots of new, prepared investigators. 

I liked in conference, the talk about joy and how man are that wemight have joy and that Jesus Christ is joy. I am seeing how the gospel brings joy to my life, the life of Angelita, and other members and it is really true, even when it is hard I am happy because i have the gospel which brings hope. Like the apostle (i forgetwhich one)said, it is about learning to suffer with joy.

tchau, boa semana

3 October 2016

oi familia! 

how is everyone?? sister saavedra and i will both continue here in são gabriel and we are happy. i´m sure elections are crazy there. they were elections here too on sunday and the streets were crazy! for the past month or so cars drive around constantly blasting theme songs of the different candidates. i´m thankful there are laws against that in the united states. then on the day of elections everyone was in the street celebrating the whole day it was really crazy, especially for just a town mayor. and wow generaly conference! wasn´t it so amazing?? angelita came to both of the sunday sessions and she will enter her marraige papers this week! marcelo also went to the morning session on saturday which was a miracle and all the talks weere so good and perfect for him and the questions he had. he is still undecided about baptism but i am hoping and praying for a miracle. we also have abunch of other great investigators with a lot of potential and we will work hard with them this transfer. 

i really loved conference and noticed some important themes. One of these themes was the basic principles of the gospel, especially repentence. God loves us more than we can imagine, faith in Jesus Christ is essential, but the speeakers made it clear that the only way we can actually be worthy to live with God again is through repentence continually throughout our lives. I also liked the theme about doing and trusting in God´s will, not ours. Many speakers quoted the Savior in gethsemane saying, ``not my will, but thine be done´´ There were so many other great themes and talks i could go on and on but i hope you all reread these talks and apply the guidance in your lives! i love you all so much have an amazing week :)

26 September 2016

How is everyone doing? Rebecca is so adorable! The BYU game sounds fun, but dissapointing that they lost. Who was QB? Has Taysom Hill´s leg healed? Are you all excited for conference? I know I am! No I was not able to watch the women´s session. Also a disclaimer, I was not actually drinking chimarrão/matte in that picture. we are not allowed to. But it was cool this week on the day of the Gaúchos to see tons and tons of gauchos on horses marching in the streets and people sitting on the sidewalks to watch, including some of our investigators that we had appointments with.... We were not able to watch but we passed by. The city had a strong smell of horses that day. 

We had a good tiring week and we found a lot of good new investigators this week. We just have to keep working and moving forward. This is the last week of this transfer and time is passing by very fast. I hope to stay here in São Gabriel with Sister Saavedra. 

A thought for this week is 1 Nephi 19:24. Being able to hear the words fo the prophet is a special opportunity because they are really the words that God need us to hear. The holy ghost will testify to us in our hearts the truthfulness of the things spoken in conference. We just need to be prepared and listen humbly to find things we need to apply to our lives. Have a good week everyone! I love you all

19 September 2016

OI tudo bem!

How is everyone doing?? I am so happy to hear about Rebecca Marie, and I love her beautiful name. Loved seeing the pictures and I hope Amy and Rebecca are healthy and doing well. It was also fun to hear about and see pictures of the Sisters Reunion that mom had.

Happy Gaúcho week! Tomorrow is the Gaúcho holiday where there will be parades and stuff and everyone dressed in Gaúcho clothing. I also have a pair of bombachas (gaúcho pants) and a cuya (cup they use to drink chimmarrão) and photos are included! Last P-day we also learned how to make Coxinhas with a lady in the branch and thet is why there is a photo that may look like i started working at the Lancaster County Dutch Market. 

This week we went to Santa Maria again for divisions which was good. Santa Maria is a lot different than São Gabriel. We ae working hard in our area and are continuing to amke progress with Angelita and a guy named Marcelo. We are especially working to help our investigators really understand and apply for themselves the pirnciples of the gospel and applying prayer and reading the book fo mormon in their lives. Angelita is great, she just needs to get married!

A thought for the week is D&C 112:11. The whole section is very good for missionary work, but this verse talks about loving others the same as yourself. Sometimes we love others, but still think first of ourself and are not willing to sacrifice what we want, to help them, but to really have Christlike lvoe we have to view others as if they were us and give and do the best for them. 

Amo vocês! Look forward to seeing more pictures of Rebecca :)

12 September 2016

Bom dia!!

how are you all doing?? I am glad to hear about all the fun things happening at home. I am excited to hear next week if I have a new niece! I hope everything goes well, Amy and Nathan and I am praying for you all. 

This week was eventful, the branch ahd a master chef activity that went great. It was like a cooking competition and us missionaries, experts in food tasting, were the judges. Angelita came and we are still workign with her on getting married. But she is progressing and making freinds in the church which is great. We also foudn a lday named Tersinha that has childrent hat were baptized and she is very interested. She said that when she passed the church one day during the week she had a strong desire just to enter. We are working hard to find these people that are being prepared.

