Last email

So I can´t believe this is the last email I will be sending from Brazil. Time has flown by way too fast this last transfer. The week I was a little sad because I felt like time was slipping through my hands, but I´m very excited to see the family. It has been a short and long 18 months, but I´m ready to come home. President H talked with me and said the Lord is pleased with my work here in Joao Pessoa and with my mission and that I did what I came here to do...and now it is time to go home. Hard words to hear, but Brazil will always be here and I can visit the people I´ve come to respect and love for the rest of my life. A mission is an experience that few people get to have...and it is the best experience. I feel so blessed for the opportunity I had to serve in this wonderful mission with these wonderful people.t President and Sister H are literally angels. They have made such an impact in my life because of their wonderful examples and their willingness to serve the Lord. I´ll never to be able to thank them for the help they´ve given me on the mission. The other day I tried to think about how my life would be without my mission and it was impossible. I was meant to serve a mission. I knew it on the day I received my patriarchal blessing. It was something I had to do before being a wife, mom, etc. It will be hard to leave Brazil, but I´ll get all my crying out before coming home. I love Brazil, I´ll always love Brazil, but I´m accepting the fact that my time as a fulltime missionary is over for now. I´m hoping that one day I´ll serve here with my husband. who knows! This past week was pretty good. I got a call on Monday saying that I had to be in Joao Pessoa on Tuesday for a training...so we picked up a bus at 5 am on Tuesday heading for Joao Pessoa. It was worth it though. I got to see Sister G, my daughter (who I trained), and Sister De Oliveira who is just one of my favorite people in the world. The training was amazing. President H and Sister H bring the spirit into whatever meeting they attend. We got a special treat this week. One of our investigators was baptized by President H. Sister H is a good friend of this lady and when we marked her baptism she said she wanted Pres. H to baptize her. He is a pretty busy man, but we called him and he accepted the invitation. I have to tell you it was an AWESOME experience watching President H enter the baptismal font with Neide. The Spirit was super strong and it definitely isn´t everyday that you see your mission president baptizing one of your investigators. Awesome. But yeah.. the week was good. This week is my last full week as a missionary. Sad. Next week I´ll be home. Next monday isn´t p-day so you won´t receive an email from me...this is officially the last. Tchau, sister wood

Oii!

Oi! Well this week FLEW by! Today I woke up and couldn´t believe it was Pday again! Crazy! My week was pretty good though. We have zone conference in João Pessoa and it was exciting to travel to a big city for the first time in a while. The conference was awesome! I felt the spirit so strong during the entire thing and I was just so happy that I have such a wonderful mission president. President H and Sister H are amazing and are doing miracles in this mission! What a blessing it is to be working her with them. Since it was my last conference I got to bear my testimony in front of everyone. It was good. My goal was to not cry, so I had to make them laugh a little. As we sang the mission hymn I began to feel the reality of the fact that I´m going home soon. It is a good and bad feeling....but as Elder Wirthlin said....Come what may and love it! That is just what I will have to do. I´m nervous about coming home, but I have to do it. I´m hoping to stay here a few more days before going home. The chapel here is Guarabira will be dedicated April 10th. The night before the dedication we are doing a big theatrical performance with the youth. We started practicing the skits last night and it is going to be a great show! ALL the VIPs from Guarabira will hopefully be there and it will be a chance to show the community what me believe and also show how fun it is to be a member of the church. All the skits have to do with the topics from `For the Strength of Youth``` and each skit has a music. I´m in charge of all the musical numbers (if i stay) and it is quite a chore but I´m excited for start putting everything together. I asked President H to stay on a little while longer, but he still hasn´t approved anything. He got excited though when I asked him if I could stay, so we will see how everything works out. At conference President H took us four missionaries aside and told us how proud he was of our work here in Guarabira. He said we are doing miracles. That felt good to hear. I don´t know if we are doing miracles, but we are trying our best. Our attendence was awesome yesterday (again, whooohooo!) and the members are helping out so much. Last night I was talking with Elder Siquiera and he said....``it is amazing the difference huh? the members are so much happier now than when we arrived.`` I agreed with him. The Lord has really been preparing these members to be able to receive their new chapel! The missionary work is going a long great. THe members are giving us so many references that it is hard to visit all of them. Yesterday a member came up to us and said---we have 4 families for you to teach this afternoon´´´.....we felt a little overwhelmed because of our other appointments and said that the elders would have to teach some of them. After lunch we headed out to the countryside where these people were living. It was a lot of fun. One family had so many animals walking around that it was a little hard to know get distracted. During the lesson chickens, pigs, and goats kept passing by and I beginning to think i was on Noah´s ark, and not in Brazil. The families were cool though. One family told us that crocodiles live in their lake. Every once in a while when one of them kills a pig the family gets all riled up and goes on a crocodile hunting spree. It was a lot of fun to hear all their stories! Well I have to go! I love you all and hope you are safe and in good health! See you all soon!


Love ya,
Sister Wood

oii!!

