seja feliz

OLÁAAAA!

This week was another good one! Sister C. Silva turned 22, and we ate a lot of cake and had a lot of fun! She is teaching me so many songs in Portuguese, I want to pull a Lizzie McGuire and become a brazilian pop star #whatdreamsaremadeof

This week I was studying a talk from General Conference by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Gift of Grace”, and I love love love this part:

 "In the Bible we read of Christ’s visit to the home of Simon the Pharisee. Outwardly, Simon seemed to be a good and upright man. He regularly checked off his to-do list of religious obligations: he kept the law, paid his tithing, observed the Sabbath, prayed daily, and went to the synagogue.

But while Jesus was with Simon, a woman approached, washed the Savior’s feet with her tears, and anointed His feet with fine oil.

Simon was not pleased with this display of worship, for he knew that this woman was a sinner. Simon thought that if Jesus didn’t know this, He must not be a prophet or He would not have let the woman touch him.

Perceiving his thoughts, Jesus turned to Simon and asked a question. “There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: … one owed five hundred pence, … the other fifty.

And when they [both] had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?"

Simon answered that it was the one who was forgiven the most.

Then Jesus taught a profound lesson: “Seest thou this woman? … Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little.”  

Which of these two people are we most like?

I´ve been thinking a lot about this story, and I hope that I can be more like the woman who really loved her Savior. She understood who he is! She knew how indebted she is, and how only his grace could save her.

The whole talk is here if yáll want to read the rest! https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2015/04/the-gift-of-grace?lang=eng

Things are wonderful here in Brazil! I´m so happy & loving this part of my mission. I miss you all & hope everyone is happy & getting excited for summer!

LOVE,

Sista Moon

calor medonho

WOW! Happy Mother´s Day, Mom!! And of course all of my other favorite Mom´s too!! Yesterday, we taught primary again (lol joy), and we tried to teach them “Love is Spoken Here” to sing for all of the moms in Relief Society. Everyone got stage fright all at once so it turned in to a duet with my companion and I (HAHA). Speaking of my companheira, I LOVE my new companion, Sister C. Silva. She is from Brasilia, and we are best friends! It is actually really funny because when we both were assigned to inland areas, we always stayed at the same house when we had mission conferences in Fortaleza, and we always talked about how fun it would be to be companions. Dream come true!

So in the last two weeks some of my favorite teenagers were baptized! I love teaching teenagers because you can say stuff like “are you excited to receive the holy ghost?!” and they´ll say “I don´t know, yeah I guess”, but you know they are actually excited. #blessed But seriously, they are awesome. I´m so proud of their courage, and amazed by their testimonies!! We found Mateus one day when we were buying churros from his dad (literal gainz), and Andreia and Andressa are friends of Pedro Vitor/Pedro Henrique (recent converts), but we found them playing volleyball in the street. So I basically I need to eat more churros and play more volleyball? I love that everything happens for a reason!

I got to skype my family yesterday, and it feels so weird that I can´t do it again today! I miss them a lot, but I want to give lots of shout outs to my mom! A lot of things come out of my mouth sometimes, and I think afterwards “that is exactly what my mom would say”, and as trippy as it is, I`m so thankful because It means that I´m starting to turn in to a person like her. If everyone could have the love, charity, and zest for life that my mom has, the world would be a BEAUTIFUL place.

Give your moms lots of hugs, and if you see my mom, give her a hug too!

Love,

SISTA MOON

 From Mother's Day skype session - Meet my companion (additional video clips from her skype session will be included in future blog posts)

Andressa and Andreia

This was the funniest thing of today's P-day.  I might be insta famous in Fortaleza now because I got to pick the winner of a Mother's Day give away & it was filmed.  Lolz I got super excited for her and started yelling "congrats, Luzia!!! you won, you won!!!

 We love wind and crowded buses

 This desert is called a "dream" and it is a dream

Last week's photos - Mallory didn't have time to put together a blog update last week because they had transfers.  She was able to send a couple pictures...