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!!

8 August 2016

My companion says ``Oi´´ to you all! 

I am sorry but I do not know the exact time that we will video chat next sunday.... I wish i had the details. I just know that it will be the afternoon so hopefully you all will be available.... sorry about that!

Happy birthday Daniel!!

Matthew, thanks for sending the pictures of spain it looks like you are ahving an awesome time! It also looks like you visited the Cristo Redentor similar to the one in Rio de Janeiro. 

I am glad the opening cermonies of the olympics was good.I hear a bit of conversation about the olympics and also about the elections in the united states, but i don´t know much about what is going on. 

The pictures are of a district lunch that we had.

This transfer is going by very fast. Yesterday President Louza visited our branch and our house here in São Gabriel. He was able to give us good coucself or the area and the work.

This week was good and I learned a lot. Mariahelena is still very interested and is working on quitting smoking, Unfortunately Tania decided to put off her baptism again, but i was able to learn a lesson about agency. We can´t force anyone to be baptized or believe or we would not be any better than Satan.  But we will continue working hard and doing our part!

Also a thought about agency is that the only thing that God doesn´t have is our agency and our test on earth is to choose to give our agency to God.

Have a great week I love you all!

25 July 2016

Oi familia! First of all, remember how I said that fathers day is in august here? Well we are allowed to skype fome for 3 minutes on fathers day! It is on August 14 so be prepared :) Secon, Happy 4th Birhtday Madelyn!! Also, i am so glad Mom and Dad´s trip to utah was fun, I loved all of the pictures that I saw and am glad you got to visit with a lot of family. 

Also, my new mailing address here is:

Caixa postal 40

Centro - São Gabriel - RS

97300-000

The work here is going well and I am continuing to learn a lot. We have a large group of investigators with a lot of interest. We are working a lot with an older couple named MariaHelena and Valdir who are  really awesome. Also a lady named Elisangela has a llot of potential. Saturday was really awesome, we found 7 new investigotors in 1 day that all agreed to be baptized whent ehy recieve an answer to their prayer! 

A scripture for the week is Mormon 9:21

Have a great week I love you all :)