Hey everyone!!!

Hey everyone!!

 

Everything is just great here in Araras.

 

Last week was difficult with all the rain.... It rained ALL WEEK.... but Sunday the weather turned around for the better and that makes our work a lot easier!

 

Last P-day we had a churrasco (bbq) at a member´s house. Irmã Katia has been teaching us how to cook brazilian food and she decided to have a churrasco for us! It was SO GOOD. Mmmmmm. They were so nice to do it for us... They always get sooooo much food for us to come over and afterwards she sent us home with bags of food and things. It´s amazing to me how giving people are here!

Churrasco!!! This is seriously one of the best things about brazil....soooooo good!

Coconut at our churrasco. Pretty good!! I dont like the juice inside much though....

 

On Friday, it was still raining, but Mariana (the young lady with a car that comes knocking doors with us a lot) STILL came and worked with us all afternoon! SO NICE. I know I would never have done that if it was me..... haha. But she loves to help us. It is so great.

 

This past week was kind of difficult... with the rain, it was practically impossible to find anyone that was willing to hear our message. We´ve also been having some trouble being able to actually catch our investigators at home... It is hard, because we want to help them, but if we cant talk with them, we cant do anything or find out what happened.... So that has been a little frustrating...

BUT, we´ve also had some success too! Sunday we had SUCH a good day... some people that we have been working with for a while started to really show some interest and progress!! Super exciting.

Monday as well was AMAZING. We had two young women from the ward working with us for the afternoon. Aline, who has worked with us a lot before, and Julia--it was her first time. And they LOVED it and were so excited the whole time!! They are only 12 and 11, but they talk with everyone as we knock doors, and they even prepared a lesson to share with Sonia. They are amazing missionaries already! And it was Julia´s first time, and she loved it so much! It is so cool to help get them excited about missionary work. It is one of my favorite experiences as a missionary. 

Julia and Aline in a little park where we stopped for a bit so they could plan a message to share with Sonia. They rocked it too, by the way. Such awesome little missionaries!!!! =]

 

another day when Aline came with us... hahaha. I somehow always look a little crazy in these pics....

Funny stories---

I have a great one this week...

So, Friday after we worked with Mariana, she took us to her house in the evening for dinner. Her dad-Bene, speaks english, and always tries to help me with my portuguese. He knows I dont talk much, and just let Sister Pedersen do the talking and answering peoples´questions, so he likes to always make a point of talking just to me. It is super intimidating!! He sat down right across from me and was asking me all about what we did that day-- in detail. hahah. When we sat down for dinner, he asked me to say the prayer and bless the food. But, he said that I couldnt use the word "coisas" ("things"). I use that ALL the time in my prayers.... Because I dont have a very good vocabulary yet, so I can just say that we are grateful all the "things" in our lives, our ask to bless this family with all the "things" that they need... You get the point. hahaha.

So, I was a little nervous, but I was doing pretty well..... Then when I was asking to bless the food, I said "... abencõe este alimento, que vai fazer mal por nossos corpos..." Which means "please bless this food to be BAD for our bodies.... Wooops. It took me a second to realize what I had said.... Then I paused, then started laughing a little bit.... but everyone was completely silent. Awkward. hahah. Then I did my best to correct it and finish.... Oh boy. And afterwards, only me and Sister Pedersen were laughing.... Sister P. was a little red in the face from trying not to laugh during the prayer... But Bene was just like "Parabens" (congrats) and shook my hand. "That was so good, that was perfect, good job..." hahah. Oh portuguese. 

 

And a scripture for today..

Mosiah 3:19
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him even as a child doth submit to his father.

 

I really like the line about being willing to submit to anything that God asks of us. Even if it is just a rainy week, it is hard to have patience and try to learn from all the experiences that we have in our lives. But I know that we need to trust in God and trust that He has a bigger, better plan for each of us. I know that as we try our best to do that, we can learn important lessons from these experiences and it will help us so much in our lives.

 

Well. I love you all so much!!

I hope you all have a great week!!!

 

Sister Ward

 

(Extra Pictures)

 

Sonia´s baptism!!! Sister Pedersen and I with Sonildes and Sonia. (From this blog post)

 

 

 

 

 

this is where I tripped hard-core that one day.... There is a bump there in the sidewalk!!! I promise!!!!!!!! haha.

All the sidewalks here look like this pretty much....  with that cool pattern in the stones. 

(From this blog post)