Just a good week!

So this week flew by super fast! I´m loving, LOVING Guarabira. It has everything--amazing people to teach, beautiful hills, a big town square filled with trees and Christmas lights, and tons and tons of Açai and Guaraná! Í have to admit that my companion and I are a little addicted to acai! I wish you guys could try it, but this is just no way to take it back with me! Don´t worry though, it will definitely be a food present in the Celestial Kingdom. This last week we worked super hard and met a lot of really cool people, but unfortunately very few of them went to church yesterday. Truly the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak describes these people. They are just so wonderful, but when it comes down to going to church they just give excuses! This past week we watched the Joseph Smith movie with an investigator and recent convert and I just forgot how much I love that movie! When they briefly showed the first missionaries going to Europe and teaching I felt super proud to be a missionary! That movie really was awesome though and helped me feel the Spirit and gain a stronger testimony about the Prophet Joseph Smith. What a hard life he had! How grateful I am that he never gave up, but endured to the end, restored Christ´s gospel, and therefore blessed the lives of millions and millions of people. After the movie/lesson we exited the tiny house and started walking through the neighborhood on the cobblestoned street I just thinking about how cool it was that I am preaching the same gospel that Joseph Smith restored and the same gospel that the Savior taught to the people in Jerusalem. It is just the coolest thing ever to preach the gospel...to carry the good news of the gospel. And even more of a blessing to preach to the Brazilian people! At times I think it will be the weirdest thing to return home. I´m used to small houses painted all sorts of wild colors, cobblestoned trees, palm trees, loud Brazilian music blasting from the houses, burning hot sun, beans and rice, etc. The U.S. will be a huge shock and I getting super nervous about going back home in April. Luckily I still have a few months to get used to the fact that I have to go home. Well yesterday I gave a talk and so did my district leader Elder Siqueira! We must have done a pretty good job because everyone complimented us afterwards. I talked about one of the biggest mistakes I made in my life---to wait until my mission to be a missionary. All my life I thought, wow I can't wait to be a missionary. What I didn't realized is that you can be a missionary at any point in your life! I told the branch that at the beginning of my mission I just started to think about the hundreds and thousands of people I talked to in my life and how I rarely shared the gospel. After almost 15 months on the mission I think the Lord is finally forgiving me for all the opportunities I had to share the gospel and didn't. I think this is one of the biggest mistakes we as members make. We think that giving a reference to the missionaries every 6 months makes us a member missionary. If I come back and am this type of member missionary I hope the Lord strikes me down on the spot! Anyway, well I hope you all are doing great! Have a wonderful week and Merry Christmas to you all!

Short, but sweet ☺

Well these first few days in Guarabira have been fun! I was a little lost in the beginning because there are a million little streets and alleys that you can go down. Luckily I have my companion so we don't get lost too much. Guarabira reminds me a lot of Italian towns, just less cute and pictuesque. It is extremely hilly and I´ve been loving it. It is like being on a stair-stepper all day. This past week we taught a lot of people in a neighborhood near the chapel that is being built. They are a little bit poorer than the rest of the people here and therefore are more humble as well. We have been having a lot of sucess with them and baptized a young woman yesterday who is just super cute! We brought 4 people to church yesterday and one of them loved the testimonies of the members so much that she unexpectedly jumped up and bore her own. She is such a cutie! She wants to get baptized, but she has to go to church 6 more times before she can be! So sometime in January! While the chapel is being built the branch is meeting in a house in the downtown. The sacrament meeting is held in a pavilion type of thing behind the house and it was just the coolest thing every to see it filled with stallwart Latter-day Saints. The testimony meeting was definitely one of the best I´ve witnessed on the mission and maybe in my life. The Spirit was extremely strong and just got stronger and stronger with each members testimony. I´m super excited to work with these wonderful members! The end of my mission will be the best I´m thinking! Well I hope you all are doing great and enjoying the cold weather. It is hot and steamy down here! Have a great week!

Love, Sister Wood

P.S. I found this super cool quote by Elder Christofferson this past week in my studies:

``Some see only sacrifice and limitations in obedience to the commandments of the new and everlasting covenant, but those who live the experience--who give themselves freely and unreservedly to the covenant life--find greater liberty and fulfillment. When we truly understand, we seek more commandments, not fewer. Each new law or commandment we learn and live is like one more rung or step on a ladder that enables us to climb higher and higher and higher. Truly, the gospel life is the good life.``

All I can say is AMEN!

Guarabira!

