October 27, 2014

bom dia!! 

 

Every single preparation day I can´t believe thats it's prep day again! The weeks go by so fast...only 7 more of them now, but who´s counting?! :) This week was an adventure as always! 

 

Monday we went to Aldeota, the part of Fortaleza that has all the good, cheap shopping! I bought some cool stuff...but as dad would say ´´don´t ask questions before Christmas´´ :) When preparation day ended we were getting ready to leave the apartment, and Sister Vicente was not feeling well, so we ended up staying in our apartment to help her all night! It's weird to be the old, ´´experienced´´sister helping the other sisters now!

 

Tuesday we went and taught Maria, the lady we met last week who was praying the morning before we knocked on her door. It was an awesome lesson! She apologized for not going to church due to an important conflict and said that she would go to church this Sunday. Sadly we tried visiting her every day since Thursday and she hasn't been at home, so hopefully we´ll find her and be able to help her more this week! After lunch we taught another lady. We had planned on teaching the word of wisdom since she has a baptismal date and we need to know if we need to help her with anything specific. Well when we got there she only had a few minutes so we decided to just share a scripture and follow up with her reading the Book of Mormon and everything! We had a member with us and she was talking with the lady and all of a sudden out of the blue she was like ´´do you drink coffee´´  She said "no" that she doesn't drink coffee or smoke or drink! It was so cool that we still were able to figure out exactly what we needed that day! Members are great! After that, we taught another lady the Plan of Salvation and it was such a powerful lesson. She appreciated the message as she has so many struggles in her life. I loved sharing that she is not alone! At the end of the lesson, she committed to be baptized! She chose the date of November 2 but she didn't come to church yesterday so she it will be the week after now! That night we taught another investigator and he told us he quit drinking coffee! This was a huge struggle for him so we were super happy to hear it!

 

Wednesday was really good. I finished my fourth journal of the mission!! woohooo! My future family better be grateful for all I´m writing, haha. In the morning we had District Meeting and it was awesome! We talked about the struggles we have and how to help overcome them. We also watched this awesome clip from a talk that President Eyring gave. It was so amazing! He was talking about the power and authority we have as missionaries and how we really won´t know how much of an impact we made on our missions until the next life when we see and talk to all the people we taught on our missions. It was so cool! It was a good reminder to just keep going, even when its really hard! There are days, weeks, transfers on the misison where you really wonder if what you´re doing is making a difference for anyone. The answer is always YES! Even if it's just for your future family and future life...this time makes such a big difference! That night we had a little time before our meeting with the Ward Mission Leader so we decided to do contacts on the street of the church. We saw this lady passing by staring at the church, like she wanted to go in and so we talked with her. She turned out to be really great! She has a religion, but she was teling us how she thinks missionary work is so awesome and asked us to teach her more about the church. After the meeting we had a lesson with one of investigators. He is having a really hard time giving up coffee so we made plans with him to get a blessing the next day. He said he can be baptized Saturday, so that was awesome to hear! We made an appointment to talk to his mom tonight, so please pray that everything will go well! 

 

Thursday we weren´t having much luck! All of our appointments were falling through in the afternoon. But we had a member with us and she asked us if we wanted to visit her brother, who is receiving treatment for brain cancer. It was such a nice visit! We shared scriptures and just talked with him about life in general. He is only 49 years old which is so sad. It was a really cool opportunity to serve him! In the evening we taught another investigator and just helped him come up with ways to quit drinking coffee and things he can drink instead. Afterward, the Young Men's President gave him a blessing and it was so cool! They were having mutual that night so all the young men were there. They all sat in on the blessing and one of them who had received a blessing last week shared his experience. Afterwards all of them gave him a hug. It was so awesome to see that he already has so many friends in the church! 

 

