Just a couple of pics

Hey!!! So I'm not going to send an email bc I don't have time to write, but put the pictures I send on my blog please!!

We have been teaching Joquina for almost 3 months and she was baptized on Sunday (my birthday!)  She told me that now it's like her birthday too because she was born again.  It was awesome....not many ppl here knew about my bday, but all I could have asked for was Joaquina's baptism!

Now that I have had a chance to check emails today,   I'm officially super excited haha!

Love you!!!

 Joquina's baptsim on 3/26/17

the most VIP way to spend your night

I think ill get to talk next week too!!!! And i will send a long email to end my blog :)

So im about to have my last interview with Presidente Leite!!! Bye!!! talk to you next monday and SEE you on wednesday!!!!

xoxoxox love yall

Eu Quero Ser Como Cristo

BOM DIA AMIGOS!!!

Tender Mercies/Things I learned this week:

• This week we had a leadership meeting in Fortaleza, and it was so good to see everyone and say goodbye to everyone! I learned a lot about faith, and that our faith is a decision! President Leite talked a lot about how we can develop more faith, charity, hope, and different attributes of Christ. He said the best way to improve your faith is by helping someone else improve theirs. Somebody raised their hand and said “So if I make my companion really mad, I´ll help him develop patience!” Haha. But really, if we help the people around us increase their faith, our faith will grow as well.

• We are teaching a family that I seriously love with all my heart! Carla, Reginaldo, Gilherme, and Miguel. Gilherme is already a member and he goes to church every Sunday with his grandmother and aunt, but we started to teach his parents Carla and Reginaldo. They are so cute and awesome! This week after we taught them, Gilherme wanted to say the prayer, and he asked Heavenly Father to help his parents feel what he feels and to help them be baptized. It was the cutest thing ever! Everyone was teary eyed. Prayers from eight year olds are the best.

•  We ride the bus a lot here, but usually it´s different buses and we don´t see the same people. On Thursday we saw the same guy 3 times, and we started to talk to him. He was super interested in the church, and he said that he passes by every day, but he didn´t know if he was allowed to enter. He had so many good questions that we answered for him, and we noticed that almost everyone on the bus was paying attention and listening. We gave everyone pamphlets with the address of the church and it was one of the coolest experiences I´ve had. Generally the bus is noisy and crowded, but it was quiet and the spirit was so sweet. Heavenly Father prepares people in every place!

Luke 6:46-48:  And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?  Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like:  He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep, and laid the foundation on a rock:  and when the flod arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it:  for it was founded upon a rock.  

•  I learned this week that when we ask to be guided by the spirit we need to follow whatever prompting we feel. This is how we build our house upon the rock!

The weeks are passing by so fast! I´m SO excited to see and talk to yáll, but I also want to use every moment to love my neighbor here while I can. It´s so bittersweet! BUT I want to ask for a present from everyone for my birthday & I`m stealing the idea from the Prophet Thomas S. Monson: Find someone who is sad or having a hard time, and do something kind for him or her! You will feel more joy than the person you helped. I promise!

Have the best week!!!

XOXOXO,

Sister Moon

[editor note:  the bullet points above are supposed to be little hearts, per Mallory's request, but I couldn't figure out how to accommodate her request, so just imagine it so..." ]

We are not sure if we will get another email because next week she travels to Fortaleza for training and then the following Monday she travels home [1 bus and 3 planes = 29 hours of travel time before arriving at Dallas Love Field at 9:27am on 4/5/17], so this may be the last installment from Brazil.

Bad weather day

 Sister Medeiros and Sister Amorim! We go home in two weeks!

 

Mallory making up time for not having a dog of her own

João Vitor surprised us with his new church clothes! Yesterday he received the priesthood.

We missed posting some pictures from a previous week (March 6), so here they are...

 João Vitor´s baptism

 We named him Oliver

 picture Beyonce´s "Survivor" playing in the background.

Bless Up Nas Brenhas

BOM DIA everyone!!!

I can think of two scriptures that have stuck out to me a lot this week.

The first is Jacob 4:10

10 Wherefore, brethren, seek not to counsel the Lord, but to take counsel from his hand. For behold, ye yourselves know that he counseleth in wisdom, and in justice, and in great mercy, over all his works.

And the second is Isaiah 55:8-9

8 ¶For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

 9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Sister Nicoli and I had an awesome week! On Tuesday after we studied, we both felt like we need to do something different, and we both felt impressed that we should start working in a neighborhood that´s a little far away, but that has almost never been visited. It was still Carnaval on Tuesday, so there wasn´t a single place open to make a smaller copy of our giant map, so we just took it with us and went to where we thought we needed to go! After we arrived and found out that it´s super different there, and almost nobody is in the street we were kinda confused about what we should do, but after walking and walking and walking, we found a family of less active members! Heavenly Father literally sent us to “as brenhas” (middle of nowhere) to find his lost sheep. I feel so grateful that we were able to hear and follow the spirit. Especially because that is something I´ve been trying to develop for the past year and a half J

                Something else marvelous happened this week!! João Vitor was baptized. He and his best friends have been coming to church with us for a while, and João Vitor wanted to be baptized after he gained his testimony of the Book of Mormon. He says that during his free time he always wants to read it, and he´s never felt that way before about any other book. He was baptized on Saturday before a young men´s activity, and it was so special! After he was baptized and came back to the room, all of the young men hugged him and took turns baring their testimonies. Ahh this week was so #blessed!!

