My new companion is Sister Fairbanks! She is from Northern California, a city that I have actually never heard of. She goes to BYU, and has 4 months in Brasil, but served for almost a year in Arizona waiting for her visa. So I a with another american! Of my 14 months in the mission I spent only three months with a Brasilian. Its a miracle that I speak portuguese really.
We met tons of interesting people this week! We taught tons of lessons. We are really trying to set higher and higher goals and when we work hard we achieve them! While walking on the street, twice this week two people called us saying " Do you have a Book of Mormon?" or " Can you help me? I want to change my life and find a church", people who have already been to church. And always right in the hottest most difficult part of the day when our plans fall through, God comes in. There is a phrase in Preach my Gospel in the chapter about finding people that says either we will be led to the prepared people or they will be led to us, and truly we saw how true that is!
However, this Saturday was daylights savings time, and here we lost an hour(you know, since I am on the other side of the world its switched) and everybody forgot and slept in(including us until our district called us saying it was 7:00am and not 6:00am) and nobody came to church, including many members.
But we met Reese, a 16 year old boy from Canada who is training with one of the elite soccer teams whose stadium is in our area. He is here training with them and then will go to Europe to play professionally. He is attending our ward, and has a member who speaks english translate. He has tons of friends who are interested in learning about the church who only speak english and look how cool, the two sisters in the area are americans! Every day I have a stronger testimony on transfers and that we truly are in the place we need to be at the time we need to be.
Anyways, we worked a ton this week. Brasil, well the southeast part of Brasil is in a SUPER drought, one of the worst ever so the heat is unbearable. Everybody is praying for rain and we are probably going to have a mass fast because if it doesnt rain here soon, people are going to go into maddness and there will be a lack of showers...the other day there was heat lightning, that was cool. You know the world is ending when the country with the most amount of rain and water in the world is in a drought.
Saturday we fasted to prepare for mission tour this Wednesday and so Sunday, after missing an hour of sleep, ending our fast and walking for hours in the very very hot brutal sun we were having a rough time finding people to teach Sunday afternoon. Nobody was letting us in, and we hardly had the strength to walk more. But that Saturday we had studied 3 Nephi 13: "Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? Foryour heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be addedunto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof." And after hours of walking searching for people, a woman let us in to teach her family and offered us a delicious brasilian soda and homemade cake. Let me tell you it was a tender mercy of the Lord. After that a man called us over saying he was a member of the church and gave us super fancy foot cream.
When we do our part, endure as it seems sometimes, the Lord does his part, whether that be help in need of great trial, or sending some suffering Sisters cake and foot cream.
Either way, the church is true. Thats all.
Sister Holmes
We met tons of interesting people this week! We taught tons of lessons. We are really trying to set higher and higher goals and when we work hard we achieve them! While walking on the street, twice this week two people called us saying " Do you have a Book of Mormon?" or " Can you help me? I want to change my life and find a church", people who have already been to church. And always right in the hottest most difficult part of the day when our plans fall through, God comes in. There is a phrase in Preach my Gospel in the chapter about finding people that says either we will be led to the prepared people or they will be led to us, and truly we saw how true that is!
However, this Saturday was daylights savings time, and here we lost an hour(you know, since I am on the other side of the world its switched) and everybody forgot and slept in(including us until our district called us saying it was 7:00am and not 6:00am) and nobody came to church, including many members.
But we met Reese, a 16 year old boy from Canada who is training with one of the elite soccer teams whose stadium is in our area. He is here training with them and then will go to Europe to play professionally. He is attending our ward, and has a member who speaks english translate. He has tons of friends who are interested in learning about the church who only speak english and look how cool, the two sisters in the area are americans! Every day I have a stronger testimony on transfers and that we truly are in the place we need to be at the time we need to be.
Anyways, we worked a ton this week. Brasil, well the southeast part of Brasil is in a SUPER drought, one of the worst ever so the heat is unbearable. Everybody is praying for rain and we are probably going to have a mass fast because if it doesnt rain here soon, people are going to go into maddness and there will be a lack of showers...the other day there was heat lightning, that was cool. You know the world is ending when the country with the most amount of rain and water in the world is in a drought.
Saturday we fasted to prepare for mission tour this Wednesday and so Sunday, after missing an hour of sleep, ending our fast and walking for hours in the very very hot brutal sun we were having a rough time finding people to teach Sunday afternoon. Nobody was letting us in, and we hardly had the strength to walk more. But that Saturday we had studied 3 Nephi 13: "Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? Foryour heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be addedunto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient is the day unto the evil thereof." And after hours of walking searching for people, a woman let us in to teach her family and offered us a delicious brasilian soda and homemade cake. Let me tell you it was a tender mercy of the Lord. After that a man called us over saying he was a member of the church and gave us super fancy foot cream.
When we do our part, endure as it seems sometimes, the Lord does his part, whether that be help in need of great trial, or sending some suffering Sisters cake and foot cream.
Either way, the church is true. Thats all.
Sister Holmes