Friday and Saturday were trials of my faith..haha. It can be discouraging to be the new sister in the area because 1, you don't know all the members and 2 your comp has already been working a ton in the area and knows what she's tried and what hasn't worked or what has worked. So I spent a lot of time just praying silently that I could stay excited and keep doing the work and to see miracles! These past few weeks of the transfer have been teaching me so much about what sincere prayer is and that Heavenly Father truly listens and helps us, But it is always in His timing! Saturday I went to bed feeling a little discouraged and just praying to know what to do the next day. Sunday we didn´t have anyone in church because of the elections here! There were tons of members who weren't even at church becasue everyone has to vote in a certain area, so some of them have to travel. It's a way bigger deal than it should be! But next week I know we will have people there! Sacrament was so awesome for me yesterday. In my prayer I just asked the Lord to help me know what to do and to help me feel more positive about everything. As soon as I had taken the sacrament, I really truly felt all the weight of my worries being lifted! I know that the sacrament isn´t just a ritual that we do every single week, but it´s something that we really need! After that, the rest of our day was really awesome! We taught a couple we met last week. We asked them in the beginning of the lesson if there was anything we could ask for in our prayer that they were needing. The wife started talking about how her husband has problems with drinking and sort of went off on a tangent about that. So it was a litte tense at first, but by the end of the lesson he admitted that he honestly wants to quit drinking and that he wants our help! That night we had weekly planning and me and Sister Machado just talked for a long time about our missions and about our companionship and everything. It was so good! It was exactly what I have been praying for. Once I understood how she was seeing things, it became so much clearer what we can do to work even closer together. I love my companion!

 

I´m super excited for this week! I´m gonna rest up today so I´m all  set and ready for the work! We have interviews with the Mission President on Friday, which will be awesome! I love you all tons! Thanks for the prayers and for being so easy to love.   :)

Love,

Sister Pehrson

 

October 20, 2014

Oh my gosh this week was SOO amazing!!!!! I´m so excited to tell you all about it!! I seriously was just thinking the whole week that things couldn´t get any better than they were and then BOOM! another miracle came. Heavenly Father is so good!!

 

Monday after emailing we went and played volleyball at our church. It is so pretty! After that we took a nap and then got to work! I was a little nervous to go back to work because I really had no clue what we´d do, but things worked out so well! We had some really good contacts and ended up teaching this really nice lady, Mary. After that we had family home evening with a really cute family in our ward and Carina, who was baptized a few months ago. 

 

On Tuesday morning, Jessica, a girl in our ward went on splits with us. She recenty got off her mission (and got married!). We didn´t have any appointments, so i decided to visit a guy we met last week. We met his wife on Tuesday and had an awesome lesson with her! That morning in my studies I was studying all about working with members and how to help them so during our split. I was trying to put into practice everything I had learned. Well, at the end of our visit I asked the member if she knew anyone who we could visit. At first she said no, but then she remembered one neighbor she´s talked to quite a bit and said she´ll invite her to FHE at her house with us! It was so awesome! Later that afternoon we taught Ricardo. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and at the end of the lesson asked if he had quesitons. he was like ´´Yeah, how do you think God is going to speak to me if I ask him a question?´´ Such an awesome question! The member we had with us then invited him to seminary! After that, we met up with a member to go teach with us. Before we left her house she gave us a drink called cevada. I´m not sure if you guys have heard of it? It was pretty tasty! Afterwards we taught a lesson to Terezinha. The member we brought with us was so perfect to teach her!  It turns out they had already met before! It was awesome. The best part of the day was at the end of the night when we were doing contacts, but not having much luck. We saw a the girl who was recently baptized. She and her family were moving! Before I explain the rest of the story, I just have to tell you how moving is here. Lots of people will move into a different house on the same street, but they won´t get a car or truck to do the move. They do it all by hand. It happens very quickly a lot of time. You´ll be talking to someone one day and they´ll say they´re thinking of moving, and the next day they´ve moved out of their house! So we ended up helping them the rest of the night! It was so awesome because I´d been praying for an opportunity to do service here and Heavenly Father just placed that opportunity right in our path! 

 

Wednesday we met this super amazing lady! She opened her door up to us right away and let us in. She had missionaries visit in the past! She was married for 9 years and then she got really sick. So bad that she couldn't walk. Her husband decided that he didn´t want to help her out, so he left her with 3 young kids..so sad. The whole visit we were a litle worried because she said that her mom is super religious and doesn´t like it when she goes to other churches. She really wants to visit our church! At the end of our lesson the mom walked in and Sister Machado looked at me with huge eyes like ´´I can´t believe this is happening!´´ After we left, Sister Machado told me that she knew her mom because her mom had stopped Sis Machado and her previous companion in the street one day and told them about her daughter and how rough of a time she´s having and said she wanted them to come visit her!! They gave her ou phoner number but she never called! And this week we found her daughter just by knocking on the door!!!!!!! Can you believe it?!! I´m still just freaking out at how awesome it was!!! Miracles still happen people! :) The other miracle of the night is that we went to the church after that to have a meeting with our WML and our investigator, one of investigators was there waiting for seminary to start. He´d only been to seminary one time. It was when we were going to teach him at the church, but ended up showing him what Seminary is. Well ever since that day he´s been going to seminary by himself! After seminary and our meeting, we taught him and he accepted the date to be baptized! It was such an awesome lesson and he is SO prepared!! 