                I found a quote this morning that I love:

“A waiting period isn´t simply a time that needs to be waited out to get what we want. We should treat it as a process that will mold us to be who Heavenly Father wants us to become”

LOVE YALL

Xoxoo,

SISTER MOON

Oxe! Top das Galáxias!

I can´t explain to yáll how great this week was. For starters, Sister Nicoli and I are companions, again!!! I can´t believe it! I´m so greatful that I´ll end my mission with a companion that is so happy and fun and already such a good friend to me!

She reminds me of all the Beyonce lyrics I´ve foroten and teaches me all of the coolest slang like "top das galáxias". JK, she actually explained that it´s a phrase that moms and dads use when trying to be be cool. Very Phil diffy! And now I can´t stop saying it. 

Speaking of cool moms, I want t give a s/o to my mom who helped us a lot this week. For a while now, we´ve been teaching Hermeson. He is BFF with a member, and for years he´s been coming to church. He even saw Neil L. Anderson speak when he came to Juazeiro. Hermeson loves the church, and he recieved a strong answer to his prayer when he asked if the church was true, but he was needing more courage to be baptized. On Saturday, I was looking through my things, and I found a talk that my mom sent me about learning the language of the spirit.  

We paraphrased this quote for Hermeson:

"What do you do when you have prepared carefully, have prayed fervently, waited a reasonable time for a response, and still do not feel an answer? You may want to express thanks when that occurs, for it is an evidence of Heavenly Father´s trust. When you are living worthily and our choice is consistent with the Savior´s teachings and you need to act, proceed with trust. As ou are sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit, one of two things will certainly occur at the appropriate time: eiter the stupor of thought will come, indicating an improper choice, or the peace or the burning in the bosom will be felt, confirming that your choice was correct. When you are living righteously and are acting ith trust, God will nt let you proceed too far without a warning impression if you have made the wrong decision." - Richard G. Scott

Afterwards, we shared our testimonies with him about how we are blessed when we act in faith, and Hermeson decided then to be baptized on the same day. Thanks mom for sending me what he needed to hear!

Carnaval started this week and last night there were tons of marching bands in the street, and I felt like I was at a pep rally! Literally, it´s like a football game. People threw flour on each other, spray paint their hair, and go crazy! Today is more like the Walking Dead because nobody is in the street! 

xxoxxo

Sista Moon

bah cara

OLÁAAAA!!

I am on cloud nine!!! This week was the best. On Tuesday we had a leadership meeting in Fortaleza, so we had the whole afternoon before our bus left to visit my recent converts in Messejana! It was like a movie! When I entered Edina´s street, she was leaving on her bike to buy bread, and she saw us and screamed “I don´t believe it!!” and she dropped her bike and came running to hug us and everyone cried and it was wonderful. Giovanna and Tais came running and SISTER BOLDRIN just happened to be visiting them so it was a huge reunion. 

Giovanna said, “My birthday is tomorrow and when I found out you were in Fortaleza I was praying that we would have a way to see each other” my heart!!!

Sister Wood and I are both close to finishing our missions (she goes home next week which makes me sad L ) , but we both want to see so many more miracles before leaving, so we started to read a talk that´s about “calling upon the powers of heaven” and it´s helped us a lot. We are praying a lot together to know where to go and who to talk to, and Heavenly Father is leading us to people that have literally been waiting their whole lives to hear this message. 

This week Joaquina and Claudio went to church in Juazeiro for the first time. About 20 years ago, Claudio was baptized in São Paulo, but due to moving a lot for work, he stopped going. After a while, he married Joaquina and she never got to know the church until one day when Sister Wood and I passed her in the street and we asked her for water. She started to tell us about her family and about Claudio, and we NEVER met Claudio. For 6 weeks we were passing by trying to find him in his house and he was never there!! But finally on Saturday night, we found Joaquina on the street and she was like “Claudio and I are going to church tomorrow!!”.. and they went! They both loved it, and they will bring there 3 kids this next Sunday. God is so good! I love this family.

Also, Robério was baptized! He bore his testimony afterwards saying that he feels like Heavenly Father will help him be a better person now, and less timid (because he hates talking in front of people) haha. So just him sharing his testimony in front of everyone was a huge victory! I´m so proud of him and his decision.

I read this week that “faith without works is dead, but works without faith is also dead” and that´s so TRUUU!

Love you all! Have the best week!!

Sister Moon

This was our activity that we planned for our investigators. It was human fuesball and it was really fun!!! It was supposed to also have water and soap on the floor so that people would slip and fall (in to temptation for our object lesson lol) buuuuut we forgot the soap & the buckets!!! so it was more like soccer with ropes and ya girl got GOALS!!!