3 July 2017

hey everyone! wow 9 weeks of missionary homecomings and farwells! sounds like things are exciting in the Kentlands ward. This week was good-- the branch had a ``festa junina´´ which is a traditional party that eveyone does here this time of year. photos included. ALSO-- remember Kessy? well he said that maybe in the future he will be more ready so we  prayed a lot for him and really prayed with faith that he would feel the fault of the gospel and we waited a week and called him just to see how he was doing and without us asking he said that he reflected a bit and felt that something was missing so he want to continue to investigate and search the gospel. Miracles! I don´t remember if i said already but he hasdepression and really wants to fin a path that makes him happy. After a hard slow week we were so happy when this happened yesterday. We literally jumped for joy on the street haha (don´t worry there was no one else on that street) but i hope you all are doing well i love you all wih you all a great week :)

26 June 2017

The sunrise from our apartment is so beautiful every day! It was a good week. Unfortunatley, our most progressing investigators, Kessy, the young man that works at the market and Joice, the young woman that had a baptismal date marked, decided that they did not want to continue right now. It was sad, but free agency is very important. We are going to continue to work with our other investigators and just do our best. I had a great experience this week with the Sacrament. Recently i have been studying and learning more baout the sacrament and also how we can ask God sepcifically what we can imporove and the sacrament is a great oportunity to reflect and recieve these answers. After a hard week, I was excited to participate in the ordinacne of the Sacrament and I could really recieve answers to my prayers and revelation to know what i can do better. i know that when we really take the sacrament with a broken heart and contrite spirit, it is an amazing experience. 

Sounds fun for Nathan and Amy to be in Mexico and Daniel in california! Sounds like everyone is going to have a good busy week. I also found out that i will be able to go to the temple in Porto Alegre on my trip home! I´m really looking forward to that.

19 June 2017

hey everyone. this week i had my last zone conference where i bore my ``last testimony´´ which was so strange. it was a great conference and President Louza told me ``God just need one second to do a miracle and you have a lot of seconds left.´´ i liked that. Then i had a division wiht Sister Soares that was great. Kessy is doing great he went to church yesterday and loved it. He is very inteligent and sincere and has so much potential to be a great member. We are blessed with so many other great investigatros and families and it seems like we are planting a lot of seeds here in São pedro and I hope that we will be able to harvest a few before July 18th! But things are doing great here I am excited for these last few weeks. It´s a little weird because it seems like I will a missionary in brasil forever haha. Good to hear about all your activities, I hope you all are doing great! 

oh, PS happy fathers day dad! i didn´t remember because here in brasil fathers day is in august.... hope it was a good one!

12 June 2017

hey everyone! it was a great cold week! we found an investigator that is really really great and his name is Kessy. he started talking to us in the market where he works and we got his contact and visited him yesterday and he was so prepared. he has a lot fo personal problems but he could really understand how the gospel would help him and after teaching about joseph smith he said that he already beleives that this is the true church. So many miracles! we are workling with a lot of other investigators that are progressing well. The branch is still very small and it will take a lot of work and patience to get back to where it wasabout a year ago (it was goriwing really well but some thins happened that made almost everyone expet one family stop going).

This week i learned a lot about grace because i felt  a little inadaquate and frustrated but i remembered the scripture in 2 Nefi 25:26 that it is by grace that we are saved after all we can do. And all we can do is repent and try tto be better each day. I´m grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ that literally saves us from everything. I love you all have a great week :)

5 June 2017

hello how is everyone doing? sounds like everyone had a fun busy week with travels and the start of summer. we had another good cold rainy week here. so far, not many people have gone to our english and piano classes, but people are showing interest, even 2 people today in the market called for us to ask about the classes. 

this week had a lo of ups and downs but we really sa a lot of miracles. we founda lady who is very interested and accepted a baptismal date, but we were sad when she didn´t go to church. we also spent 45 minutes waiting for other investigators outside of the church and it appeared that no one would show up so we went inside but as soon as we entered relief society the branch president called for us because a family of investigators showed up! we were so happy, they are really great they a different religion, assembly of God, but they love to go to our church too, they used to attend our churhc in another city. I learned a lot about not doubting, but always expecting and waiting for miracles and then they happen when you least expect it. I think this week i elarned a lot about faith and all the good things that happen when we have faith and faith is what gives us strength to keep going in the hard times.

read alma 44:4 :)

love you all have a great week!

