Hey everyone!!!!!!!!!!!
Hope that you all are having a great welcome back to school!! woooooo. haha.
a little overview of this week...............
It is HOT. WAY HOT. apparently its not supposed to be this hot
yet........ but we have been "blessed" with some early hot weather....
YAY. So I´ve taken up the brazilian custom of showering at night when we
get home AND again in the morning......Wow. And still we dont smell so
great.... hahah.
Had this awesome meeting with the bishop, leadership in the ward
and ward mission leaders where we got lectured for a good 2 hours.....
hahhahaha. Oh boy. Great fun. But its all good. The bishop really is
cool and trusts us a lot..... They just all get these ideas about how we
could be working more efficiently and then spend the entire meeting
laying out these ideas that we NEED to be doing...... oh gosh. But in
the end, nothing gets done. HA. Great use of time. We came home after
that and wanted to drown ourselves in the shower. Its a good thing that I
really do love the people in this ward......... when we dont have ward
missionary work meetings. hahaha.
But, about our ward..... I really do LOVE these people!!!! It is
great, cause after being here almost 5 months... I know almost everyone
and have a lot of friends in the members here! I am gonna miss them all
so much when I get transferred!!!
It is also fun to think back to when I first got here.... the
members are always like "yeah.... sister ward. when she got here she
NEVER said anything!!!" "we didnt know she could talk!!!!" hahaha. Its
so much better now that I can talk to people. HALLELUJAH!!
We also had a funny experience one afternoon this week...... we
were walking down a street talking to this kid who is OBSESSED with us
because we are americans..... Yep. happens a lot. He looks like a
brazilian version of johnathon taylor thomas at about age 12.... hahaha.
But we were talking with him and walking down the middle of the
street.... A car was coming fairly fast, so we went over to the side of
the road. Right in front of where we were walking was one of those big
dips/canals that they have through the intersections for the water to
run down and it was full of mud and water.... just as the car is about
to come by, he swerves over right in front of us and hits that puddle
just right as he flies by to completely SOAK us with dirty water!!!
hahahahaha. OHHHHHH gosh. I´m pretty sure that he TOTALLY did it on
pupose!! hahah. The water got us soaked from the neck down.... hahaha.
and Johnathon taylor thomas kid was just like "welcome to brazil!"
hahahaha. WELP. Never had that one happen before!! And all I could think
of after it happened was how Sister Tanner always told us to be careful
not to step in the water on the streets cause it is usually full of rat
pee.......and about missionaries who get sick and could potentially DIE
because of rat pee..... GREAT..... That and how I wish it had happened
in the day when it was blazing hot instead of the evening!!! haha.
Another funny experience.... we were working out in the slightly
sketchy area where we are starting the "mini-branch" in José Ometto....
we were trying to find some inactive members and ended up knocking at a
house full of drag queens..... ahhahaha. ohhhhh boy. One of them came up
to us and said that she(he????) was interested in "learning more about
Jesus" and so we taught a little bit and left a pamphlet with
her(him???). hahaha. There is another first for ya!!
Later we saw some of those same people waiting over on the corner
in center where all the prostitutes stand every night..... hahaha.
Exciting news from the week..............
We had a BAPTISM!!! WOOOOOOOO!
Bruna--- the shy 11 year old from a less-active family, was
baptized saturday night!! It was way cool cause the whole family came
out to support that night, and again during the sacrament service when
she was confirmed. It has been a reallly LONG time since a lot of them
have been to church, so that was a big deal. I really hope that Bruna
will inspire them to keep coming back to church!!
the bishop introduced us to a family that they are friends with and
we were able to go by with him and his daughter to teach them the first
lesson.......... They seem super cool, and I hope that they accept our
message and really read and pray about the book of mormon!!! I hope we
didnt overwhelm them too much last week....... haha. LOTS of new
information and Bishop was nervous and talking a LOT....... but
hopefully they felt the spirit and we´ll see some progress with them! We
get to meet with them again this wednesday.... I love when we get to
teach FAMILIES, and it is hard to actually teach families because
usually people are working and busy and other members of the family
arent interested in our message.... So personally, I havent been able to
teach a whole family yet....
