que sorte é nossa

This week my sister sent me an email that said, “If you ain´t prayin, you ain´t slayin”.. is that what the kids are saying these days?? Haha I love it.

This week was MAGICAL. Particularly, Sunday because the frequency of our little branch DOUBLED. There weren´t enough spots for everyone, and Sister C. Silva and I were playing musical chairs all of sacrament meeting. Everyone was so happy! I think everyone caught a glimpse of what can happen in Horizonte when everyone helps and does their part.

Sister C. Silva and I are still loving being companions and happy as ever. One of our favorite members told us, “You´re both the craziest sisters I´ve ever met!! Do you ever get tired of dancing?!” Sometimes we just communicate with single words and facial expressions, and it´s better than speaking English because nobody gets it!

GABRIEL was baptized this week, and he is an AWESOME young man! Seriously he is the most smiley adolescent, and before his baptism he called us over and said, “I need to talk to yáll”… I thought he was nervous or something, but he just wanted to recite the articles of faith he memorized… WHAT!! HAHA we hadn´t even shown him the articles of faith yet. GOLD STARS for real.

I´m loving every day in Horizonte even though I know it´s a party in the USA!!!

Miss you all!!!

XOXO

Sista Moon

A police office took this pic on the low - Horizonte's pro soccer team facility

 Gabriel's Baptism

This is a fruit that is super good!

PARABENS PAI!!!! - (this is last week's blog/email that she didn't have time to send until this week)

Happy birthday to the coolest dad in the world!

I love this quote from Gen Conf about families:

Every family has moments of awkwardness.  Like when your parents ask you to take a “selfie” of them, or when your greataunt insists that you are still single because you are just too picky, or when your opinionated brother-in-law thinks his political view is the gospel view, or when your dad arranges a family portrait with everyone dressed like characters in his favorite movie.  And you get the Chewbacca costume. 

Families are like that.  We may share the same gene pool, but we are not the same. We have unique spirits. We are influenced in different ways by our experiences. And each of us ends up different as a result.  Rather than attempting to force everyone into a mold of our own making, we can choose to celebrate these differences and appreciate them for adding richness and constant surprises to our lives.”

I know that when we accept and even learn to love the things that make us different we will have more peace and we can start to walk the path that Jesus showed us. He loves us ALL. Even the people we can´t stand, he loves perfectly! It´s amazing.. and we can show our love for him by loving our families. Lucky for me, this isn´t hard!! I miss and love my family so much!

P.S.

My dad would never ask me to take a selfie of him because Keith Moon´s selfie game is strong!!! HBD

This is Anderson and he is awesome!  He wakes up all of our investigators for church and they don't get mad!

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...