Panambi, Brazil - Week 12 (December 16, 2013)

Hey guys!!

So, summer's almost here in the south of Brazil, and you know what that means... Bichos!! Or in english, bugs. Big ones. Everywhere. I've gotten way too good at killing giant baratas (cockroaches) in the last few weeks...

Anyway though, on to the important stuff! I LOVE IT HERE! Ana, the investigator we started teaching last week, is going to get baptized this Saturday, along with Neiane, the little 8-year-old daughter of a recently reactivated member. :D I'm excited!!! Janice, our PERFECT investigator, neighbor of our unofficial ward mission leader Geovani, is ready for baptism, only she works in the hospital so it's hard for her to be able to go to church because of her schedule. She has only been to church once, and we were hoping she would be able to get baptized on Saturday too, but since she couldn't come to church yesterday we'll have to wait a while, since the investigators need to go to church at least twice before they get baptized. But don't worry, she's still perfect. :) Just her job is the problem...

So Cristina and Robson, the couple that came to church last week, couldn't come as well this week :( BUT we visited them last night and ended up talking with Robson for like two hours about marriage (he's going to look into getting the process to get legally married started this week, which is a real pain here and takes up to 30 days), vices (he and Cristina are working on quitting smoking and he has already gone down from two packs a day to less than one, plus he agreed to replace the beer that he drinks on Sundays with reading the Book of Mormon this week, just to see how it goes), baptism (he wants to get baptized, obviously), the Spirit (he says he feels this indescriptable feeling sometimes when he prays and he asked what it was), and forgiveness. He has had a really rough life, but he had changed everything around and now he's looking to feel forgiven of everything he's done. It was a really powerful lesson. Seriously, I felt the spirit so strong when we were teaching. It was amazing. :)

Unfortunately that's all I have time to write this week. Conferência de Natal (Christmas Conference) in Santa Maria tomorrow, woohoo! And family, I'll see you on Skype in 9 days!!!! Love you!

Beijinhos,

Sister Gold

Panambi, Brazil - Week 11 (December 9, 2013)

The new transfer has begun andddd..... I'm staying in Panambi!! As is Sister Saito! Which is awesome, because we didn't have a baptism last transfer :( BUT we have SO MANY people who are so close and we are suuuper pumped to stay here and keep working with them and get the BAPTIZED!! :)

We have one sister leaving from the other companionship in the apartment, so a new sister will be arriving to take her place tomorrow. We're all excited to make this a great transfer though, and that we will be in Panambi for Christmas!! All we have to do now is find a member who will let us hang out at their house all day, and a place that has internet so we can skype...

But anyway, this week has been great! Yesterday at church was amazing. We had four investigators there!! The first two were a couple, Cristina and Robson, who we met a couple weeks ago. They wanted to come to church last week, but Robson had to work unexpectedly. But they came to church yesterday and loved it! Robson said they will come back every week from now on! They're awesome. Batismo, right there. Another investigator, Thalia (15) was there too! We have been teaching her for over two months now, and she is amazing, but she hadn't come to church yet... Until yesterday! Woohoo! We're teaching her sister Vanusa as well, so we hope they'll be able to get baptized this transfer too. Lastly there was Ana, the branch president's wife's aunt, who we taught for the first time after church, and she accepted our help to prepare for baptism on the 21st!!!!! Yesterday = perfect.

Anyway, I love it here, despite the crazy heat and the blinding sun. The people make it worth the sacrifice. Hope you're all enjoying the snow (those of you in the good 'ole USA)! Until next week!

Love,
Sister Gold

Panambi, Brazil - Week 10 (December 2, 2013)

Oi, this week was GREAT! But I only have time to talk about a little part of it, so I'm going to talk about Saturday and Sunday!

So SATURDAY was our BRANCH ACTIVITY WOOHOO!!! It was a Churrasco (Brazilian barbecue... these Brazilian cowboys LOVE their barbecue) and futebol no parque (soccer in the park) and it was awesome!! We spent practically all week giving out invitations that we made on Tuesday and amping it up, getting people excited and asking the members which of their friends and neighbors we could invite. Then Saturday came (we were praying it wouldn't rain!) and it was a BEAUTIFUL day, perfect for chorrasco e futebol and by lunchtime there were 61 people there!!! Our goal was to have 55, so we were ecstatic! All four of us Sisters left a message about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane and how he asked his apostles to stay awake and wait with him. We asked them all what they could do to be by Christ's side and thank him for suffering for us, and then invited them all to go to church with us.

Then after the activity ended we (the sisters) were walking out of the park, and we walked past a little skate area where there were some skater kids doin their skate stuff and such... And then my companion had the lovely idea of going and asking them if we could borrow their skateboards for a minute to take a picture! Haha. Good stuff. Enjoy. :)

After that we went and got ice cream! Woohoo! In the picture with us is the little neighbor boy who came with us to the activity because his mom was working and he didn't have anything to do.

Okay, so then on Sunday we had 33 people at church, including 3 investigators!! Yay! Church was awesome, I loved every part. I'm understanding SO MUCH MORE PORTUGUESE now so that helps. :) I don't have to focus on understanding anymore, so I'm able to feel the Spirit a lot easier. And I don't get exhausted so quickly. So that's good too!

Alright, I'm going to try to attach the pictures now, so tchau!! Love you all! Boa semana para vocês!! Oh PS on Friday Sister Phelps and I went on a split, so it was just us two Americans, loose in Brazil! Crazy. But really fun. And we had a member with us for two of the lessons too, so it wasn't so scary. Also, I'm including pictures of our Real Fake Thanksgiving feast!

Até next week!
Sister Gold