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

September 15, 2014

This week was awesome!! Well, really it didn´t seem all that great til the end of the week, but it all went well so that´s what matters!! I think one of the most interesting things about the mission is that there are days and weeks that are really, really rough and hard things happen, but you always just remember the good stuff! This week really was great, so I´m excited to tell ya all about it!

Monday night we had 2 Family Home Evenings. The first was with a member and we brought a recent convert with us. It was awesome! This member is always, always, ALWAYS helping us out! I want to be a member like him when I get back home! After that we had FHE with Darlyene. She had a friend there who wasn´t really talking with us all that much but when we were getting ready to leave she asked us where we live and if she could walk home with us. The whole way home she talked our ears off and really opened up to us so that was pretty awesome! It´s interesting how much people trust you as a missionary. I know I´ve learned a lot in the past months, but I´m still just a 21 year old. I am grateful for the people that are willing to trust us!

I don´t know what it is about Tuesdays lately, but the past couple of weeks Tuesdays have been rough! It started out great. We taught a lesson about the restoration. The person said she is just really confused because she was taught differently her whole life and now we´re here, telling her that the church we represent is actually the truth. But we talked about how she can receive an answer because she has never really gotten an answer to prayer. In the afternoon we taught a young man we met last week. he´s 13, but he´s a really thoughtful 13 year old! He has lots of questions about religion, He feels like he´s still too young to choose to decide just one church to attend. The lesson with him was pretty awesome! His Pentecostal cousin was there and was pretty cool. I learned one thing that day: Get comfortable when you ask a Pentecostal pray. His prayer was about 15 minutes long and he was talking really fast and shouting. Now keep in mind, I´m a missionary! I should enjoy praying! After that we taught Neto! Definitely the highlight of our day. On Sunday, after his baptism, we told him that he should write about his feelings and experience at his baptism. Today he shared with us what he wrote and it was so sweet! I´m so grateful I had the opportunity to teach him.

Wednesday we taught a family that we met a few weeks ago. We only met and taught the mom and son, but Wednesday we taught the dad too! It was really awesome because he´s definitely the leader of their family, so if he acts, the rest of them will act too. He said they´d come to church, but only the son ended up coming on Sunday, but we´ll keep trying with them! After that we taught Michelle. She has not been coming to church lately. She feels like everyone at church will judge her because she hasn´t been there in a while. So she doesn´t want to come back. It's a tough situation. Teaching her was really good because I felt so much love for her as we taught her.  I realized that she´s just a human with weaknesses just like the rest of us. It made me want to help her a lot more. that night we taught Alberto (our investigator who bore his testimony last week) with his wife. We taught him with some members and it was so awesome! In the middle of the lesson the member invited him to Family Home Evening this coming week and we didn´t even tell him to do that! Members are the best!

Thursday was amazing! We had the most incredible lesson with Florêncio in the morning. We really weren´t sure what we needed to teach him. He's reading the Book of Mormon and progressing super well. So we really had no idea what we´d teach. We got there and he provided the topic for our lesson! It was sooo cool because he found a page in the Portuguese version of the Book of Mormon that we didn´t even know existed! It´s the introduction to the guide to study the scriptures (they don't have topical guide, bible dictionary, etc. in the Portuguese scriptures. It´s all together and is called ´guia para estudar as escrituras´) and it has an example of how to study the scriptures. The example was for eternal marriage. We had shown him the temple and talked a bit about eternal marriage, But he found the definiton in the scripture study guide and when he was talking to us about what he read, he started to cry because he wants his family to be forever! It was so sweet! We know for sure that he has tons of potential, and we have to start teaching his wife too! Seriously coolest lesson ever! The other big news was that that night when I got home I got a phone call from Sister Evans, the Senior Sister in the mission. She works in the office. She first asked which airport I´d  be flying in to when i return home. I told her Hawaii... I hope you guys are okay with that? ;) She told me that President is giving everyone in my transfer the option of going home on the 15th of December or the 29th like it was planned. She told me everyone else was going home the 15th, so I jumped on the bandwagon and...I´LL BE HOME FOR  CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! December 15! Can you believe it? It´s so crazy. I can't believe ther eis only 3 months left on my mission! I feel like I just started! But yeah, I´m so excited to be home with you guys, but also grateful that I still have 3 whole months to be a missionary! :) The other weird thing about that phone call was that it was in english (Sister Evans doesn´t speak ANY portuguese, her husband was the 1st missionary here in Fortaleza!! How cool is that? ) Talking in english was so hard! It's different when we´re teaching english class because we don't have an actual conversation. But I had to really think and I wanted to respond to everything in Portuguese! ahh!

