Panambi, Brazil - Week 9 (November 25, 2013)

Oi todo mundo!

Happy Thanksgiving! Since today is p-day, it's our Real Fake Thanksgiving celebration day!! We couldn't celebrate on Real Thanksgiving, so we're having Real Fake Thanksgiving. I'll be sure to include pictures of the food next week. :)

Man, it's HOT here! It was 92 degrees in our apartment yesterday. Don't ask me why they don't have air conditioning here, because it doesn't make any sense to me either. But last week was good! Sister Saito got sick on Thursday so we stayed home until Saturday afternoon so she could get better. That wasn't really the good part of the week, that was just part of it. One of the good parts was on Saturday, Sister Phelps and I went on a mini-split to go fill up the baptismal font at the church for their baptism that afternoon because Sister Phelps' companion wasn't feeling good either. So while we were leaving, we found a wallet on the street, looked inside and found a water bill with an address on it, and went on a little adventure to go see if we could return this person's wallet. We walked like half an hour to find this guy's house, and when we knocked on the door, a woman opened the window, looked at us skeptically, and asked what we wanted. We asked if [name of the guy whose wallet we found] lived there. She continued looking at us skeptically and asked if someone sent us to her house. We said no, we found something of his on the street. So finally she came out and we found out that this guy was her ex-son-in-law. We gave her the wallet though because she said she would be able to return it to him (she looked pretty trustworthy). Then before we left, Sister Phelps tried asking if she would like to receive a visit from the missionaries, but the woman promptly and firmly responded that she was a Jehovah's Witness, so we left it at that. Haha. Makes sense why she looked so skeptical when she opened her window and saw two Mormon's standind in front of her house. ;)

On Sunday we had 35 people at church! It was awesome! And someone from the stake presidency and the stake patriarch came to visit too! It was great. 35 people for us is a lot... We also visited a part-member family that came to stake conference and church that day, and when we knocked on the door, they looked so happy to see us!! :D It felt really good. They are making a lot of progress in getting reactivated (the husband) and preparing to get baptized (the wife).

Anyway, that's all I've got time for this week. Love you people!!! Until next week!

Sister Gold

Panambi, Brazil - Week 8 (November 18, 2013)

Oi guys!

I have a couple cool/funny mission experiences to share with you!

So Tuesday we ate lunch with some (almost) members, Daniel and Sandra. They always make us really good food, so we like going there. But Tuesday we sat down to eat and there was a pot of rice stuff with chicken and Sister Saito asked what it was that we would be eating, and Daniel just looked at us for a second and said "Uhh, we'll tell you after you start eating." So we looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and started to eat. It was super good though! So I stopped being worried. Then after everyone had eaten a good amount, and as I had a forkful of chicken/rice deliciousness halfway between my plate and my mouth, Daniel mentioned offhandedly that what we were eating was "frango de cerveja" (frango = chicken, cerveja = beer). Yep...

Hahaha, it's okay though. They used beer without alcohol (apparently they have that here). It was still delicious though, I'm not taking that back.

Basically all of Tuesday was awesome. After lunch we taught a 15 year old investigator, Thalia, who wants to be baptized. We love teaching her. We just get to relax and be her friend and talk about the gospel. It's pretty awesome. Then we taught another golden investigator, Janice, who is SUPER prepared to accept the gospel. She says she's been looking for a church with the true prophet for years now, so on Tuesday we showed her President Monson's talk from General Conference in October, and she said she knows he's the true prophet. In her words (translated into English): "You can see the truth in his eyes. It's the same thing I see in your eyes." SO COOL. We love her. :) We found another elect that night, who was a referral from the non-member wife of a less-active. We're teaching her again tonight, and we're excited!

Well, that's all folks! Out of time. Love you all, keep the people of Panambi in your prayers, they need it! Até mais!

Sister Gold

Panambi, Brazil - Week 7 (November 11, 2013)

This is going to be really quick, but this week was stake conference, and it was awesome!

The four sisters here fasted together last week that we would be able to fill up the bus with people to go to stake conference, and we've been praying every day, and yesterday we had 44 people from Panambi present!! The most people we've ever had at church at one time since we got here is 29, so it was a miracle!! We had a family of investigators there, and a less active who hasn't been to church in years who we've been working with since the first week we got here. It was seriously amazing. I was all smiles! :) It's amazing to see the Lord bless us and answer our prayers, and to see the members here get excited about the missionary work that's going on in their city. Big big things are about to happen in Panambi!

Love,
Sister Gold

Panambi, Brazil - Week 6 (November 4, 2013)

Oi todo mundo! Tudo bem?

Tudo ótimo aqui in Panambi! Algo bem legal aconteceu aqui esta semana! Wait... I don't have to write in Portuguese. Sorry, I was just writing to my mission President, so my brain is not in english mode right now. Switching to english! ....

Everything is great here in Panambi! Something way cool happened this week! Elder Orr, from my district in Provo, finally got his visa and arrived here this transfer!! Wohooo, and even cooler, he's in my DISTRICT so we get to hang out every week at district meetings! Yeah, reunited once more!! Pretty awesome.

So not too many crazy things happened this week, except for I tried chimarrão for the first time. It's this drink that all the gauchos (Brazilian cowboys, or in other words, everyone that lives in my mission) drink, daily. No, hourly. But anyway, it was disgusting. It was like, dried grass with a hint of bitter, and lots of hot water, all mixed together. Awful. Anyway, I'm out of time, but I'll share spiritual experiences next week, I promise.

Love you all!

Sister Gold