22 May 2017

hello everyone. sounds like ou all are going to have a fun busy week! matthew, congrats on your ne job you will have in finland is it cold there? i hopoe everyone at home ha s fun memorial day weekend. 

saturday the baptism of Jonathan went well, it as very spiritual. He bore a nice testimony and had a lot of famil and friends there to watch that are not members. This week unfortunately Lilian who we marekd a baptism is passing through some serious dificulties and she doesn´t want to continue to be taught for the meanwhile. But this week we were very blessed with other things. An investigator we found named Darci went to church and just loved it. he is great! he is about 75 years old and we met him when we were helping another man with heavy grocery bags and he called towards us and invited us to visit him. At church it was very spiritual because he does not read and the lesson in gospel priciples was about faith and there was a story about a man who wanted to leanr how to read so he prayed and worked hard and was able to learn how to read. He was very motivated by this and wants to learn how to read and has a lot of faith that this is the true church. I als studied a lot this week about really loving and serving and being a Christlike example for others because that is when they recongize that we are representatives of the Lord. I firmly believe that Darci recongized this when he saw us helping someone with the heavy bags. 

29 May 2017

hello! sounds like you all had a very fun weekend! did the nats win? it was also a fun exciting week here with lots of rain. this week we had a lot of creative activities--- we started teaching piano and english classes at the church that we will give every saturday. we also were in the newspaper, a lady interviewed me and sister christensen (we were in a division that day) and they also announced the classes on the radio. we are famous in this small town! we also have great investigators, including a 14 yeard old girl, Joice, that went to a youth activity. at the activity we watched a cool new video from the chruch about the scriptures and the book of mormon and then ate pizza. Joice loved it and shared her testimony too about teh scriptures (she knows the bible very well). Looking forwrd to another great week! 

here´s a quote that i heard and i liked:

``Before you share the gospel with the world, you have to share it with your neighbor.´´

i love you all, have another great week and enjoy the warm summer! 

15 May 2017

it was great to talk to you yesterday! i´m sorry about my englsih. i will practice. it was fun to meet kelly, she seems great. happy mother´s day again mom. i won´t say a lot because we talked yesterday but here are some photos of São Pedro do Sul. or as i like to say ``Sião Pedro do Céu´´ because Sião means Zion and Céu means heaven... have a great week i love you guys!

8 May 2017

hello everyone! i don´t have much time but i have a lot to say! first of all, next week i will try to skpe 6:00 here which mught be 5:00 there. and.... we are STILL in Santa Maria!! we will finally go to são pedro today. but i have a great story because there really was a purpose for us being here. 

On monday, we walked the whole day and then when we started to work at 6:00, EVERYTHING fell through and we were tired and discouraged. It was 9:00 and we were close to home ut now we don´t go home until 9:30 and so there was sill 30 minutes to work. We were tired and wanted to go home, but i was praying silently to find someone and we decided to continue and knock more doors. It was dark and there was no one in the street and after many ``no´´s we passed a house and it called my attention so we knocked there and a young man came out and seemed really interested. it turns out his mom was baptized a year ago and passed away 5 months ago and he listened to the messages before and has visited church. We marked a day to return and teached him the basic steps of the gospel and invited him to b baptized and he accepted, went to chuch on sunday and bore his testimony that what he wants most is to be baptized and that God sent the missionaries to find him again. It was so spriitual and i leanred so many lessons. i learnedthe importance of being obedient and enduring to the end even when we are tired and it is had, because that is when the most blessings come. Also I was reminded that God is always preparing people and he knows where they are so we need to pray continually and always seek to follow the spirit and do his will. God works in mysterious ways and everyhting happens for a reason but i know that´s why we had to stay here for 2 weeks while it was tkaing a while to set up our new house. Miracles happen!