Bom Dia. Now that I´m getting close to coming home I´m feeling lazy while writing emails.... This week was good though. We worked super hard and I have to say it was difficult because of the sun this week. The sun was literally frying our skin this week. I never knew how hot the sun could be until I came to Northeast Brazil! It is ridiculous! We taught a ton of lessons this week, with few results....at the same time we were kind of expecting this because this week is CARNAVAL! Officially the wickedest holiday that exists on the face of the earth (that I know of) is Carnaval. It is 1000X worse than any other holiday! Luckily almost everyone goes to the beach, but a few people still stayed in Guarabira to party. Despite Carnaval, we still had a good amount of people in church. We are really doing great though. I´m crying more than usual these days because I´m quickly realizing that my time as a fulltime missionary is coming to an end. BUT I´m excited to see my dear family! I´ve learned so much on the mission. I´ve feel like I´ve learned more here than I could in a million lifetimes. I´m excited to apply all these things in my post-mission life. It should be great! Continue to be member missionaries and help this work go forward! Pray for missionary opportunities and the Lord will bless you all with the ability to touch someone´s life! That is one of the coolest think i learned on the mission....that being a missionary does not end! of course I won´t be able to teach lessons like the missionaries, but I will be able to give references and share my testimony with everyone! I have lots of missionary goals for when I return. Well, I gotta go! I hope you are all doing great and in good health! I love you all! Love, Sister Wood

February 28th, 2011

I´m writing this to you all while drinking an agua de coco in the Lan House here in Guarabira. Too bad I can´t bring it back with me to the U.S.! ..anyway...It is a beautiful, but hot day. This transfer started off well. I´m really excited that I stayed with Sister Vênia. I really don´t have that much to say today. We worked hard this week and are ready to work even harder this week. I stopped losing weight, which is a good and bad thing. I want to get skinny. It is starting to sink in that I´m leaving Brasil soon. Yesterday in church I started crying a little just thinking about how I am going to be able to say goodbye to these people. A few people came up to me afterwards and told me how much they would miss me. I really do love the members of the branch....such sweet, special people. I´m trying to use my time wisely because soon I will be headed home. I really don´t know what more to say. I´ll be home soon and be able to talk with you all....so the whole email thing is losing its shine. Just know that i´m doing well...I´m in good health. I hope everyone is doing great. I´m excited to see you all! Have a great week. Love you, Sister Wood

Last transfer-same place

TODAY officially I officially start my last transfer on the mission! Crazy! I´m not ready to come home and the closer April 6th comes, the more I want time to slow down....but like it or not I´ll be home in 6 weeks. Last night the branch had a small party for us because we were POSITIVE that one of us 4 missionaries would be transferred out of the area. Well we got the call and none of us were transferred! I was overjoyed and in shock....I asked President H about 5,000,000 times to stay in Guarabira this transfer with Sister Vênia and I just can´t believe I got my wish! Usually it just doesn´t happen that way on the mission. When you are loving your area and your companion, they switch you to a hard area with a dificult companion. I lucked out this time. I´m really grateful that the Lord and President H granted me this wish! Another big blessing was that we stayed with Elder Siquiera and Elder Jay. They are awesome missionaries and I definitely consider them as my brothers from another mother. They take such good care of us and really know how to help out the branch. It will be an awesome last transfer!

Well the transfer was about the only exciting news I have about this week except for the fact that I lost 7 pounds. yeah.....I got sick with a HORRIBLE case of the flu last Tuesday night and ended up sick in bed for 4 days. It was horrible, horrible, horrible. Needless to say, by the end of the week I wanted to die. Sunday morning I luckily had enough strength to get to church and to work afterwards, but by nighttime I was feeling sick again and running a high fever so I went to bed as soon as we got home. Unfortunately because of the fever being so high and uncomfortable I wasn´t able to sleep and just kept feeling sicker and sicker until about 2 am when I started crying and woke up Sister Vênia. I was dying of thirst but felt completely incapable of moving so I asked Sister Vênia to get water for me. After she went back to bed I just continued to get worse until I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up. I ran to the bathroom just in time and then.....I started throwing up. Anyway to make a long story short. I continued to throw up a lot until about noon when I was finally about to keep liquid down. The Elders brought me agua de coco and it took me 4 hours to drink it all, but by the end of the day I had finished the coco and eaten 4 crackers. The entire week was pretty rotten because I was sick...also 3 of our baptisms fell through! FRUSTRATION! BUT.... today I am feeling much better and skinnier. I´m taking lots of medicine to restore my digestive system and pretty soon I´ll be 100% healthy so no need to worry about me! Sister H took such good care of me! She is an angel. She called me all the time to check up on me and really helped me out a ton! The Elders as well were angels! They never got tired of picking up agua de coco, medicine, food, giving blessings, etc. Also my companion never got tired of my requests and was always ready to help me! Also several branch members called me, visited me, stayed with me and brought me food during the week! Being sick isn´t too bad when you are surrounded by angels!
Well I hope you all are in good health and safe and HAPPY! I´m happy! I´ve got my side-kick Sister Vênia with me until I end my mission in this beautiful area! We will see the chapel dedicated and hopefully watch the first general conference transmitted to Guarabira! Sister H put me in charge of organizing a choir for the dedication and it will just be an awesome experience to see all this coming together! I love Love LOVE you all and hope you are working hard to establish the Lord´s kingdom on the earth. The church is true. It is a fact that Christ lives and directs this church. The Book of Mormon is true and it was written for us. I feel so special when I read the Book of Mormon knowing that all those ancients prophets labored tirelessly to engrave these beautiful gospel truths so that we could be happy. As they saw their people being destroyed because of their iniquities, we were their hope.....that one day people would come to earth who wouldn´t reject the Book of Mormon and the Man of whom it testifies. I feel so honored that we were born in these latter days....that we have the promise that the work of the Lord will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done." Remember who you guys are and what your potential is and what the Lord expects of you! I like a quote once told me, ```Jesus is coming, look busy``

Love, Sister Wood

Short again...