We are also teaching a girl named Larissa who is SUPER cool! She is
Guilherme´s sister (the awesome, super tall kid who got baptized back
in july...) and is 12 but way mature, and tall for her age as well. I
would put her at at least 15.... She is always super excited about
coming to church with us, activities, baptisms and everything!! She came
to Gidelma´s baptism and Bruna´s as well. Just to see it and support!!
Haha. It is crazy that she is more supportive than a lot of the MEMBERS
that should have been at Bruna´s baptism but werent.... She is also
super excited to go check out our "mini-branch" out in José Ometto and
wants to go to the meetings there instead of in the chapel. haha. Right
now, the house is too small for us to be able to invite her there... but
as soon as we have a "real" location, she wants to go and check it
out!! AH. Love it.
She also has a hard time understanding what she reads in the book
of mormon, so we´ve been focusing more on reading with her and
explaining it section by section. We´ve been going through the stories
that explain each of the pictures in the front of the book of mormon and
she loves it!! haha. When we get there she is like "okay, we left of
here..." and then she just starts reading it with us!
I´m pretty sure she would have already been baptized, but since she
is only 12, her mom wants her to spend some more time investigating the
church before she committs to baptism. Hmph. She is way excited about
getting baptized though! And we have some big hopes for her!!
Thursday, we had some exciting lessons! We found a young lady named
Maire that lives alone with just her 3 year old son in this tiiiiny one
room in the back of a house. We were teaching her and it just went SO
WELL. She was super accepting and interested in our message about the
restoration and willing to read and pray about the book of mormon.....
And, since I´m practicing being brave and talking more (hahah) I invited
her to be baptized when she recieves an answer about what we taught
her.... and she said yes!!! We marked a day for Oct. 7th!! WOOOOO. It
was SO EXCITING. Now we just need to find a way to help her get to
church.... since she works everyday..... dang it. Praying for some
MIRACLES.
That night we had a lesson with a lady that Sis. Pedersen and her
comp. Sister Costa started teaching back in feb/march.... When we were
teaching her, she expressed so much desire to find out more and really
come to know if these things are true.... We invited her to be baptized
as well and marked the 7th of october. She said she really wants to get
baptized and for her son hugo to be baptized as well.... It is just
tough to find him at home since he goes to school and works till 9
everyday... hmm. But she is really worried about him and the choices he
is making in his life... she started crying as we were going to leave. I
hope we can keep teaching her and try to help her with her worries!!
And I hope she will actually come to church!!!!
Joáo paulo, an investigator that we have been teaching for a few
months now, and doesnt believe in god..... is still reading the book of
mormon every week! And THIS week, he took NOTES on what he read to share
and discuss with us!! YEAH. He didnt believe in God at ALL when we
started teaching him (pretty rare in brasil.....) but now he believes in
something... hahah. It is an improvement!! And I am still amazed
everyweek that he is really reading and praying everyday.
Remember Michael??? that we taught for forever and were trying to
get baptized??? Yeah. Well, he still isnt getting baptized yet..... BUT
he is WAY AWESOME, and still always coming to church, to institute and
to our baptisms!!! And he always participates, makes comments and says
prayers in our classes. Man. This kid is amazing. He is sooo ready!! and
so getting baptized someday! I just hope it is someday soon! LIKE
NOW!!! hahah.
Welp.
Not gonna send any pictures this week for two reasons....
1) this computer is LAME and not loading anything!!! takes about five years for it to load each page!!!!aghhh
2) my camera is dying.... and all my pictures are either
pink/red/purple or have funny lines through them. COOL. I´m gonna have
to check into getting another camera I guess........ in brazil. Sweet.
Love you all!!!!
scripture for the weeek 2 Timothy 1:7 which my awesome companion pasted inside my new planner.....
"for God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind"
thanks so much for all the love, emails and letters!!!
have the best week!!!
love,
Sister Amanda Ward
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