I lvoe yo all, ahve a great week, until mothers day!!

1 May 2017

Hello! so, it was for me to be in São pedro now, but funny story. I got on the bus to santa Maria and arrived at the bus station to find out that they had not yet arranged a place to live in São Pedro so i would stay in Santa Maria for who knows how long until they arranged everything there. SO this week we stayed and worked in Santa Maria which was interesting. It is way different here than the rest of the cities that i served because it is way more urban and there are tons of young, busy people and they are a little bit colder. It seemed to me like the ``New York City´´ of Rio Grande do Sul. We were just talking with everyone and finding new people to teach this week. It was good beause i learned a lot and also i think i learned a lot more about charity and treating others with love. My new companion Sister Costa is awesome she is from Cruz Alta and she is really sweet and fun! It´s fun to have another companion gaúcha! sometime this week we will rpobably get to go to our new area which will be another great challenge! but i am excited! It has also been very cold here this week. Winter is arriving!

congrats daniel with the graduation!! also mothers day is coming up, is there a specific time that i should call you guys? if not, it will probably be in the afternoon sometime.

something that i learned today in a talk that i read is that questions are good. it does not mean that we don´t have faith, but questions allow us to learn and progress, work to recieve revelation and aquire more faith. so whenever we have a question or dificuldade, we should ask God with faith and then study it out and we will be able to learn the mysteries of God. 

Have a great week everyone!

24 April 2-17

Hey everyone! how is it going? Happy birthday to matthew!!! have fun traveling!! 

this was a great, crazy week.  The work was good and Juarez is going to be baptized next week! BUT, i won´t be here :( I am being transfered again and Sister Gartner is going back home to Santa Maria so we are closing the area here and the elders serving in our ward are going to take over our area too. I am going to São Pedro do Sul to open an area that has not had missionaries for a few months and my companion will be another ``short term´´ sister from Cruz Alta! There a few of these missionaries now in our mission because there is lacking in the number of missionaries here.  São Pedro is a small town with a small branch so it will be a good challenge there but i really hope i can make a difference there and learn even more. 

We had a great conference in Santa Maria and I could learn more about a lot of things, especially faith. Presidente Louza talked about EXERCISING faith. He said the exercises are not easy, but they make you stronger and make you feel good and is the same thing with our faith. We can never doubt that we have faith, but always work to strengthen it, and strengthen it by bexercising it. The little things we do in the gospel are really the most important things because they make a huge difference in our atitudde, spirituality, and progress. I love you all, have a great week 

17 April 2017

hey everyone! this was a great week with lots of success and miracles! we founds a ton of great new investigators and the family that i mentioned last week visited church and loved it. some of our other investigators traveled for the holiday so we have to visit them more and prepare them well for baptism. I also traveled to Cruz Alta for a division and there was a ward activity where i could see everyone from my old ward there and it was so great i realized how much i love everyone and i was happy to see many less actives that are active now! Also here in santo angelo there was a stake relief society activity where i could see many of the sister from Santa Rosa, my first area and it was so weird to see everyone from there after e year but they all remembered me so that´s good! 

This week i learned a bit about atitude and things we say because i read in the liahona of this month a very good article ``the war goes on´´ and i learned a lot about the techniques that satan uses. But something specifically interesting that i learned is that satan can not know our thoughts or weaknesses unless we say it out loud. That´s one reason it is so important to never complain, speak unkindly about others or say anything negative. And other interesting tactics to recognize satan´s temptation and overcome them. I recommend the article. But it was a great week and I learned a lot. i continue to learn so much every day, recognize more and more weaknesses every day and learn to trust in the Lord.