Happy Valentines Day....in the U.S.! Here it is June 12th! But I hope you are all feeling the love! alright this is going to be fast. AGAIN. sorry! This week was good. We worked hard and the sun about killed us, but it ended alright. We only had 108 people at church because it rained. :( It was a little bit of a downer, but this next week will be better. Saturday night I was asked to talk to the Young Women about Personal Progress and it was just such a great experience. I got to remember my days as a young woman and hopefully gave some helpful advice to these amazing girls. One bad/ interesting/ slightly funny thing that happened this week.....The Relief Society President in the branch talked in church yesterday and it was a mess. She used to be a member of another church, which is a fairly lively church where lots of shouting and taking of the Lord´s name in vain occur. All I can say is that when she got up to talk I started to pray....the more she talked the more I prayed. She spent the entire time pumping her fists in the air, yelling, shouting Hallelujah, and telling people to repent. Goodness gracious, it was a mess. I have never felt the need to run out of the room while listening to a talk in church before, but yesterday I was looking nervously at the exit. If we hadn't had investigators at church I would have thought the situation funny, but our investigators (2 of which would be baptized this week) said they felt extremely uncomfortable and nervous during her talk. I got a little mad afterwards and will be talking to the branch president tonight. This is almost a weekly occurrance that she scares the inactive people we are reactivating and our investigators. Anyway. that's how it is sometimes....the amount of apostasy in these out of the way areas is ridiculous at time! But either way I love Guarabira and I love the branch. This week we got to go in the new chapel with President and Sister H! It is beautiful! I was able to play the piano a little bit and I thought I would cry just having the chance to touch a piano. so great! But yeah. things are going well. the work continues as usual. I hope you all are doing great and in good health! LOVE YOU ALL!

Love, Sister Wood

132!

So guess how many people were at church yesterday 132!!!!! We blew our goal of 120 out of the water! WAHOOOO!!! The Elders, some members, and us worked our tails off all week and we reached our goal! President and Sister H were there yesterday along with the district president and they were just thrilled at the turnout! We almost didn´t have enough room for all the people on the benches! All I can say is that I thanked Heavenly Father a LONG LONG time for this miracle! It was so great. Almost all of the inactive people we took cookies too showed up and it was just a party! I haven´t been that happy or given that many hugs in a while! It was great though to see the results of our work. The chapel will be dedicated in the middle or the end of March hopefully (the city has to inspect it and declare it safe or something)...so a few weeks before I come home. I hope I´ll stay here to see the chapel dedicated. Either way I´m happy that the good folks of Guarabira will have a chapel soon. President H talked yesterday to the branch and said it really doesn´t matter whether we meet in a beautiful chapel or the house we are currently meeting in.....the gospel is the important thing...it honestly is the only thing that really matters. He compared the chapel to a box that holds the thing that is most precious...the pearl of great price.

Well This week was super busy and lots of things happened that I would like to talk about, but my time is up! I hope you have an AWESOME week!

Tchau, Sister Wood

A little bribery goes a long ways....

Well this week flew by! Goodness the weeks are flying by faster and faster! This week we worked SOOOOO HARD! I slept like a rock every night, which was actually really nice. The weather alternated between hot and sunny, to pouring rain the entire week. After it rains the air gets so thick and the humidity just kills me. The other day I was walking in the street and waves of heat just started to hit me. I felt like I was in a sauna. I looked around for something like a car or a machine that was putting off all this heat, but there wasn´t anything. It was just that hot. I couldn´t believe that I could feel like I was honestly in a sauna while walking in the open air. I really can´t complain about the heat though. The missionaries in Manaus have it was worse. I talked to a member who served in Manaus and he said the temperature up there in the Amazon is just unreal. As he talked about the weather, my desire to go there one day withered and died. Sometimes I think that walking in the heat all day is miserable, but a lot of other missionaries have it worse! In attempt to bribe people to go to church this week I made 5 batches of chocolate chip cookies and little laminated cards with the scripture from D&C 59:9-10 about the importance of going to church. We took them to at least 35 less active or inactive members and it was quite a task. We went to all of the neighborhoods in Guarabira and walked so much that we had to almost crawl up the stairs to our apartment. Our apartment is on the 3rd floor and the climb at night up those stairs almost seems impossible at times. I´m trying to give 1000% of myself in these last months of my mission and am pushing the limits of my physical endurance. The Lord definitely blesses His missionaries with strength. At times I feel like I don´t have the energy to go on. We walk up and down these huge hills everyday that zap our physical strength, and teach lessons by the spirit which zaps even more energy out of us. At times I am comforted by the fact that Lehi, after having had a vision (a great spiritual experience), fell upon his bed from exhaustion. I feel like that sometimes, but like I said...the Lord strengthens us! I´m sure I´ve had angels help me up these hills a few times! The branch is doing well here in Guarabira. I love everyone here so much! And luckily they love us! Everything is going great for us. I love the area, I love the branch, I love our investigators, I love my companion. I love everything, and therefore am worried that things will change in the next transfer! Either way I´m going to enjoy these last 9 weeks I have in Brazil. I never again will have these types of experiences. I will never again be able to serve a mission in this way. I´m so grateful that I was able to serve! It has been one of the biggest blessing of my life! The things I´ve learned here in Brazil are difficult to explain. I´ve never felt closer to the Savior. I never realized how merciful He is and how infinite His love is for us. The church is definitely true. Heavenly Father´s desire is to bless us, but we have to do our part to deserve these blessings. I am more convinced than ever that there is no experience that compares to a mission. I will be a better mother and wife because of the things I learned here in Brazil. This week was filled with many other activities and experiences but my time is ending and I need to end this. I hope you are all doing great and staying firm in the gospel.

