HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Hope you all are doing well.............
And to all you folks starting school again............ good luck. Glad I dont have to worry about that. haha.
OH!! and I got the christmas package at transfers this week!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks so much!!! It was so
sweet opening it up... hahaah. it was practically spilling over with
goodies. =] I shared the peppermint patties at english class....... and
they were a hit. hahah.
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| CHRISTMAS ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =] |
Welp. This week was good. Way busy and exhausting, but really awesome.
We
had transfers on Wednesday and I stayed in Campinas 3.... My new
companion is Sister Moraes from Belém, Pará. She is from the same city
as Sister Paixão, AND my district leader Elder Alcantara...... I think
President is really wanting me to pick up a "Pará accent"..... My
companion has been on the mission for almost 8 months.... just two
months less than me, and she teaches and talks to everyone like a boss,
and is insanely good with a map.... She basically is good at everything,
which is really handy. Everytime I have no idea what I´m doing (happens
a lot) she is on top of it. She is the most quiet of all my companions,
and fairly serious..... which´ll take some getting used to...It´s weird
to suddenly be the one that talks more..........and I think that when I
make sarcastic remarks, she takes me a little too seriously..... hahah.
.... she´s also super nice and INSANELY organized. This transfer will
for sure be wayyyy good.
We kept really busy this week........... we walked a
lot, talked to EVERYONE and spent practically every second teaching. We
were pretty much crashing into bed at 10:30 everynight. I´m still sooooo
exhausted. ahhhhh. Maybe after this we´ll go back home and sleep a
little. =]
We are teaching a girl named Joyce and her little
sister Juliane. Joyce is 19 and her sister is 10. Their cousins got
baptized in another city nearby, and they went to the baptism and talked
to the elders there. The elders passed over their address, and we
started teaching them. We havent taught too much yet, but Joyce is
reading the book of mormon, and the two of them went to church again
with their cousins this sunday to see their confirmations. Woo! So
hopefully big things will happen here....
We´ve been teaching a super smart 9 year old named
Danilo and his family for a while now..... He lives with his grandma--
Maria, and pretty much every kid in the entire neighborhood is her
grandkid and lives in this house.... Every time we go there it is just
crazyness, and some new kid that we´ve never met is there.... haha. Its
hard to teach them, but Danilo especially is really excited--- reading
the book of mormon out loud to his grandma (she doesnt know how to
read), and always asking us to tell more "stories" when we go to their
house. We figured it would be basically impossible to get them to come
to church.... BUT, this sunday was a day of MIRACLES. We called the
number they gave us in the morning to see if they were up and ready.....
whoever answered the phone gave us ANOTHER number to call instead, and
so we tried it, and nobody answered..... We decided to go and give them a
shot anyways, just in case.... (even though the week before, we tried
and nobody answered the door.....). AND, when we showed up with a car to
pick up ALLLL the grandkids that wanted to go, THEY WERE ALL READY AND
WAITING FOR US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maria may or may not have fallen asleep in EVERY class at
church..... hahah. poor thing..... but the kids sure enjoyed themselves!
In primary, they were giving out CTR rings, and so they all got excited
about their new CTR rings..... haha. And in sacrament, me and sister
Moraes sat in the bench behind them... All four of them would ask us
what hymn was coming up next and have us open the hymnbook up to it so
they could be ready. And every time they would ask for anything (help
with the hymnbook, or to go to the bathroom or water fountain about 500
times...) they would be like "tia...." AKA "aunty"..... hahah. super
cute.
OUR OTHER SUNDAY MIRACLE, was huge.
before
church, in our meeting with the bishopric.... a lady and her 14 year old
son showed up in the parking lot in a nice, black mercedes.... Everyone
was like. "well, somebody should go talk to them and see if they need
anything...." TURNS OUT, they really came to church ON PURPOSE and all
on their own! The lady-- Kezia, asked what time the meetings started and
I figured she was probably a member, so I explained the meeting
schedule and asked her what ward she was from... "oh, we´re not
members.... but I went to the mormon church for a year and a half in the
states...." SAY WHAT??!?!?!? She lived in the states for 5 years, and
her husband who passed away a couple years ago, was a less-active member
of the church. When she was living with his family in Arizona, she went
to church with her mother in law for a year and a half.... They´ve been
living here in Campinas again for about 10 ish years, but have never
visited the church here. Not sure why, but they decided to come
yesterday and give it a shot. Kezia has three boys--- Maicom--14,
Caio--12 and Cristian--9. Caio and Cristian were gone for the weekend,
but Maicom came to church with her and loved it. The young men in our
ward are rockstars and really made him feel welcome.... He is all
excited to come to the activities, and to english class on thursday.
Kezia works late every night, so we will only be able to teach them
on the weekends........... bummer. But we went by and got to know them
last night. She read the entire book of mormon when she was going to
church about 10 years ago, and knows a LOT about the church.... but she
has some doubts about Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel,
and so she never felt like she needed to be baptized again (since she
was baptized in another church...). ANYWAYS, it will be AWESOME to get
to work with them and try to help her find out for herself if what we
teach is really true or not.
It was a crazy answer to our prayers and all our work in our crazy
week to have them just show up on sunday....... Sister Moraes told me
that the night before she asked heavenly father to just send a woman to
church that was prepared to be baptized.......... and BAM!!! An entire
family that has already gone to church, visited the temple in Salt lake,
in Arizona and here in campinas and that want to keep coming back to
church every week. YEP. Prayer works.
Well.
Love you all sooooooooooooooo much!!!
have the best week.
dont
drown in all the snow y´all got there!! (a kid this week told me he
would drown in the snow if he went to the states....... oh boy)
Love
Sister Ward
Pictures:
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| bowling with coke-bottles filled with water and a soccer ball in the chapel for pday last week................... yeahhhh. we are classy. |
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| dont freak out too much............ but I may have skipped putting sunscreen on my arms one day this week....... this is what happened. hahaha. My companion freaked out a little..... but I told her its normal and that I´ve had worse............ I dont think she quite understands that you can get burned until you turn purple and have blisters..... yep. |
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| This little girl is obsessed with asking me about snow everytime that she sees me............ we had a bbq at their house on new years, and she started drawing pictures of snow-men for me..... hahaha. She wants me to mail her snow. I told her it probably wouldnt make it...... dream crusher. |
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