10 April 2017

bom dia!

how are you all doing? excited for easter and spring? has anyone seen the church´s easter video?

I am loving my companion, we get along great and its fun to have a companion from here. this week was good, we found some great new investigators from references and we are working with a girl named Dani that went to general conference and to church again this sunday. she is really great but her mom doe not want ehr to be baptized yet so we are working with that. The work is going! And i was able to study a bit more and apply the conference talks this week. I really like the talk about following the spirit by acting immediately on first impressions because they are almost always promptings from the spirit. It makes a huge difference in faith and acting without doubting. I love the gospel and I know that when we look to follow the prophet, the apostles, and most importantly the savior, we are blessed and have peace. 

Have a great week!

3 April 2017

hello everyone! wasn´t conference amazing? did anyone else spot Daniel (30 years in the future) in the mormon tabernacle choir? also, My old mission president´s brother was called as a seventy general aouthority, Adilson Parrela, so that was cool and it was cool to hear talks from brasileiros! I really loved conference and learned so much. there were so many themes that just show how inspired the messages are and how they really come straight from heavenly father. There were many themes about the pre-earth life, the nature of the holy ghost, the importance of studying ``The living Christ´´, and the importance to teach and correct others with love which casts out all fear.  really loved all of the talks but one that stood out to me was from Ulisses Soares (not just because he is from Brasil) but I loved how he said that the solution to almost everything is to put your trust in God AND SERVE HIM WITH ALL OF YOUR HEART. if we do those 2 things, we will be free from any kind of captivity and recieve all of the promised blessings that we need. based on M. Russell Ballard´s talk, i set lots of new goals and invite you all to do the same! these things are really what is most important for us TODAY. 

things are going well here, we have some good progressing investigators and have a lot more work to do to help investigators, find new people to teach, and help activate recent converts and less actives. it sounds like you all are doign really well and i am so happy for everyone have an amazing week! tchau :)

26 March 2017

How are you all doing? sounds like you all are having fun, hopefully i will have the privilege to go to that fancy sushi place one day too.

This week was a little bit stressful, but good! i´m in my new are in Santo Angelo, the biggest city that i have served in so far. Sister Gartner is great and enthusiastic and it is fun to serve with a ``gaúcha´´. There is a large group of investigators here, and the ward seems good. Saturday we met a guy named Juarez teaching some investigators that are his relatives and we invited them all to church. The family did not show up at church and we didn´t have any investigators there but i was praying for a miracle and when the meeting was starting, Juarez showed up and he payed atention in all of the meetings and said that he liked it a lot! I was so happy.

A little thought this week is that I know that Jesus suffered for all of our sins and imperfections and that he loves us more than we can imagine. We can show our gratitude for Him by trying to be better each day and leaving our comfort zone to get over our weaknesses and also by serving others.

20 March 2017

hope you all ahd fun in teh snow! it starting to get a bit cold here too. That´s fun that everyone is traveling so much! 

This week i am being transfered to Santo Angelo, a city a little bigger than Cruz Alta. I will be comanions with a sister that is doing ``curto prazo´´ which is a program for people deciding if they want to serve a mission do a mini mission for 1-3 months. She already served one transfer and this will be her second. She is from Santa Maria and I met her once she seems really great!

Last week we had a lot of miracles. we are working with great families and on sunday a family showed up at church that was searchinf for a chapel because they live in another city that doesn´t have the church yet and they ahve relatives that paremembers and wanted to check it out. They loved it and Sister arroyo wither her new companion will start teaching them.

 Also another miracle happened that also taught me a lesson. We were walking on the street when an investigator (that evangelical lady) called on the phone and said that she recieved an answer and knows that this is the true church and that it will change and bless her family. She said she wants to be baptized as soon as possible, that same day if it were possible. Unfortunately, she can´t be baptized yet, but it was still amazing to see the changes that the spirit has made in her. 