 

Thursday we went on exchanges and it was really good for me! I got tons of ideas on how to help my area. I got lots of good adivce from the Sister I served with. One cool thing that happened on the exchange is that we talked to this lady in the street and talked to her about families. She all of a sudden just started crying and told us her 15 yr old daughter is addicted to drugs and she knows God sent us there to help her out! Such a cool experience! 

 

On Friday, I went back to my area, a litte nervous to apply all that I learned. But the day went great! I’m having to be way more decisive and assertive in all that I do. My planner has to be so full of stuff to do so that there is never a moment where we have to ask ´´where or what next?´´. It’s not my personality to be super decisive and direct with everyone, but Heavenly Father is helping me a ton with this! We taught the miracle lady that day. She told us she has to move and we are hoping she will stay in our area! At the end of the lesson she asked us again what time church was and said she was really wanting to go! The other cool part of our day was visiting a lady we have been trying visit, without success. We originally talked to her through an intercom at her house last week and she said to come back later. Well every time after that she either wasn´t there or couldn’t come to the door. This time she opened the door and let us right in! She is super spiritual and such a sweet lady! During the lesson I pulled out a pamphlet to show her something and she said ´´I’ve read these pamphlets before! I didn’t know they were from your church! I aways wanted to know which church they were from!´´ She had someone at work give them to her! It was so cool!! We are going to go back and teach her later this week!

 

On Saturday morning our 2 appointments fell through but we ended up finding this new street. The first door we knocked we met a wonderful lady. She also invited us in right away and told us her whole life story. We taught her about the church and she said she´d always passed by and wanted so badly to go inside, but wasn´t sure if she could. She´d also seen missionaries and thought the work we do is so cool! At the end of the lesson we invited her to pray about what we´d taught and she was like´´´I don’t need to pray! I already received my answer. This morning I was praying and then you guys showed up at my door!´´ Greatest words ever spoken! We invited her to be baptized and she said she just has to visit the church first to feel prepared! Such a miracle! Later that day we went to Insitute to see if we could meet up with a girl who hasn’t been coming to church. There I met a guy who knows Jacob Flake from the mission! So cool! But the coolest thing was that we walked into Institute and saw Leonardo sitting there. Somebody had told him about Institute and he once again just went there by himself! He´s so awesome! We taught him the Plan of Salvation and at the end of the lesson he was like ´´so what time will my baptism be?´´ I just love that guy! 

 

On Sunday Leonardo was the only one of our investigators at church, but it was great that he was there! In the afternoon we taught Terezinha. She’s been having a lot of health issues so we invited some brothers from our ward to give her a blessing. As soon as they started the blessing, the spirit was so strong!! Terezinha was really grateful for the blessing she received! After that we taught a member who was baptized a few months ago and then taught Leonardo again. We taught him about the Word of Wisdom. We had lots of member’s there and they all helped teach the lesson by sharing their own experiences! The only thing that is going to get in the way of him being baptized now is his mom’s permission, so please PRAY that it will all work out. He is so ready!! 

 

This week was just so humbling! My first few days here I was a little disappointed to be here in Jardim America. I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t have a lot of faith ! But I changed my attitude and started studying more about faith and prayer and Heavenly Father DEFINITELY listened! I sometimes just forget how amazing Heavenly Father is and that it´s really His work I´m doing. I don't think I´ve ever prayed so hard to know what to do and where to go! I´m so grateful to be here and to be learning all of this! I hope your week is as amazing as mine was! I know you guys were all praying for me too, so thanks so much! 

 

te amo DE MAIS!!!!!!!!!!

Sister Pehrson

 

October 13, 2014

It´s soo good to write today! I feel like the weeks where we have transfers or something new, our preparation day takes forever to get here. My new area and companion are awesome! Way different than my other area and other comp, but awesome nonetheless!

I´m going to change the format of my emails now and you´ll understand why when I tell you more about my new area. Normally I would send you an email with what we do every day, but I think you guys would get tired of reading about knocking doors all day!!

