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.