Boa Tarde

This week flew by! The weeks are passing by faster and faster! We taught a lot of great people this week and I´m really loving Guarabira. It started to rain this week and kept on raining. Since Guarabira is all hills, except for the downtown, all the water goes to the same place--the center of the city. The downtown turned into a river and I just could not believe that people are used to this type of flooding. Honestly, we were walking and I couldn´t see the sidewalk or street...it was just all completely covered in water. A member told me that last year it got to be about 3-4 feet deep in the downtown. CRAZY! Anyway it was fun running around in the rain trying to teach people. I got completely soaked and felt cold for the 2nd time in Brazil. Rain or shine though when it hits the weekend the people down here party it up. We were invited to a recent convert's house for her mother´s birthday. When we got there everyone was drunk except Nice (recent convert) and it was an all out mess. Honestly people are just super retarded when they drink. We didn´t stay there very long thank goodness, but it was long enough for a guy to try and kiss my hand. I don´t know why, but brazilians get more romantic when they are drink. very strange. Anyway later that night a man drove by us on a motorcycle and fell over all of a sudden. As soon as he stood up it was easy to tell he was extremely drunk. He couldn´t even stand up straight and here he was trying to drive a motorcyle. Unfortunately this happens so much. The drunk driving laws don´t seem to exist down here, because on the weekend everyone seems to be wasted. I definitely know the Lord protects us, because with the amount of drunks on the road we should have been run over a long time ago.

Well this week they put in the garden at the new chapel. It is getting to be so pretty. It should be completed in a few weeks, but we won´t be able to meet there until we have 4 consecutive sundays of 120+ attendence. This week was 110, better than last week but getting closer to our goal. I hope to see the chapel dedicated before I go home!

Well since I´m getting closer to finishing my mission I´ve started to look at all the goals I had when I started the mission. One of those goals was to have a very close relationship with the Savior. I definitely feel closer to him than ever, but I decided there is much room for improvement. I decided until the end of my mission that I would study all the references in the topical guide about Christ. I started this week studying the titles: Advocate, Antemortal Existence, Antemortal Appearances, and Postmortal Appearances. Even after studying these 4 titles I have felt like I´ve made leaps and bounds towards getting to know the Savior better. I´ve been writing all my thoughts in a separate notebook and am excited to see how close I´ll get to the Savior in these next 10 weeks before I come home. The level of the spirit I feel now that I´m studying the Savior and His life has tripled and I feel like I am well on my way to having a stronger relationship with him. I felt extremely touched while reading the references about how Christ is our advocate with the Father. It is amazing that someone who never sinned or hurt anyone, took upon himself the sins and iniquities of every human being and on judgement day He is at our side pleading our cause. How many people would do that?One scripture under this topic touched me profoundly and I felt that one day he will plead my cause in the same way. In D&C 45 it says::

``Listen to him who is the advocate with the Father, who is pleading your cause before him---saying, Father, behold the sufferings and death of him who did no sin, in whom thou wast well pleased; behold the blood of thy Son which was shed, the blood of him whom thou gavest that thyself might be glorified. Wherefore, Father, spare those my brethren that believe on my name, that they may come unto me and have everlasting life.``

When reading those words I felt and still feel the intense love and mercy that Christ has for us. He died because of our sins....because of the stupid things we do everyday...and yet he still loves us so much that he will stand by our side, pleading our cause. Now that is pure charity.

While studying about the postmortal appearances of Christ I remembered a joke someone told me on the mission. Why did Christ appear first to Mary, a woman? Because if he had appeared to a man the world still wouldn´t know he resurrected. Yeah, by word of plane, phone, etc still isn´t as fast as word by woman. Well I hope you all are doing great. I´m doing well, so no need to worry about me! I hope you all have a wonderful week and enjoy the cold weather. Thanks for the prayers!

Love you all!