So, Jardim America. It´s the smallest area in the mission. We´re here with 1 other companionship of sisters (who I LOVE!!). Because it´s such a small area and there have been many, many challenges. President Bonini was going to close the area this transfer. He told Sister Machado (my new comp) to make a really detailed record of everything and that he would be closing the area. But then when transfers happened, Sister Machado got the email that she was going to stay, and the other Sister here got an email that she´d be training a new missionary!  So we´re all here now and we know that there has to be a purpose for why we are here! There has to be at least one person we can help!

Now onto my companion! Sister Machado. She´s from Southern Brasil. She´s full of energy really fun to serve with! It was a little hard to adjust to at first, but I am really loving serving with her. She has been out 7 months on her mission. She´s an awesome teacher and her attitude is really helping me stay positive! She really believes there is someone here for us to help! She speaks English fluently and loves to talk in English. I think I speak more english with her than I did with Sister Downs! The other sisters in our house are Sister Galarza and Sister Vicente. Sister Galarza is from Argentina and is a convert to the church! She is training Sister Vicente who is from Peru. She went to BYU and  speaks English really well! We are having so much fun together!

The work here is very different. I´m not sure why, but the people here just don´t seem to be as open and interested as in my other area, but we keep trying! We´ve aready been able to teach people that were not willing to listen before, so I have a lot of hope! We tract a lot. At least 3 hours a day, but most days tracting is all that we do. We have some awesome investigators right now though! One is Terezinha. She is so sweet! She´d only been taught 2 times before I got here and has a ton of potential. She´s wasn´t having a lot of faith in God before we started teaching her. Yesterday in our lesson she told us how happy she is that we met her and that she knows God sent us to her. She works on Sunday mornings when we have church, so she goes to the other Ward that meets later in the day. We are working on helping her find a new job so that she can attend church in our Ward every Sunday. Please keep her in your prayers that she can find a new job! There's also Edilma and Sámia, who I´ve only taught once but it was an awesome lesson! Edilma is married with 2 little girls and Sámia is her neighbor. Sámia lost her mom when she was younger and has a lot of questions about after this life. We taught her the restoration and towards the end she was like ´´I have a questions. how can I know what church really is true and what path God wants me to follow?´´ She´s awesome and I´m excited to be able to teach her!

The ward here is awesome!! The members are always trying to help us out and they really love the missionaries. Our bishop is CRAZY about missionary work! His name is Fernando Araujo. He´s been a General Authority (70) and also a Mission President. He´s so cool! He and his wife are always helping us out and lunches in his house are delicious! He buys his food at Sam's Club so he has american stuff like peanut butter and Hershey´s Syrup. They gave us a box of pancake mix this week too! I need to be careful here, haha. Yesterday in Fast and Testimony meeting, 44 people bore their testimony. FOURTY FOUR! I´ve never seen anything like it. As soon as Bishop announced that it was time to bear testimony, there were about 15 people aready getting out of their seats to bear testimony. It was so cool! I´m excited to be working here.

My first days here were rough. I was so stressed that we weren´t teaching many people and that I wouldn´t really help anyone here, but after a few days I saw that even though I may not help as many people as I would in a different area, I´m still going to be able to bless the lives of people here. It´s the quality, not the quantity that counts, right? I´ve been studying a lot about faith this week and I was reading a lot in Ether 12. I especially love in Ether 12 :4 which says; 

´´Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.´´

If I really believe in God, I will have hope and not get discouraged! I´ll work my hardest, even if I don´t see many results at first. This week just reminded me of how blessed I am to have the scriptures and prayer. I wouldn´t survive with out them! Whenever I´m feeing down, I just read a few verses and forget about everything that I felt was going wrong.

Being here has reminded me of how much I have left to learn! Even though I only have 9 weeks left (but hey, who´s counting!?) I still have so much I can learn and so much I can do to bless peoples lives, including my own. I don´t want to just shift into neutral because I´m on the downhill slope, I want to keep working super hard until the end!

I love you all so much and thinking about you helps me stay motivated and focused. I remember how much you guys are sacrificing to help me here on the mission and how missionary work has blessed and influenced our family and it helps me stay positive and keep on keepin on! Have an awesome week! Pray for me! Love you tons!