Friday was really good! In the afternoon, we taught Eduarda. She was taught by some Elders in São Paulo years ago and visited the church a lot, but is still not a member. We taught her about the restoration and it was a very interesting experience for me. Eduarda LOVES to talk! As a missionary after you´ve spent all day in the hot sun, you get REALLY tired. It can be a big temptation to just zone out when people are talking a lot. I tried my hardest to focus and she ended up telling us how she understands everything the Elders taught her except for Joseph Smith! So we were able to know exactly what she needed to be taught. It's funny how little things like listening make the biggest difference. In the evening we taught Ed. We met him a while ago and he has a cousin who is a member, but they were both really busy all month. This week we finally got it combined to have a lesson with them. It went well! Ed is still more curious about the church than actually having interest in being a member, but that can always change. And he has family in the church so that also makes a huge difference! Another highlight of Friday was eating pão de cóco at this bakery we really like. pão de cóco is one of the most delicious things ever! It's kind of like a roll but sweeter and it has coconut on top. Brasillian bakeries are definitely a win!

Saturday made the rest of our week all worth it. We really weren´t having luck teaching lots of people earlier in the week, But saturday everybody was in their house and we taught some really amazing people! In the morning we taught English class and it was a ton of fun. We taught about height and weight since its measured differently here. Everyone got upset when we did the weight because kilograms make it look like you weigh less than you do in pounds. For example, if you weigh 60 kg, you weigh about 120 pounds. So everyone was all upset and thinking they were fat after they did the math and found their weight in pounds, haha. I love teaching English! It's so much fun! In the afternoon, we taught Maria! It was the most awesome lesson with her! We brought a member with us and she was perfect for Maria. Maria is a little slow to understand, but once she understands, she really gets it. She asks a lot of questions too which is super nice for us! But we taught the plan of salvation and it went awesome. In the evening we were going to teach a family but we felt like we needed to stop by Florêncios house and see if his wife was home. She was and we got to teach her! It was such a blessing because before Florêncio was telling us that his wife thinks what he´s learning is weird and all this stuff, but we talked to her that night and taught her the first lesson and she was so sweet and really liked what we taught! I think before she didn´t trust us very much, but after that lesson she realized that we are trying to help them and she committed to come to church the next day.

Sunday was awesome because we had a bunch of people at church for their first time! Florêncio and his wife came, Alberto and his wife were there, and Eduardo. Eduardo is 12 and is just awesome. I gave my first talk in portuguese!! I was really nervous but I think it went well. The members said they liked it, but I´m not sure if they just said that because they like me or if it was really good. but I didn´t forget any words or say anything offensive, so I´ll count it as a blessing :) In the afternoon, the other sisters in our ward had a baptism. We passed by Maria´s house and invited her to come. We told her we´d pass by again and walk with her to the baptism. When we came back she wasn´t there so we assumed she didn´t want to go. But we got to the baptism and she was sitting there and she had her boyfriend with her! We set up a lesson to teach both of them next Saturday!

I feel like this week was a huge test of diligence for me. There were times where nobody was home and it was so hot and I just wanted to sleep! But we kept working and it wasn´t until the very end of the week that we saw the fruits of our labors. There are times on the mission where we won't see any fruits at all, but the important part is that we just keep on going. I am going to do my best to remember that 3 months is so short and I have to make the best of the time I have left to serve here!