Sister Wood

Sweating in Guarabira

howdy to all you guys up there in the cold cold north! It is BLAZING Hot down here.....honestly burning hot hot hot! Yesterday Sister Venia and I were climbing a hill at noon and we thought we were going to die. Honestly, the only reason I didn´t give up and fall on the ground is because the ground is way hotter. Honestly I don´t know how people live here at times in this heat. I take a shower and before I even get dressed I´m sweating profusely. I´m very excited to go back home and have air conditioning. This week the military police gave us another ride into town and feeling cold air for 10 minutes was just a tender mercy of the Lord. A lady today told me she has so much respect for us....because we walk in the sun all day....for free....helping people to have better lives. It really doesn´t seem like that much of a sacrifice though....only in the noon-day sun. Things went well this past week. We are working a lot more with members and less-active members right now than investigators. The chapel is getting close to being finished, but President Hall refuses to dedicate it until we have 120+ attendence for 1 month. Last week we worked our rearends off trying to get everyone to church and there ended up only being 95. This week we worked even harder and only 92 people came! So frustrating, but at the same time about 20 less actives came this week that hadn´t been in a while....just a lot of active members were out of town. Either way, we will reach our goal of 120! I want to see this chapel dedicated before I leave in 11 weeks.

Well things are just going normal here. I finished the Book of Mormon in French last week. It was awesome. I love French. Seriously want to learn that language. Next time we go to France I´ll be the one trying to communicate in French, not Mom! I´m now concentrating my study on the Book of Mormon in German. It is definitely harder (at least for me) than French. However it is coming along. I´ve already read 50 pages of 1 Nephi and it is amazing how quickly you can catch on to a language. Still it will only be after a lot of studying that I will ever understand German. I´ve also been studing a lot of Spanish grammar and talk to myself in Spanish all the time. This week while teaching I accidently said a few things in Spanish....I guess thats the risk I have to take! I just hope I continue to study languages for the rest of my life. There is something so fun about picking up something to read, understanding nothing, studying it daily, and little by little unlocking the keys of the language. I still can´t believe I´m coming home in 11 weeks. I´ve been getting really nervous about coming home. This entire week I´ve been exhausted because I haven´t been able to sleep very well. I lay down at 10:30pm....and then begin to think about the uncertain future...and I start to get nervous and scared. It will be really really weird for me to come back. I hope I take it well....and I hope I stop being nervous so I can sleep! Well. I hope you all are doing great and in good health. Continue doing the things that are right! This is the true church! No DOUBTs! The plan of happiness is perfect and God loves us so much. In sunday school we talked about evidences that God loves us... Truly having my family is the biggest proof (besides the atonement of Christ) that God loves me! Stay warm and stay safe!

LOVE YOU, SISTER WOOD

It IS true!

We had transfers and I stayed in Guarabira with the same companion--Sister Vênia! We both were super excited when we got the transfer news. The members here in the branch did a going away party in the chance that one of us 4 missionaries would be transferred. They made a HUGE cake for us and one by one went up to the front of the room and told us how much they respected and loved us. They thanked us so much for our work in the branch and even though I knew I was staying I still cried thinking that someday I will have to leave these people. At the end of the party we got the phone call. Elder Siqueira at first said that Sister Vênia and Elder Jay had been transferred, but then he said he was just kidding. Ahhh you just can´t play with our hearts like that! Everyone was super excited that all of us stayed and still gave us little `going away` presents...even though no one was transferred. I´m so happy I´m staying in this area. I really hope I end my mission here. Guarabira is a tiny city that has everything you need and our area includes a lot of other cute out-of-the-way towns as well. I´ve loved visiting these cute towns and the wonderful people that live there. I found out that my "daughter", Sister G, got transferred to Pombal. It is super close to Sousa and I just love the people there. When I was in Sousa the missionaries were just starting to work in Pombal and now they have a thriving branch there. I got the chance to visit Pombal at the beginning of the mission and am just so glad that my daughter will be working out there in the hot hot desert with such wonderful people! She will do a lot of good out there! So this past week or so has been good. We´ve been working a ton!! With the new chapel being built and nearing the end of construction President has asked us to work on increasing the attendence at church. We´ve been working a lot with less actives and new members and it has been great.

This last Sunday the Elders baptized a wonderful young woman who I just love to death. Her name is Raisa and we had the opportunity to teach her a few times with the Elders. The first time she came to church she stayed with me the entire time and we just really hit it off! She is such a mature and smart girl and really was looking for the truth. When the elders were teaching her, the pastor of her old church came and pretty much tried to lay a smack down on the church and call her to repentance. This made her a little uneasy about her baptism, but the elders talked with her a long time and she decided to be baptized. On the night of her baptism I got to share the message and shared 2 Nephi 31:20 with her. I told her it was mom´s favorite scripture and talked about how mom was an example of a woman who lives this scripture and because she lives it, it has blessed her life. I talked with her about the importance of enduring to the end. I told her that things would be hard and that there would always be opposition, but this is how we follow Christ--putting one foot in front of the other and following in his footsteps. After the message she was baptized. When she raised out of the water she had a stunned look on her face. As she walked passed us going to the bathroom to change, I gave her a thumbs up but she totally didnt see it. She didn´t look at anyone and looked just super stunned. After she returned and the meeting was over she called me outside to talk. She told me that when she came out of the water a completely new feeling swept over her...a feeling she had never felt before. She said she was just shocked that she could feel that way. She continued to talk about a peace and happiness that she had never felt in her life or even knew existed. As she sat there she just kept saying--``Sister wood, IT IS TRUE, IT IS TRUE!. I believed that everything I was taught was true, but now I know it!`` It is moments like these that I just never want to stop being a missionary. There is such a joy that comes when someone repents, or when the veil is removed from someone´s eyes and they gain a testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel.