Sister Pehrson

October 6, 2014

Ahhhh this week was so amazing!! General Conference, awesome new people to teach, and lots of new things learned!! I also found out this morning that I´m being transferred to a new area tomorrow! I´ll be serving with Sister Downs old companion, who is a brasillian! my 1st Brasillian companion! I heard the area I´m going to is super small. We´ll see!! I´m excited, but also sad to leave this area. There are so many people here that I love so much! But it will all work out :)

So Monday night we had family home evening with Alberto and his son and some members! We taught about Conference and talked about how we can prepare for General Conference. We tried to play pictionary but nobody understood the rules besides us, so it didn´t go as well as planned, but it was still fun!

Tuesday was SO awesome!! Everybody was home!! This never happens!! wWe met this really cool old man, Braz. We were walking in the street and we heard ´´sisters´´. So we stopped and asked him how he knows baout the church and he was like ´´Oh i was taught by the elders a long time ago. I was almost baptized but I changed my mind at the last minute!´´ So we taught him and he is the coolest guy ever! He was a marine and so he´s travelled everywhere and seen lots of things. He has a Ham radio set in his house that he uses every night to talk to people around the world. It turns out that he didn´t understand everything about Joseph Smith. When we told him this he was like ´´Oh if i would have known that, I would have been baptized!´´ We told him he can still be baptized and we´re going to teach him this week! well..Sister Sowns will..I´ll be in a new area. But that was super cool! At the end of the night, we taught Alberto. We had left the word of wisdom pamphlet with him in our last lesson and so we asked if he´d read and he told us he´d read it and that he was really needing this lesson because he wants to quit drinking coffee. Nobody says that in Brasil! He is so awesome!

On wednesday we taught a new investigator, Ruth. She´s  a really sweet person and wants to know more about God. After that we taught a new referral we got from a member! There were 4 people we taught, Gracyele and Gracyele, who are twins. They have the same name but you pronounce each one just a little differently for each girl, and 2 guys, Rena and Gabriel. They are all in their early 20s and they were really cool to teach! They all have different beliefs and backgrounds, but they are all really interested in the church and learning more. They all had tons of questions and were awesome to teach! We also taught Alberto again that night and talked about the Law of Tithing. It went very well.

Tursday morning we taught Itamar, the investigator that came to church in his suit! It was an awesome lesson. He read the intro to the Book of Mormon and is really excited to read the rest. We talked a lot about how to receive an answer from God and he said he will derfinitely pray. He already knows SO much of the truth!! We arranged for some members to read the Book of Mormon wit Neto during the week. It can be hard to understand everything as a new member of a church. I think it's a little like being a new missionary in Brasil, learning Portuguese. After a little while you expect to know more and to understand more, but you get discouraged because it´s not coming as fast as you´d like it to, and the challenges that at first were funny, become really frustrating! But I´m glad I have this experience of learning a new language because I feel like I can better understand how it feels to be a new member of the church! It was so awesome because Neto told us that night that he has been thinking a lot about serving a mission!! that would seriously be the COOLEST thing ever! We taught Alberto that night too about eternal marriage and read the family proclamation with him. Lots of his questions are about the family, so I think it´ll really help him! While we were teaching a lesson that day, there was a GIANT rat running through the house. It ran past us about 4 times during the lesson and the person didnt even notice. I came to Brasil afraid of snakes, but I see more rats and cockroaches than snakes... another great thing about Thursday is that we ate at SUBWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Man i love American food... subway has never tasted so good, that´s for sure!

Friday we taught Danielle. We invited her to conference and she said shed love to come! She is trusting us more and more each visit and I´m excited that she wanted to watch with us! That night, Alberto´s son went to seminary for the first time! We introduced him to a member the other day, and ever since then they´ve been really good friends. I´m really excited to see what´ll happen now! We taught one of my favorite families that night as well. The mom visited church for the first time last Sunday, and she said the only thing she didn´t like is that it starts at 9 am. She´ll get used to that! We mainly taught the mom and read through the family proclamation with her to help her see how the gospel will really bless her family.