I love you all soo much! I am so excited to see you in December, and am so grateful for the help you´ve given me as I´ve been here. A lot of times my family is what I think about when I am having a hard time getting motivated! I know the happiness our family has, and I want everybody to have it!

I hope you have an awesome week! Love you all to the moon and back!

Sister Pehrson

September 8, 2014

Ahhh I´m so excited to write you all about this week! Seriously, it was perfect! There was no throwing up during lessons, we had a baptism, and it was just awesome! :)

Monday: Once p day ended we knocked a few doors and met this guy who has a ton of potential! We´re gonna go back and teach him tomorrow night and I´m super excited! He knows a lot about religion but never studied ours, so I´m excited to see what will happen! After that we stopped and saw Tatiane. She visited the ward where Cristielen will be attending and found a house there. They will probably be moving in the next couple of weeks! Of course I´m sad to see them go, but I´m really excited that it will all work out so Cristielen can be baptized! After that we had family home evening with Igor. It was his 17th birthday and all he wanted to do was have family home evening with a bunch of his friends and us, the missionaries! There aren´t many 17 year olds in the world like Igor...that's for sure! After that we had one more family home evening with the family of Irmão Antoni and Neto! It was awesome because Antonio´s nephew gave the lesson and I think it helped him (the nephew) gain a stronger testimony so that was cool!

Tuesday was one of those days where you just walk. and walk. and walk and walk and walk....and don´t teach much! BUT the lessons we did have were awesome, so I will count my blessings! In the morning we taught a lesson with 2 ladies. One has been acting uniterested since her family started saying stuff about the church. But on this day she told us she's just been upset at her families reaciton to the church because she wants them to have the truth too. She said she's been trying to share what shes learning with them, but they won't accept it. It was good to hear that she still wants to be baptized and knows this is true. We talked to her about how she can be an example to her family through her actions. In the afternoon we taught a lesson with a person we have been teaching for quite a while. It was funny because we taught him about missionary work and how we should all preach the gospel. We asked him how his life has changed since we started teaching him and he said that before he littered a lot, but now he doesn't like to throw his garbage in the street. Haha! Good to know he´s learning something from us...Another funny story from a lesson this week is that we were trying to tell a man what he needs to wear UNDER his clothes for his baptism, but we didn't know the words in Portuguese. So Sister Downs used the word she thought was underwear but it turns out that there is a word for boxers and a word for little girls underwear.Sis Downs used the word for little girls underwear so he just started laughing at us. Oh the joys of speaking Portuguese.

Wednesday started out a lot like tuesday. We kept trying to visit people but weren't having much luck! But like always, a miracle happened and everything worked out amazingly! We knocked this door and a lady answered. Without even asking who we were she opened her door and let us in. Within the first few moments I just knew she was a special person! Her name is Net. She knows a few people that she works with who are members of the church, but she doesn´t know much about he church itself. So we taught her the Restoration and she told us how she knew God sent us because that morning she was listening to the radio and a pastor was talking about baptism. She felt like it was God reminding her that she needs to be baptized. So when we showed up that night inviting her to be baptized, she knew only God could have sent us! She is seriously amazing!! She has a really crazy schedule so we can't teach her a ton during the week, but she has set a baptism date of September 28 now so we will see what happens!!

Thursday was awesome! In the morning we taught Lucas who was baptized recently. It was an awesome lesson! We are helping him prep to be a missionary so we started a new thing where we leave a part of preach my gospel with him to study and the next time we come back, he will teach it to us! In the afternoon we taught a mom and a son we met the other day. They are really cool and receptive, but they aren´t the most willing to act, so we will see what happens! We marked a baptism date with them, but I´m not sure if it will happen when we planned because they didn't come to church Sunday. We also taught Neto that day and prepped him for his baptism interview! He was so excited to be baptized! That night we ended up visiting a lady in the Ward. It was really good because she shared some stories about her life and the struggles she's having right now. We set a goal for her to go the temple. I´m excited for when that will happen!!

