September 1, 2014

Happy Monday to the best family in the whole wide world!!! 

I hope your week went great! Mine was full of adventures as always!! Some good, some not so good, but thats just life! :) 

Monday after p day ended we taught this family we met last week, Paulo and Cristina. they have a little girl who is 2 years old. Paulo is very well educated! He studied theology and stuff like that so he thought the story of Joseph Smith was pretty awesome. We left them with the challenge to read The Restoration pamphlet! After that we had family home evening with our investigators Alberto and Neto in the house of one of the ward members. They had invited a bunch of other members too! We talked about Christ and how he is our perfect example. We played gestures, we wrote our favorite thing that Christ did, like one of his miracles, on a piece of paper and one person had to read it and then act it out and then we had to guess. Well, I wrote out this really detailed description, and I still don´t write very well in Portguese. so our investigator Alberto chose my paper and he had to act it out. No one could guess what he did and he was not sure what to do based on what i wrote! haha i felt so bad. But it was fun! After that we had another family home evening with Darlyene and her family.  Shes come to church about 3 weeks in a row now, woohoo! she made  a ´´vitamina´´which is basically a milkshake. best thing EVER! 

 

On Tuesday morning we taught Neto! He has been reading in the Book of Mormon, but wasn't understanding a ton of what he was reading. so we read with him and helped him comprehend more of what he´s reading. We spent from 1:00 til 6:00 knocking doors and talking to people in the streets. We went to the very end of our area and discovered that we can see the beach!! ITS SO PRETTY!! We knocked almost every door on the street we chose and met some really awesome people. One of them is Ed, which here in brasil is pronounced edge. He is probbaly in his late 20s. He doesn't go to church but believes in God. We were talking with him for a long time and then he said, ´´Oh! i think my cousin goes to your church!´´ We asked his name and turns out his cousin goes to the other ward that attends in our chapel But we know him really well and he's aewsome! So that was so amazing and he said he'd visit the church with his cousin! So I'm excited to see what´ll happen with him! Later that night we taught Lucia. She's an awesome person! She works almost every Sunday so she isn´t able to come to church often, but she definitely has a testimony. We will follow up with her this week! It was a cool experience when we visit with her because it showed me the power of the spirit in teaching. We can't just teach whatever lesson we wanna teach. We have to teach what the spirit tells us to because thats what the person needs to hear! 

 

Wednesday we had district meeting in the morning! My new district leader is the same district leader I had in the CTM in Provo!! Elder Tenney! It's so much fun to be in the same zone as him. He is a great missonary! We have lots of awesome people in our zone and that  keeps me excited! In the afternoon we talked with a ton of people but nobody wanted to talk to us haha. The most difficult hours of the day here are between 1 and 4 because everyones napping. I don't know why we don't get to nap because we´re the ones who need it..but whatever ;) In the evening we taught Neto. Afterwards we had a meeting with a member of the Ward Council, the Bishop, and our Ward Mission Leader. The high council member created a plan with the stake presidency that he's been showing to all the ward mission leaders and bishops here. The plan is to help the missionaries work with members more closely. So he helped us all see how we can work together better. He had tons of good ideas for us to try out and he's going to help us with the work in our area. I'm excited to work with him and get the ward even more involved. We´re definitely blessed in this area because we ALWAYS have help of the members, but it can always improve! 

 

I´m not gonna lie, Thursday was just rough. There are just days on the mission where you feel like nothing is happening and nothing you are doing is helping anyone out. its completely illogical to feel this way, but there are just days like that. So Thursday was not my favorite day haha. but there was still good parts. the high lights of the day were that we saw the ocean again with sand and everything and we also taught this really cool family that the other sisters told us about. They don't have a religion or anything but they believe in God. We taught them the plan of salvation and will go back and teach them this week! The other part that was super sad about thursday is that we found out Cristielen cant be baptized in our ward. she doesn't live in our area. We knew that. But we thought it would be okay because she always spends the weekends with her Aunt, who lives in our ward. So we figured that since her support system in the church was in our ward, it would all work out. President Bonini felt like we would be best to attend the Ward in which she lives. I get it but it was still super sad! So we are working on getting things figured out with the Elder's in her area so she can be baptized over there.

 

Friday was awesome! We had a conference in the morning with Elder Mazzugari (not sure how to spell his name). but it was great! I always feel super inspired and ready to work even harder after transfers. It was cool because I went with a specific question in mind and he talked specifically about the question that I had. I love it when that happens! After that we went and taught Cleviane. She´s the girl who was baptized about 3 years ago. We talked about the Book of Mormon. She's really working to gain a testimony of it. Afterwards we taught Paulo and Cristina again! It was so awesome!! We talked about the Book of Mormon and they were both really excited to read it. Paulo said he really wants to know more about our church. He knows we wouldn't just leave our families and coutries for something we really didn't love and know is true. I thought that was pretty awesome! After that we went and told Tatiane, cristielens aunt, about the baptism change. Of course she was sad, but she ended up telling us that she is planning on moving and she thinks she might move to where Cristielen lives. So turns out that this really was a part of God´s plan and that one way or another Cristielen will for sure be baptized! I just want what's best for her! So we are just praying that all will work out and Tatiane will find a house over there. That was a really cool experience because really it was hard to be obedient and trust in President Bonini´s decision. But really if we are obedient and just trust in God, everything works out! After that we taught Neto! It was so cool because when we got there, Irmao Antonio was there with Neto. It turns out he had just decided to spend the day hanging out with Neto. It made me so happy that we have members here who help us with the work and who are really friends with the people we teach! I know that Neto will be so strong in the church after his baptism because he has tons of support from the members! 

 Saturday turned out way different than what I expected it to be. I woke up with a horrible stomach ache and had my first experience with South American Revenge! I can say I have officially served in Brasil now. I kept getting ready after that and I was still not feeling good at all. I laid down until our first lesson at 9. I didn't want to miss any appointments that day because we had tons of awesome people to teach! So we got to our first lesson and our investigator started telling us how her family isn't supporting her in her decision to join the church and she's thinking about giving up. It was super intense and the whole time I was sweating and starting to get light headed. I knew I was gonna throw up. I asked her if I could use her bathroom because I thought was feeling sick. I ran to the bathroom and threw up! haha definitely a first in my mission!! After that I washed my face off and cleaned up a bit and then we finished teaching her. I guess you could say it was a pretty sick lesson.. ha :) After that we had to teach English class. Then we came home and called Sis Bonini because Sister Downs was feeling sick too. She told us to stay inside until we felt better. She didn't throw up but she had the revenge issue. We think that we drank some juice that was made with water from the faucet when we were at a teaching appointment on Friday. Anyways, this "bug" knocked us out for the whole day! It was so sad because we literally had NINE APPOINTMENTS set up! :( But it will all work out. I am feeling much better now. I still can't eat very much but ´´this too, will pass´´.

 Sunday was great! Neto came to church but none of our other investigators came! We are still grateful that at least Neto was there. After church and lunch we taught a lady whose son was investigating the church for a while. We will go back and teach him later in the week. Then we went to teach Darlyene and she had a friend there who wasn't a member! We taught her the first lesson and it went great.  She doesnt live in our area (this always happens to us haha) but we are working on setting things up to get her taught in another area! Sunday evening is now reserved for weekly planning, so we spent the rest of our night planning! 

 I'm so excited for this week! Neto is set to be baptized Sunday, so please keep him in your prayers! He has worked so hard to prepare himself to be baptized.  I know he's ready, but he will definitely be tested this week!!  I love you all tons and am always praying for you!

Love,

Sister Pehrson