Saturday and Sunday were SOOOOO amazing! I especially loved the Saturday session of conference. I got to watch these sessions in English, which really was a blessing. The only one we watched in Portuguese was Elder Gogoy! I loved his talk and even though I didn´t understand everything, I think I got the main point of it! Our stake president is American, so he watched with us. It was so cool to be watching with all the other American missionaries! I got so many answers to my questions, and there were so many things that were said that our investigators needed to hear. Sadly not everyone came who we invited, but Alberto´s entire family came so that was a blessing! It´s funny because I loved watching conference when i was serving in the D.C. South Mission, but as a missionary in the U.S., you are constantly working with members and feeling of their spirits. here, we leave our lunch appointment and it can sometimes be a little lonely. I feel like we´re exposed to a lot more of the world than we knew existed, so watching conference made me so happy! I loved feeling united with the rest of the church members around the world and thinking of all you guys watching with me! I didn´t eat scones, but we did have some Pringles and Doritos to feel a little more american..haha

I´m not gonna lie, I´m  nervous about this transfer!! I have loved working with Sister Downs and have loved this area. I know that Heavenly fFther knows what´s best for me and that He has people prepared for me there and lots of work for me to do!! I hope you guys have an amazing week!

I love you soooo much!

Sister Pehrson

September 29, 2014

Seriously, it´s already been a week since last Monday?? This week went by so fast! It was awesome and we saw tons of miracles! i felt soo grateful and humbled too because it was a reminder that blessings always come when we do what the Lord wants us to! The week before was really rough and we didn´t see many results of all the work we´ve been doing, but this week we saw so much progress in the people we´re teaching and was just like Heavenly fFather was saying ´´keep going!! there´s still tons you guys can do and I promise I´ll help you out!´´

Monday night we had family home evening with neto and irmão antonio and his family. we watched the restoration and i understood almost all of it! I´m finally learning portuguese!! Afterwards we invited whoever wanted to to share their testimonies of Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel. It´s so cool because we teach the restoration more than any other lesson, but no matter what, I always feel the spirit so strongly when I tell people about Joseph Smith. Before it was like ´´okay, i´m gonna tell them about this vision and just hope that they don´t think it´s weird.´´ but now it´s like ´´did you understand what i just told you?! Joseph Smith saw GOD and JESUS CHRIST!! And it wasn´t even that long ago!!´´ After that, we went and taught Alberto! We started teaching him the plan of salvation that day and it was great!

Tuesday was awesome! One of our investigators, Florencio, called us Monday and was telling us that he was feeling discouraged.  We went and taught him and figured out that the real problem is that his wife doesn´t like that we´re teaching her husband when she´s not there. we always have a member with us, but she´s still not happy with the situation. it´s hard to teach them together because they have completely different work schedules, they´re never together unless it´s 10 00 at night!  He´s just now starting to realize how important everything we´ve taught him is and he wants to marry his wife in the temple and have an eternal family. Sadly we´re going to have to stop teaching him because we don´t want to offend the wife even more! Hopefully we can find some Elders to teach them. After that, we met the most AMAZING guy ever! his name is Itamar. he speaks a lot of english and is a drummer! He´s Baptist, but doesn´t go to church much. He told us he´d talked to elders in the past but they never actually taught him the lessons. He told us he´s always wanted to visit our church and learn more. sSo we set up an appt with him and went back and taught him on Thursday. We ended the night teaching Alberto. It was a really intense lesson haha. he had a ton of questions and because he´s attended so many churches, he has a lot of different ideas. It was honestly the most difficult lesson I´ve taught on my mission because his questions were so detailed. We followed Elder Holland's advice to "Be Bold" when we were teaching him! In the end he was thanking us and was like ´´oh! it all makes sense now!´´ The greatest words ever spoken!

Wednesday we didn´t have much success until the end of the night. But we kept truckin on until then! We taught Neto and had his home teacher teach with us. We talked about the sacrament and how he can bless it when he has the priesthood, and how it will bless his life! Then we went and taught Alberto. We had a man from our stake come with us (I think he´s part of the high council but I don´t know because I don´t know the names for that stuff in Portuguese..) But we taught about the atonement and it was so amazing! At the end we marked a date for baptism for him for the 12th of October!! It was so sweet, at the end of the lesson, Alberto was talking with the member, and he was like ´´I´m just so grateful for these 2 girls and for what they are sharing. Imagine if they hadn´t chosen to be missionaries, I wouldn´t be here!´´ It reminded me that it all really is worth it. Seriously, the week before was SO hard! I felt like we were working and working and no one wanted to listen to us. But I´m so grateful that I have the opportunity to share the gospel with people like Alberto because they recognize the importance of what we´re sharing and it´s the greatest feeling in the world to see someone start to love and accept the gospel! It makes every sacrifice seem so small and so worth it!