Friday was seriously unlike ANY day I´ve had on my mission thus far...I went on exchanges to another area with one of the Sister Training Leaders. literally the whole day, ALL of our appointmentsts fell through. EVERYTHING!! It was ridiculous!! I´ve never had such terrible luck! We had a member with us who knows ALL the Sisters in this mission and is very blunt about who she likes and doesn´t like. I don´t think she liked me very much. The whole day I felt like the third wheel while she talked to the sister I was with. It was pretty miserable. I was feeling a little sad because this member didn´t seem to like me much and I was just thinking about how it's hard for me to really befriend the members here because of the language and culture barriers and everything. But we went to the last lesson of the night it was the only one not to fall through. We taught the restoration and it was SO powerful. I got to share the first vision and I felt the spirit so strongly as I taught about Joseph Smith´s experience. As we were leaving, the lady we taught told me that I have a special spirit of calmness about me that is unlike any other and she was so happy I shared it with her. It was, honestly, exactly what I needed to hear and be reminded of! I just need to be me and fulfill my calling and the rest doesn´t matter! There will be people who don´t like me, but if I change for every person that doesn´t like me, who would I be? So that was really cool to learn and see one of the gifts that God has given me and how it is helping someone here! Even though the rest of the day wasn´t the greatest, I at least learned a ton and had that spiritual experience!

Saturday was awesome! In the morning we taught english class which is always a ton of fun! Saturday was especially great. During the class, Neto was interviewed for his baptism and everything went perfect for him. So that was awewsome! In the afternoon we met up with our ward mission leader and planned stuff for the baptism. He is so awesome! He continues to learn about his calling as he goes. He has never served a mission or anything so this was all new to him. But he is so humble and teachable, so he's great to work with. He was doing everything possible to make this baptism great for Neto and I´m so glad we have him in our ward! In the evening we taught a family. We brought along a member and he was the perfect person to bring with us. Then we taught this lady and her family who we met in the street the other day. Their house is on top of another house, and they were all hanging out on the deck. It was so perfect because it was night time and their house doesn´t have lots of street lights nearby so the stars and the moon were sooo pretty! We taught the restoration and the whole time the entire family was just full of great questions. It was an amazing lesson!

Sunday was seriously the BEST!! Tiago, our investigator whose real name is florencio, (we found out we´ve been calling him the wrong name the last 2 months..not sure how we got Tiago haha!) came to church, as well as Alberto. Alberto bore his testimony haha! It was awesome! After church we had 2 awesome lessons and then had Neto´s baptism! I honestly think this was my favorite baptism on the mission. Maybe it's just because it was most recent, but really everything went so perfectly!! It was so awesome to see him in all white! His jumpsuit was huge and he looked like a little kid wearing his dads clothes, but it was one of the most beautiful things I´ve ever seen! He was so happy!! His Aunt, Grandma and Cousin were all there with him and TONS of ward members were there to support him too! The talks were amazing and I got to do a musical number! I was so nervous because I´ve never sang in public in Portuguese, but before I sang, I prayed that it would bring the spirit and when I finsihed, I looked up and Neto was crying! It was so sweet and I´m so happy he was able to feel the spirit so strong! The spirit was strong during the whole baptism and I just felt rejuvenated and ready to help more people change the way Neto did. It is such a good feeling when you are helping someone you love SO much grow closer to God! There really is no greater joy I´ve felt than this, and I want to fill my final months here with more experiences like yesterday!
Here is a picture from the Baptism:

 

This is our Ward Mission leader withNeto, his Aunt, Grandmother and Cousin

 This is Igor, Neto and Antonio

So that was my week. Our plan is to keep on doing the Lord´s work! I feel so blessed to be here and to be helping people out as well as learning so much myself!

Love you all!!!!

Sister Pehrson

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