Well after 8 months in Tibiri I got transferred to Guarabira! I was super shocked on Monday when I found out I would be transferred. President H didn´t feel good about me staying there in Tibiri with my woman stalker wandering the streets. Speaking of which Sister G and I had a few run ins with my stalker this week. The scariest happened Monday night when we were walking in the street at night and kept hearing someone hissing at us. This is pretty normal so we just ignored it thinking it was a retarded drunk guy, but then Sister G turned around and saw ANA about 10 feet behind us! I got super nervous because she was SUPER CREEPY. I instantly yelled~~`` Ana, não fala comigo!`` (Ana, don´t talk to me) and then we took off running because she kept getting closer. We ditched our coconut that we were drinking the water from and booked it out of there. Needless to say I´m glad I left Tibiri. I won't have to ever see her again!

At the same time though leaving Tibiri was super sad. I really really loved the people there and pretty much spent a lot of yesterday giving hugs and crying. There are some really special people in that city that I will miss. Since Sister H is going home tomorrow her ward had a big going away party and invited us as well. I feel like a part of that ward as well because we live in the other ward´s boundaries and all our neighbors are members. It turned out to be a joint-goodbye party after everyone found out I was going as well. We all ended up eating dinner together and one of the members made a HUGE cake that was pretty darn delicious. Afterwards the young men and women said they wanted to say goodbye to us Brazilian style. They sat all four of us down and attacked us with green paint on our faces. Then they threw bags of flour on us! It was so much fun. I couldnt stop laughing. I looked at Sister G and just cracked up so much because she looked so ridiculous but then I realized I looked super ridiculous as well. They wanted to crack an egg on our heads, but luckily they had pity on us! It was a wonderful night though and Sister H and I definitely felt the love. The next day two irmãs did my hair and nails. I just couldn't stand the thought of heading to a new area without my nails being done. I´ve become very nail conscious here in Brazil, but don't worry I don´t go to the salon, I´ve learned how to do my own! Anyway yesterday was just a ton of food and goodbyes. The members gave me many presents and were just super hard to say goodbye to.

THe hardest goodbye of this past week was Sister H. She´s going home to Utah tomorrow and she is just the coolest person ever. I had the privilege of living with her for 7 months on the mission and she and I just had so much fun together. We also passed through a couple of horrible things together and that made us super close. Today was technically her last full day in Brazil and luckily I got to spend it with her. We went to the mission office for her final interview and then went out to eat. We found a sushi place and I just about died! It looked super expensive and I was a little nervous that it would be way out of our missionary budget, but it was sooo cheap and AMAZING. It was a couple blocks from the beach and therefore was loaded down with fresh fish! Sister H and I did the sushi rodizio buffett and we just about died of happiness when we saw it. It was the most beautiful sushi I have ever seen and they had a ridiculous amount of selection. We piled up on sushi and just kept saying how amazingly wonderful it was to eat something besides beans and rice. I honestly felt like I was in heaven. Anyway we chatted it up during lunch and afterwards went to the zoo in João Pessoa which has to be the lowest budget zoo I´ve ever seen. When we first ended they just had like a pen for an ostrich. We took a picture of it and kept walking and walking and walking trying to find other pens. We walked a good 30 minutes before we found the crocodile pen and we actually thought they were fake because they didn't even move. After taking a few pictures of them one of them moved his mouth. It is amazing how still they can be though---ridiculous! Speaking of aligators I saw one when I was coming to Guarabira on the bus. It was sunning itself on the side of the river. I decided that I would avoid all rivers for the rest of my mission. After the zoo, Sister H and I went to the bus station. Saying goodbye to her was way hard, but I didnt cry! I really hope to see her in 4 months. She is just one of my favorite people! One day I hope you guys will meet her!

Guarabira seems to be pretty cool. It is a branch and we meet in a house, but they are building a beautiful chapel and will dedicate it in January I think! I´m hoping I´ll be here for the dedication and open house! I love a big party! Guarabira also is known as the area in the mission that has the most hills....and I have to agree...it has a ridiculous amount of steep hills. We are here with two other elders (one who is supposed to be one of the funniest elders on the mission), so that should be fun. We´ll be eating lunch with them everyday and helping each other out with the missionary work. I´m super happy about the transfer. I´m companions with Sister Vênia from Brasilia. This is here second transfer and she seems pretty cool. She is a super hard worker as well! Mom, I´m glad you included some things for my companion in the Christmas package because she won't even be receiving one. It looks like you guys are having a lot of cold weather up there. Down here it is the opposite of course. HOTTER THAN EVER! It is ok though, I prefer the heat to the cold. We are keeping cold down here with our agua de coco and açai! I can't believe I´ll be home in four months....super weird! Keep on doing your best and leave the rest up to the Lord! I LOVE YOU ALL!!!!! Until Monday