In Thursday, we went back and taught Itamar! It was the greatest first lesson H´ve ever taught. he read the entire pamphlet we left him and was asking us about the different priesthoods. He understood everything we taught and commited to come to church sunday. He is SO prepared! At the end of the night, we taught Alberto again and his older kids came and listened!! I thought it was so amazing because as soon as Alberto made the choice to move forward and be baptized, his family started to progress more and have more interest! Heavenly Father is so good!

Friday we taught this couple Dete and Fabio! We taught Dete last week, but Fabio was working so Friday was our first time teaching him. It was an awesome lesson! Fabio has visited lots of churches and is a little disillusioned by religion. but he loved what we taught and is super excited to hear the prophet speak at general conference! We´ll see what happens with them! We also taught Neto friday night and it was the sweetest lesson ever! At the end we invited him to share his testimony with us and he was thanking us for all we taught him and telling us he is so happy we found him. He also said that he´s super happy that now he knows about Joseph Smith and has new scriptures to read! He´s the best! We ended the night teaching Alberto again and his kids listened again!!! I´m so excited that his family is starting to progress along with him!

Saturday we taught Eduardo, Francisco, and Sonia. they are an awesome family we´re teaching right now. We´ve been teaching them the plan of salvation and so saturday we focused on the temple and how they can be a family forever. They have a lot of love for one another and I know the gospel will just help them have an even more amazing family! When Francisco, the dad, prayed at the end of the lesson, he was very emotional! It was an awesome lesson!

Sunday we went to pick up Itamar for church and when we got there he was waiting for us and he was wearing a suit! NOBODY here wears a suit on their first visit to church! NOBODY! Everyone in the ward thought he was already a member haha. Sonia, Eduardo, and Francisco also came to church for their first time! They all really liked it and got to know the members which was really important. afterwards we had lunch and a lesson with Darlyene. We talked about general conference and how she can prepare to watch it. The other sisters in our ward had a baptism in the afternoon so we went and helped out and got to see Josey be baptized! We found her a few months ago.  But they moved to the other part of our ward, where the other sisters work so they took over, it's awesome because we get to see her progress still! So it was so cool to see her be baptized!

I can´t believe it´s General Conference time again!!! iI´m a little scared because I think I have to watch it in Portuguese. I´ve been reading the talks from the last conference in portuguese and I can understand most of it, but I have to use a dictionary a lot for the words they use in their stories because they´re usually words that aren´t very commonly used. So pray for me that I´ll be able to understand and be uplifted by conference too haha! I love you guys all so so much!!

Sister Pehrson

September 22, 2014

Boa tarde gente!

This week had a lot of awesome moments, and a lot of seed planting...knocking doors, contacting people in the streets, etc. Despite all the tracting we did, the week still flew by so that was a huge blessing!

On Monday night we taught Larissa. She´s so amazing! Her mom and sister can´t take her to church because they´re always working, and she is only 13 so she can´t go by herself. But she is always reading the book of mormon and does personal progress on her own. I remember when mom had to practically beg me to do that stuff! the youth here are so amazing! I heard that the church isn´t calling any more american missionaries here for awhile. There are so many youth who were baptized here in Brazil in the last 5 years thatare preparing to serve missions and they can serve in their own country ! pretty cool! after that we had FHE with Neto at a member of the bishoprics house. it was about the preisthood, since Neto will receive it soon. it was nice because Cidicley, a member of the bishopric, taught the lesson. He used a ton of scriptures and explained things really in depth, I hope that Neto understood at least a little bit!

Tuesday was so awesome! in the morning we found a new family to teach! In the afternoon we taught this really sweet old lady. she has a ton of health problems so we talked to her about the resurrection and how she won´t have those problems one day! In the evening we taught Eduardo, sonia, and francisco. we weren´t sure how the lesson would go since only Eduardo went to church last sunday, but Franciso, the dad, said that he´s been reading the Book of Mormon and really liking it! He said that he will keep reading and really pray to know it it´s true! This is HUGE progress! There really is nothing better than teaching families! We ended the night teaching Alberto! we just followed up with him on how reading the book of mormon is going. He is loving it and shared some verses with us that he really liked.

Wednesday was a little slow going on the teaching side. We taught neto about the Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants in the afternoon. It was so funny because he found the articles of faith and he just started reading them and when he finished he was like ´´that´s all?´´. He loved them :) in the evening we taught Luciano. He was baptized in May with his family and was preparing to give a talk in church for the first time so we helped him out with that. It was cool because his wife sat in on the lesson with us. The rest of our day we walked and walked and did contacts but didn´t teach much! But Sseeds were planted and nothing can happen if we don´t work at all!