I learned that the Lord is always working small miracles in out lives and we have to always be grateful because sometimes we don´t recognize the small miracles but they happen. And even though it didn´t turn out how i wanted because she was not baptized this transfer, it was still a miracle that she recieved an answer and called and i couldn´t be less grateful after i found out that she couldn´t be baptized than i was when she first called us. I hope that story made sense. 

Anyway, i lover you all, have a great week!!

13 March 2017

oi familia!

how are you all? happy birthday to nathan and alli! i hope you guys get at least one good snow storm this weeek! these past couple days it cooled down to about 75 degrees and we all had to pull out our sweaters and jackets and blankets haha it seems liek autumn is getting ready to start.

this week was great, we found some great families, one of which just moved in right in front of the chapel. they are great, the lady already recieved missionaries when she was young, but lost contact and ever since that she has continued to pray using the steps that the missionaries taught. we taught them all together and they all accepted baptism! they have 3 kids, one of which recently was treated for leukemia and he is just 7 years old but he is better now and doesn´t have cancer anymore. we are also working with that older couple Albino and Eva that really like church last week and we have a family night with them tonight with another couple in the ward. the work is going well!

this week i read a great talk that i had never read before called ``on giving and getting´´ and it had some great thoguths on the importance of doing things, not to get rewards, but out of the pure desire to give and serve. It also talked about how we really have to work and give effort in order to progress in this life instead of always want the easy way out and run from our problems. real growth and progress only comes when we face our problems and fears. 

i hope you all have a great week i love you and pray for you! :)

6 March 2017

hello

so this week was a little crazy, but i would like to share some experiences

update on that golden family: the 20 year old daughter is studying in another city right now and unfortunately the dad said that he is not interested in changing religions. BUT..... we are continuing to teach them and Rosané (the mom) is progressing well. It was hard for her at fist because her husband wasn´t interested, but she is showing more courage now and said that even thought she is starting work again (she is a school teacher) she really wants to give the time to learn more. She knows she recieved an answer that we are telling the truth and she shared an experience with us that before she met us, she had already dreamed about me and Sister Arroyo and when we met her for the first time she didn´t believe it. She also says that she really feels something inside her telling her to keep listening to us. It really shows how angels and the spirit prepare people for us to find.

We also started teachingan elderly couple (Eva and Albino) that made friends with some memebrs that we brought to a lesson and then they went to church this sunday! We are seeing lots of other miracles in our area and in the ward here witch is great!

This week I learned that in every situation we can get to kno christ and be more like him when we judge as he would judge. This means loving the person and try to ´put yourself in their place in order to comprehend them. And then try to help or correct tehm with love and other christlike atributes. (See 3 Nephi 27:27)

Have a great week everyone!! :)

27 February 2017

oi familia

how are you all doing? sounds like it is warming up there and spring is starting alreay. Here it doesn´t really cool off and become fall until late april and may

we had a good interesting week. Pedro and Rosané are not showing much interest anymore but we are not giving up on them. We also are seeing progress with other investigators, one is a young couple named Luis and Carol. We also are teachin the girlfriend of a member named Cristiane, and a man named Adilson that has a wife who does not speak and a child with down syndrom. They are such a humble and loving family.

This week I also had the opportunity to enjoy a big mac from mcdonalds for the first time in over a year. We had to travel to Santa Maria and Sister Louza, the mission president´s wife told us to take advantage and eat lunch at mcdonalds which was a pleasant surprise! (picture included) 

Also this weekend until tomorow is the big carnival celebration so practically everything closes

this week i leared more about courage and using courage ad free an=gency to make good choices. Like President Monson encouraged us to strive to always choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong because we will be more blessed in the long run and the Lord will be pleased with us for our efforts.

Have another great week everyone!