Wow I am glad you all are so excited to hear about the surprise! Here it is: This weekend we all traveled to Santa Maria for a conference with the entire mission together with Elder Neil L. Anderson. It was such an amazing opportunity to meet and be instructed by a servant of the Lord. I can honestly say that it was one of the most powerful and spiritual experiences I have ever had. He focused on repentance and the Atonement of Christ and what it really means to be converted. That we have to feel a bit of the wieght of our sins to the point where we want to call upon God and change. I will never forget the testimony and witness that he bore of Jesus Christ, that He lives and the day will come when we will all kneel at His feet. I will never forget the powerful spirit that filled the room at the end when 250 missionaries sang the hymn ``I know that My Redeemer Lives´´ with all our hearts. By the end of the hymn eveyone was crying and hardly able to sing and all you could hear in the closing prayer were people sniffling. 

I want to bear my testimony to you all that I know that Jesus Christ lives. I know that He is the son of God, our savior, and our king. I know that He payed the price for our sins, that he gave up His life on the cross, and that He was resurrected 3 days later. I know that He will come again in his glory and we will all kneel before His feet. I know that We have a living prophet and 12 apostles today that are special witnesses of Him and that they hold the essencial keys of the Priesthood. I know that this is the one and only true church of Jesus Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen. 

5 September 2016

How are you all doing? I hope you all are ahving a good week.

I also had a great week last week. The work is going well, we are talking to tons of people every day, and are continuing to find great new investigators and help our other investigators pray and recieve answers from God. Angelita is progressing and we are working on the process of her legal marriage. Her husband does not ahve interest in the church,b ut he agreed to get married which was a miracle. 

This week I learnd more about the power of prayer and recieving answers to our prayers throught the power of the holy ghost. I have been working on improving my prayers to be more faithful and sincere and also finding times to pray out loud. I have noticed a huge difference in my relationship with God, faith, and testimony. I know at least many times I pray without expecting to recieve an answer or without spending some time after to await a response, but I know that God is always listenign and willing to respond back to us by way of the holy ghost. I know prayer is simple, but it is also powerful adn our means of communication with our Father in heaven.

I sure hope my english is making sense, it is getting a little bit harder lately!

Love you all, have a great week. Also next week in ym email i will have a surprise to share with you.

29 August 2016

oi familia i hope you all are doing great! Happy birthday to ben this week!

im glad the temple open house was good and i can´t believe benjamin franklin is still alive! the pictures looked great. Things are well here, we moved into our new apartment which took an entire day of cleaning and moving furniture. The new apartment is a lot better, it is on the highest floor of the building and has a great view of the city, and for some reason i feel like i am at the ebach in a beach hosue in the apartment, so i am loving that. 

I also have a new companion and I love her she is so great! I don´t know why I am so luck to always be blessed with the best companions. She is from peru and she is so sweet and a great missionary. She has been on her mission for a year. We have a lot in common and get along great. 

Angelita is continuing to progress, and she needs to get married and are going to work witht her this week to get that ready. Also, i don´t remmebr if i metioned Inês and Matteus, but they are a couple (married!!) with the cutest little baby and they are really interested. The work is going well and this week I was able to learn more about internal motivation. By this I mean focusing on always doing what is right, feeling, and following the spirit, and loving other people, no matter what the result is, you will have joy.

Have a  great week, love you all :)

22 August 2016

This week was a little crazy. First of all my companion is being transferred and my new companion will be Sister Saavedra, I believe she is from Peru! Also, the mission really prepares you for all parts of life including apartment hunting and moving! This week we had to find a new place to live and we will probably move this week. 

The work here is going really well. Angelita plans on being baptized on the 3rd of september and we found a couple named Atanajar and arminda that came to church yesterday and really loved it! They accepted to eb baptized on the 9th of September. We will work with them to help them be prepared and continue workignw ith our many other great investigators that we are finding! We ahve been seeing lots of miracles.

i hope you have a good time in philidelphia this week and at the temple, sounds like fun! have a great week everyone!

a thought for this week is one of my new fvorite scriptures i think it is 2 corinthians 12:9, look it up if you have a chance :)

15 August 2016

it was great to skype with mom and dad yesterday and i hope the rest of the family is doing well. I had a good week. we were able to find a lot of elect investigators in the moment that they needed help this week which was great. we could see how the spirit guided us to those in need. Also one of our new investigators came to church yesterday, which was a miracle, and ended up already knowing some of the members and having friendships with them which is great and really imortant. Things are good with my companion, I am learning a lot with her. Sorry that it is so hot there, it is also starting to heat up here and it apparently will get very very very hot here in the summer so i am a little nervous for that...

A thought for the week from Alma 26 is that even when things are hard, we always have reason to rejoice, be grateful, and be happy and that is because we have a merciful, loving, and all-powerful God.

Amo vocês!!