Thursday we met some really amazingly prepared people AND we found out that there will be a Subway in our area on the 25th of this month! I literally dreamt about Subway last night because I miss american food so much...but back to the spiritual side of things! We taught Alberto and he is doing really well. He is wanting his whole family to be baptized,  This week we´re going to focus on helping him really receive an answer that this is the right thing for him to do! After that we had an amazing lesson with Sonia, Eduardo, and Francisco!! We taught them with a couple in our ward and it turns out they are relatives. It´s like 3rd cousins or something! Pretty cool! The members shared their conversion story and it was just awesome! At the end of the lesson, Francisco prayed and it was one of the most sincere prayers I´ve ever heard! It was so awesome!! I love working with members!! Francisco and Sonia drove us home since it was close to our curfew. Word of warning: If a Brasillian offers you a ride, just say no. The roads here are just crazy and nobody follows the rules so it's a mess! But we survived and got home before 9:30!

On Friday we visited Neto in the morning and helped him learn more about studying the scriptures. then we visited Cleviane in the afternoon. She loves the Bible. We read 1 Nephi 10 wth her, where it quotes the bible and testifies of Jesus Christ. she loved it! I think she´s starting to realize that the Book of Mormon really is a book from God. We also taught Paulo and Cristina that day! They are reading in the Book of Mormon and really liking it! After that, we had the most amazing lesson! and one of the most surprising lessons I´ve taught on my mission! the other day we knocked on the door of this sweet little old lady. She told us she was busy but that we could try another day. We went back and weren´t sure what to expect, but the lesson we had with her was awesome! Her name is Francinete and she´s this adorable little 75 year old. We taught her the restoration and she understood all of it! We´d teach a part and then she´d say, ´´Okay. I understand. So Joseph Smith restored the same church that Jesus Christ established when he lived here on earth?´´ Everything that we taught, she´d repeat back to us perfectly! It was so cool! She loves going to church, but her daughter won´t go with her, so she can´t go anymore. We told her we´d find her a ride to our church and she agreed to go!

Saturday we taught English class and taught Danielle. Then, after lunch we tried EVERYONE we had planned to see, but EVERYTHING fell through! We did lots of contacts until our next appiontment. We taught Francinete again and this time we taught her about the Book of Mormon. The first thing she said was ´´How can I buy this book?´´ We told her it was a gift and her eyes were as big as the moon! She was so excited! I seriously love that little lady! Sadly she told us she couldnt go to church the next day because her daughter doesn´t like the idea of her going alone and her daughter wouldn't go to church with her! I am sure it will all work out eventually! After that we taught Dete! We met her on Thursday. She was passing us on the street and we started talking to her. she told us she´d always passed the church and wanted to go inside, but she never did. She also told us her husband, who isn´t a member of any church, said that if he was to join any church it´d be ours! so we went and taught them. Her husband had to leave for work but we got to know him a bit before and he´s really awesome! We taught Dete and her kids and it went great! It was so funny because during the leson the son was like ´´Mom, are they speaking English or Spanish?´´ He had no clue what we were saying! Kids here have a lot of trouble understanding us with our thick accents. At the end of the night we visited Tatiane; she found a house in the area of the other ward and is moving this week! Its' sad because I love her and love visiting her, but hopefully we will hear news in the near future of her neice, Cristielen being baptized!

Sunday we had our investigator, Maria, attend church for the first time! she is so cool! She was paying attention really well and even asked me to write down a scripture that one of the speakers used. It´s interesting because when we first met her, she appeared to not be open to our message, but she is trusting us more and more and is really liking what we are teaching her! I think something that is still hard for me is that I am guilty of judging if people will accept the gospel before I even talk to them. We had a fireside last night with a former member of the seventy and he was talking about how we just have to open our mouths and never think that someone wouldn´t accept the gospel! It was good for me to hear that because even though I´m talking with everyone, I sometimes don´t have as much hope for people as I should!

Like I said, this week was lots of seed planting. Lots of our appointments fell through which is always sad, but it was good to exercise our diligence and keep working despite the changes in plans. I´m excited for this week because we have a lot of appointments set up with the contacts we made last week!

I  love you all so much and hope your week goes awesome!

te amo!

Sister Pehrson