This past week one of the highlights of my week was teaching two young men who are atheists. Ok, you might think that it is weird that I enjoyed teaching atheists, but I did. Allan and Vinicio are two young men very disillusioned by religion and think that science and religion are opposites. The first lesson with them lasted 2 hours, but it was great. We talked about our purpose in this life, our potential, and our divine nature as children of God. I tell you I never thought I could feel the spirit so strong talking with someone who doesnt even believe in God. The Spirit was very present during the 2 lessons we had with them. Their biggest doubts have to do with wanting physical proof that God exists. I talked with them about the things that testify to me that God exists-- nature, my family, the hope and joy that we feel with each new day that begins, etc. I looked at them directly in their eyes and started to testify of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and of the love that They have for them. I told them that even though they didnt believe in God, He knows them and they chose to follow His Son in the premortal life. As I bore testimony to them I started to feel the love the Savior has for them....now this isn't abnormal because we often feel this with our investigators---but this time it was so powerful, so pure that I was just shocked. Here I was sitting in front of two young men who were proclaimed atheists and yet I was feeling God´s love for them. At the same time I felt, very clearly, that they were two very special sons of God. Honestly God loves everyone, even those that deny his existence. When I told them about the love I was feeling I could see it in their eyes that they had felt this love before.. from their Father in Heaven. I´m so grateful that God shows his love to everyone---the Christians, the Muslims, the atheist, etc. I don´t know if Allan and Vinicio will ever be baptized, but I have faith they will sometime in their lives. God´s plan is a plan of mercy and even though a person denies his very existence....``his hand is stretched out still``

Well this email is getting long so I´ll wrap it up with a few other things that happened this week. Sister Venia and I were invited to lunch at the Army Base/ Police Station by a member who works there. When we arrived in the dining hall I felt like all the eyes in the room were glued to us. Women are few and far between at this place and definitely two missionaries in the middle of a bunch of policemen and army officers would cause a stir. It was quite a lot of fun and the guys kept fighting to get a spot next to us at the table. The whole experience was a lot of fun and at the end 2 police officers gave us a ride home in the police truck. This is actually the 2nd time the police have given us a ride and I have to say it is nice because it is the only time we get to feel the air conditioner. Anyway the police have a lot of respect for us here in Guarabira. They always wave to us and stop to let us cross the road! It helps having friends in high places!

Well last thing! I promise! We watched the Other Side of Heaven this week with a few recent converts and I just never remember crying that much during that movie. I mean in the end when he is saying goodbye to the people on the island....I was just a complete mess. I just kept thinking that in a couple months, I´ll be saying goodbye as well. I still don´t know how I´ll be able to do it. I loved these people before I got here, before I even knew them....can you imagine the love I have for them now, after serving them for almost 16 months!? But, I love and I miss my family. Thank you all for the emails, letters, encouragement, and prayers. I feel them and am very grateful for them. This week I got the card you guys all signed for my birthday. I think it was one of the best presents I´ve every received. I keep picking it up and reading it and wanting to give you all big hugs and fatten you up with good-tasting Brazilian food. Pretty soon I´ll be able to. In the meantime, stay warm, stay healthy, stay strong in the church. Like Raisa said--IT IS TRUE, IT IS TRUE! It sure is. I love you all. Have a great week.


