Ele é Meu Bom Pastor

Soooo novidades (news)!!!

I finally sent my membership record to Ala Castelo, and now they kick me out!!!! I´m going to JUAZEIRO DO NORTE!!!! At 9:30 tonight I´m leaving on a bus that will take me 14 hours interior to my new home. I feel like I´m leaving my family again because so many people here treated me like their daughter/sister, but I´m really excited also. Bittersweet.

ALSO!! This week was really special because I met Janaina. I was with Sister R. Santos (who I love) during a trade off, and a little boy stopped us in the street and invited us to his house. When we arrived we met his mom, Rita, his sister, Kyara, and his aunt, Janaina.  Janaina started to tell us about her life and how she lived in Manaus for a year. She said that her sisters are members of the church and that she always went to church with them, but she wasn´t sure if she wanted to be a member. She went to the temple garden many times in Manaus, she reads the scriptures, and she loved going to church, but due to a lot of personal problems she never took the step to be baptized. We read with her in 3^rd Nephi these verses

 13 Will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?

 14 Yea, verily I say unto you, if ye will come unto me ye shall have eternal life. Behold, mine arm of mercy is  
extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive; andblessed are those who come unto me.

Janaina said, “I almost died this week because of my depression, but He can heal me. I think that´s beautiful.”

Janaina and her neice, Kyara were baptized this Saturday and it was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. They were glowing. His arm of mercy really is always extended for us and so are miracles. 

We also had a huge luau for all of the married people in our ward. They received invites to give to other couples that aren´t members of our church! It was a success and really fun to decorate. We finger painted and had basically like an orange theory sesh pushing all of the pews and blowing up a million balloons immediately after.

HUGS N LUV!!!!

Sister Moon

cross fit

It's me

 Janaina and Kyara's Baptism

 I'll miss my Sister Nevin

Paulo's baptism

I don´t remember if I sent you this last week, but I found a way to cut onions with out crying

pois tá minha filha

tender mercies:

·         Giovanna (teenager that was baptized several months ago, as was her mom, the one that owned a church and owns a food truck) visited a lot of people with us and she did amazing!! We just let her talk and sing and pray and WOW she does it all!! Haha. A woman in the street stopped us and asked us to pray for her, and we started to talk to her about what´s going on in her life. Rosalie (the woman) said that the bar in front of her house is really loud and it makes her sad to see so much violence/sin every day. Giovanna started to pray for her and in the prayer she promised her the bar would fall to the ground and not bother her anymore. The prayer was great, but in my head I was thinking that it was a big promise to make! Literally the next days afterwards we passed by the same bar and there were no people and no music!! Rosalie said that it´s been closed ever since we prayed for her. BLESSINGS ON BLESSINGS. Giovanna is a gem!!!!

·         I found out that Mateus (recent convert from Horizonte) will marry Perla (we taught him in her house!!) I´m on cloud nine! It´s gonna be dope!! My passion for matchmaking finally has it´s fruits!!!

·         This week we did a tradeoff with the sisters that live in the same house as Sister C.Silva!! It was the best. We put all of the beds in the same room and we literally talked all night.

·         We had the sweetest moment this week reading the Book of Mormon with a woman who is less active. We were talking about the verse, and out of the blue she said, “I´ve always known the book is true. I don´t know why I stopped reading it.”  She hasn´t gone to church in 23 years, but is super excited to go this Sunday!!

Life is good!!

XOXO

Sister Moon

Reunited with my BFF and this is the only picture we took. Oh well!! #itsthethotthatcounts

This is my hood

a Friendly face in the ensign!!!!

what the fortaleza sun does to people!! HAHAHA this is Sister Nicoli before stake conference. We were walking a ton trying to get everyone to the bus stop and out of no where she was like "can I use your hose?" hahaha she is the best #nochillinbrazil

Permanecei no Seu Amor

Today marks 1 year and 1 month, and I just love Brazil more and more with every day that passes! I love two cheek kisses. I love the hot sun. I love the little kids in the street that run and cheer to give us hugs every day. I love that everyone always says “vai dar certo” meaning “It will be alright”. I love all of the wild dogs that sometimes like to bite my skirts, but never bite me because we´re friends!! I love singing in Portuguese. I love talking to everyone about Jesus, and I love that he is always walking with me and showing me the way.

