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