Love, Sister wood

Feliz Ano Novo

Well well. Happy New Year to you all! I hope you all had a great time partying up the new year! I went to bed at 10:30, but was awaken by all the fireworks that went off at midnight! Boy were they LOUD! After waking up I was unable to get back to sleep for a long time and decided to use my time wisely and do my nails---a vain, but useful talent I have acquire here in Brazil. New Years Day was probably one of the worst days of the year---missionary speaking. NO ONE WAS HOME and everyone who was home was drunk. I got really tired of only finding drunk people to teach and we ended up teaching a lot of less active members for the rest of the day. The member that offered to give us lunch on New Years, forgot and we ended up in a canoe without a paddle. Is that the saying? who knows...anyway.. No one was open for lunch....well actually one bar was open. We bought an agua de coco there to fight back the thirst. They only thing I had in my cupboard at home was a small package of drink mix mom sent me a little while ago and a package of jello. It turned out to be a decent lunch...better than I thought. This week was pretty good. We taught a lot of people and definitely made some new friends. I´m really loving the people here in Guarabira. They are all super nice and friendly. I´ve really fallen in love with one family here. They are relatives of the Cristiane--the bishop´s wife in Tibiri. Cristiane is definitely one of my favorite people here in Brazil and it is only logical that her family should be just as cool as her! Her sister lives here in Guarabira and we are teaching, her son, Geo´s girlfriend, Ariane. We always teach at Geo´s house and he has the funniest, craziest dog ever. It is a mini pincher named Nubi and he just goes crazy during the lessons! He climbed up all over me last night and I had to keep him at bay with a toothbrush...which is his chew toy. It was really funny holding him off with the toothbruch with one hand and trying to mark a part in the Book of Mormon with the other. But i have to tell you, I miss my dog Buck! This past week we went to Mamanguape again, but this time for interviews with President H! I was great to see President and Sister H again and I definitely enjoyed the interview. At the end of the interview, I asked President H to give me a blessing. At the end of the mission I´ve just started to get really tired, emotionally, physically, etc and of course President H gave me a beautiful blessing that I will be able to finish off the mission well. He also talked about all my ancestors that are seeing my mission and are proud of my sacrifice. He also told me to always remember the faith of my parents and to remember who I represent....not only the Savior, but my beautiful family as well. Anyway it was a great blessing and we both were crying by the end. I´m convinced that the priesthood is just about one of the coolest things that exists! Well. I hope you all are doing well. Continue to do the things that are right. We were placed on this earth at this time to prepare the world for the coming of the Savior. Thank you all for your faithfulness and righteousness. I know the Lord is blessing you and loves you all dearly, as do I. Have a wonderful week!!

Dec 27, 2010

This week´s email is just going to be short because there really isnt much else to say! I´m doing great! It is super hot--as always. I´m ready to start the new year. I have a feeling that this year will be awesome! Well I really don´t have much to say! Have a great week! I love you all!!!

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!!!

A proposal

BOA TARDE !!!!

Well I have an announcement to make. Yesterday, I was proposed to...like honestly proposed to...in front of the church with people passing by. The twist is, it wasn’t a guy who proposed to me, it was a woman..our ex-investigator of 4 months to be exact. We only taught her the first 2 lessons before we realize she wasn’t really all there mentally and decided to stop teaching here. However because of her `love’ for me she has been coming to church every Sunday for the last few months. Although we thought that she had lesbian tendencies we didn’t find out for certain until last night when she told Sister G to leave, and for me to take her hands because she wanted to marry me. After refusing to give her my hands and telling Sister G to stand her ground, this woman yelled--`I want to marry you` (for the whole street to hear) and then ran off. The entire ordeal lasted about 10 minutes and afterwards I was so shocked that I called President H. After talking to him for a little bit, I felt a little bit better. I have to say I was expecting for my first real proposal to actually come from someone I loved or that was at least a man. My future husband will just have to accept the fact that a Brazilian woman beat him to the punch.it’s okay though. I was a little freaked out last night because she knows where we live and always shows up in weird places, but things will work out alright. The President told me to completely avoid her, so that’s exactly what I’m going to do!
?
Other than my proposal this past week was great! Yesterday, President and Sister H got all the sisters together for a Sisters P-day! We all met at the lighthouse, Cabo Branco, at 8:30 where we took a few photos and ate breakfast. Sister H is such a dear and made us all Cinnamon Rolls! They were delicious and it was just heavenly eating them! Afterwards we all sat on blankets under the trees, overlooking the ocean and had a lesson in the scriptures from Sister H. She talked a lot about the symbolism behind the word `east`` because we were sitting on the piece of land that sits out the farthest east in the Americas. IT was a really cool message and after singing a hymn, we were allowed to take photos and explore a little bit. It was so much fun! We ended up taking a lot of photos and we ran into some African scientists who quickly became our friends. They spoke a little Portuguese but spoke more English and French than anything. I talked to them a little in French, with my very limited vocabulary and they got super excited! It was so much fun talking with them in such a beautiful place! After taking pictures at a few beautiful places and buying an agua de coco, we headed off to lunch at PIZZA HUT!! Ok ok I know that Pizza Hut doesn’t seem like such a treat for you guys up there in the U.S.A, but for me who has been eating beans, rice, and chicken for 14 straight months....it was a piece of heaven. When we got there they started bringing the pizzas out and then they brought out BBQ wings!!! What a tender mercy. I felt like I was back in Georgia at a BBQ restaurant! Luckily a lot of the Brazilians thought the BBQ sauce was weird and gave their wings to us Americans! It honestly was such a blessing to have been able to eat at Pizza Hut! Afterwards Sister H let us pick up a few groceries and then we headed off to the President’s house for a testimony meeting, pedicure, and Acai! It was so wonderful to hear the testimonies of the other sister and of course, I bore mine. It turned out to be the perfect day. I even got a haircut. Sister Gordan knows how to cut hair and since my last two haircuts were ridiculous, she fixed a lot of the damage that had been done. At the end of the day, I just felt so lucky to be serving in a mission as beautiful as Joao Pessoa, Brazil. Honestly, this mission is richly blessed with beautiful scenery, kind people, and an amazing Mission President whose life is literally an angel! I’ll be really sad to leave here in April. What a blessing my mission has been in my life!