I also love YOU ALL!!!

Have the best week!!

Xoxo

Sister Moon

This is the only picture I´m sending this week because I didn´t take any! haha but we recieved this today. 

It´s from Elder Bassett's mission tour

gente do céu

Olá!!!! So this week was so busy/fun!!! It started with the best surprises ever. Two of my favorite people ever are going on missions!! In Ala Pedras (my second area), Ruth (member) wanted to us to visit her friend Luciana with us. Luciana was baptized in March, and now they´re both going on missions! Ruth already has her call to Cuiaba (Sister Bispo´s city), and Luciana is waiting until she finishes one year & she´s going too! We got to chat and eat pizza and it was the happiest night ever.

                The next day we had a leadership meeting and it´s always fun to see everyone and hear Presidente Leite talk. He shared with us that he gave his all on his mission and felt amazing about the work he did, but when he came home he didn´t see the blessings. His life basically fell apart with difficulty finding a job, his parents separated, his mom was ill, and he faced a lot of challenges!! He said that the only thing that got him through all of these trials was his conversion that became so much stronger during his mission. He challenged us all to become more converted, and to make the sacrifices we need to become the people that God wants us to be. I love how Dale G. Renlund said, “God cares a lot more about who we areand who we are becoming than about who we once were. He cares that we keep on trying.” That was basically the gist of President Leite´s talk, to keep on trying to be more converted and better followers of Christ.

                Happy news!! Fernanda was baptized! She had the coolest response to her prayer asking if the church was true. She told us that she dreamed with a white building that looked like a castle, and her friends (that are already members) went with her and they entered. She said she felt so happy and so in peace when she woke up. We showed her a picture of the temple and she started crying and said that that is what she saw! She is amazing.

                Xooxoxo and “Love yourself”- Justin Beiber

Sister Moon

 Ruth and Luciana pictured below

FELIZ HALLOWEEN

Hey everyone!! So this week was a dream come true. I want to tell yáll about a miracle that happened. We have been teaching a girl named Elinete, and she is really special! About three weeks ago we found her in front of the church with a guy from a different ward and she was crying. He immediately introduced us to her and she told us that a close friend of hers was killed. She gave us her address and we planned on visiting her, but literally nobody has ever heard of the street she lives on. We tried google maps, and we asked everyone we knew, and nobody had ever heard of her street, so we prayed/hoped to find her again at church. The next day we found her in the street and she showed us how to arrive at her house (FYI you would have better luck finding Osama Bin Laden) haha but it was an answer to our prayers finding her! Anyways, fast forward a little bit to yesterday. Yesterday was her baptism date, but when it came down to the hour of baptism she was really nervous and she started to doubt her answer from God. She decided that she didn´t want to be baptized anymore, and Sister Nicoli and I obviously were sad for her because we knew that it was just the enemy trying to take these blessings away from her, but Elinete wanted to stay to watch the other baptism. When Karine came out of the water, Elinete felt the spirit and said that she wanted to be baptized too! The same friend that introduced us to Elinete, baptized her yesterday, and it was beautiful! I´m so thankful for a Heavenly Father who´s light expels all doubt.

Something that I´ve learned is that when we are about to do something really good or something that will bless our lives/the life of someone else, Satan will put so many doubts in our minds! Maybe we will think we are not good enough, or that something we believe in isn´t real, but if we open our hearts to God he will teach us and show us the way!

This week Sister Nicoli and I taught the Primary how to sing the chorus of “I am a Child of God” in English, and they will sing it at their primary program next week. Sister Nicoli speaks English so she put the all of the words ex: “Lead me, guide me” like “leed me gaide me” so that they could read it like they read in Portuguese #genius, and I helped them with pronunciation, and in 15 minutes they were singing like little American children. It is the cutest thing ever! I´ll try to film it this week!

Xoxo meow,

Sister Moon

 This was at a familly home evening about how the family needs to work together
 or everybody falls down haha

Jonathan (our ward mish leader) treated us to pizza on HIS birthweek #trooper #goat

 

This is Sister Nevin! She´s from TX and worked at In-n-out so what more could you ask for in a roomie??? She made lunch for us and it was like eating the real thing! #blessed #saudades