Feliz dia das gracas

Things are going great down here. This week was full of tons of work, but with very little results unfortunately. We met and taught a ton of new people, but we only had 2 investigators in church yesterday and very few of our investigators are keeping commitments. I just keep telling myself to keep working hard and the results will come with time. The Lord is the Lord of the harvest and the success comes in His time, not ours. Sister G and I are better than ever though. This is our third transfer together and I´m starting to dread being separated from her. We just have so much fun talking in the street to each other and to other people. Since we´ve been practicing our Spanish recently and at times we start saying things in Spanish and not Portuguese. Luckily people are very forgiving of our langauge capabilities. I´ve definitely decided though that I´m going to be fluent in Spanish when I get back. It is such a ridiculously easy language now that I´ve learned Portuguese. I´ll just have to deal with all the Spanish jokes from my fellow mission buds. Spanish down here is not looked on as a pretty langauge, but it is useful so I´m willing to learn it. My best mission bud, Sister H, is going home in 9 days to Utah and I´m NOT happy about it! We´ve lived together for 7 months and it is just going to be hard to see her go home. The weather down here is heating up big time. The sun has reached the point where you can feel the burn as soon as you step into it. However I continue to count my blessings that I´m in an endless summer....it would be so much worse to preach the gospel in snow! So this past week I woke up and put my foot on the floor to find I had what appeared to be a small splinter-like thing on the bottom of my foot. Knowing that I couldn't walk in the street all day with a splinter I decided to soak my foot immediately and take it out. After soaking my foot I took a small pair of scissors to the bottom of my foot where the area was swollen and puffy. After cutting a few little holes I picked up my tweezer to remove the splinter and the ``white puss`` that was near it. Well it turns out the splinter and the puss were none other than a tiny worm rolled up under my skin. With one move of the tweezers he came completely out, rolled up in a ball. I would of been so grossed out if it wasn't so cool! It definitely is super super gross and a proof that I´m living in a 3rd world country, but at the same time how many people can say they found a worm growing under their foot? Ahh the wonderful mission stories! Anyway I´m worm-free now so don´t worry. I´m pretty sure I´ll pick up another one before I leave because there really isn't anything I can do to prevent it. I already use shoes all the time and wash my feet several times a day so let's just pray that I don't get another one! Besides that though the week was pretty normal. Our water went out again a few times (I really don't know how these people live without running water for a few days every week!) and our energy went out as well, but not for very long. I was a little ready to go back home this week when I was sitting on my mattress on the floor, studying and a mouse ran in and hid in the dresser on the side of my bed and refused to come out. I decided to go to bed and prayed that I wouldn't have anything attack me during the night. I woke up and was fine, just had a huge cockroach on the side of my bed. BUT I´m very grateful that Heavenly Father sent me to a mission like this one. I needed to be humbled. I needed to just realize all the blessings I had before the mission....and I needed to realize poor people are just as happy as rich people. Last night we were visiting one of our recent converts and she said she just felt so grateful for the things she has and felt so bad for the people in Africa. While she was saying this I was just in amazement. She lives in a house that only recently has a new concrete floor and the walls are clay bricks pieced together with concrete....it is an extremely poor living situation and I was just in awe that she felt so blessed. I can definitely learn to be more grateful for the things I have. As we talked with her we watched her dog, cat, and monkey all eat together on the same plate...beans and rice of course. somethings you can only see in Brazil! Well I hope you all are great and that you have a wonderful thanksgiving! Read President Monson´s talk from conference about gratitude....it is awesome! Speaking of being grateful I would like to say very fast a few things I´m grateful for! I´m grateful for being a missionary! I´m grateful that I´m serving in João Pessoa, Brazil with these amazing people. I´m grateful for a wonderful companion and for a wonderful mission president! I´m grateful that the members feed us everyday and I´m very grateful I haven´t gotten dengue fever! I´m grateful for a living prophet and for general conference talks that inspire and motab choir music that edifies. I´m grateful for my Savior and for his obedience to His Father and His love for us. Finally, I´m grateful for you all, my special family and for the temple sealing we have. Happy THanksgiving to all! Eat some turkey and stuffing for me!!!! LOVE YOU ALL!!!