Well, I don’t have much time left on the internet, so I just wanted to share with you guys one last thing. I’ve been listening to general conference talks a lot and yesterday and today I listened to Elder Scott’s. One of the things he said that really hit me was this--``We become what we want to be by consistently being what we want to become.`` I have found that to be so true. I am making goals to be the person I want to become everyday. Down here so many people give us the whole---I’ll do it tomorrow-- excuse, but we know this life is short and one day our tomorrows will run out. Remember to always BE, everyday, what you want to become. Don’t put off anything for tomorrow. Thank you all for the support, advice, and love that you send. It is greatly appreciated. At times the weekly emails from you all are the things that lift me up the most. Have a wonderful week. I love you all!

com amor, Sister wood

Testimony!!!

Óla! Well this week flew by so fast ! Things are going well down here. After Sister H recovered from food poisoning she got sick again. She is highly alergic to Cajú and someone made her Cajú juice this past week for lunch. Just as she was finishing off the big glass of juice the irmã said she hoped the cajú juice wasnt too weak. Sister H said her eyes just got big and she started praying that nothing would happen. When she got home after lunch she told me what happened and because were on our way out to lunch, I told her to call me if she started to feel bad. Well at the end of our lunch we got a phone call from her asking us to run to the pharmacy and buy anti- alergy medicine. Luckily you can buy just about anything you want over the counter here and we bought some powerful stuff and then raced off to our house. When we arrived home we found Sister H sitting on the hammock with the face and lips the size of a watermelon....ok ok..it wasnt like the actual size of a watermelon, but it sure was dang big. On top of the ridiculous swelling she also was beet red and covered in splotches. She took a lot of medicine and after a day was back to normal. We were really happy that the juice wasn't super strong because the last 2 times this happened Sister H almost died in the hospital. Sister H said that it was just poetic that she would have another alergic attack before she ended her mission. Besides the random sickness here and there in our house we are all doing great! About the parasite....I don't even know for sure if I have one, but they will give me worm medicine at the end of my mission so dont worry...I´m GREAT! I did get bit by a dog this week, but thankfully I pulled my hand away as he bit me and it didnt break the skin. I just have a nice purplish-black bruise on my hand that will soon go away. It definitely got my heart pumping though. This week we worked way hard and marked another baptism for the end of the month. The best thing about this week was definitely the Spirit. We made it a goal to just start talking and keep talking with our investigators until the Spirit told us what to say. At time the conversation got long, but it was an awesome experience. Some of the best lessons I´ve given on the mission were this week. It really helped me to know what it means (more than ever) to be an instrument in the Lords hands. Several times when I was teaching with the Spirit this week, the Spirit was teaching me as well. It is just the coolest experience ever to be edified when you are edifying someone else...all made possible by the Spirit. Our teaching just really reached a new level and it has made me very excited. It has completely changed the way we work and I know it is effecting other people as well. Last night I stopped to talk with a man and his family in the street. Turns out they were strong member of the Assembleia de Deus and just wanted to Bible Bash, but I resisted the urge to smack them over the head with the scriptures and started bearing my testimony to them. As soon as I started bearing my testimony you could see the hostility leaving their eyes. By the time I was done talking they talked about how they always thought our church was cool and even invited us to come by and visit them. Honestly, no one can argue with a testimony. This week I read an article by Elder Ballard that talks about testimonies. He said when a person is truly converted he or she can not resist the urge to not bear their testimony. I´ve thought a lot about that this week and have started to apply it a lot more in the work. Yesterday was fast Sunday of course and I bore my testimony....afterwards 3 of my recent baptisms bore testimony. ...the gospel is a marvelous thing , the Atonement is a marvelous thing, change is possible, the Atonement works.... I was thinking yesterday of a way to explain how I feel when I see people I taught bearing powerful testimonies and i figured that mom and dad must feel like that way when they see us kids bear testimony. It is a feeling that overpasses almost all other happiness. Anyway after our testimony meeting was over several of the members came up to me and told me that when I leave I will be deeply missed. Some of the members thought I had been transferred because I wasnt in church last week (recovering from night in the hospital) and were so happy when they saw I was still here in Tibiri. I will deeply miss the people here in Tibiri when I go home. I was thinking about my return home during church yesterday and about how much I will cry when the stake president asks me to take off my missionary tag. I´ll definitely need a few boxes of kleenex....but after thinking about that I realized that if I serve a worthy mission I won't need the tag anymore (until i serve a mission with my husband at least)...I wont have to point to my tag and tell people I represent Jesus Christ, they will see it in my countenance. I´m really happy that I made the decision to be a missionary and that I´m making the decision now that I will always be one. The joy that comes from the things of this world is just pitiful in comparison to the joy that comes from sharing the gospel. I´m very grateful that I had this time to discover that. Anyway after our ward was over we went to the afternoon ward with our investigator Cintia who will be baptized at the end of the month. We sat on the back row and as the meeting went on and the people started to bear their testimonies I started to have a desire to bear mine. The room was full of people that I have gotten to know and love in these past 8 months....even though they arent in my ward, you know how i am...I talk A LOT to EVERYONE! Well the Spirit just started bugging me to bear my testimony and I finally got up and did it. I first asked the ward to forgive me for taking their time to bear my testimony and then I just started talking about how much i have grown to love them so much during my time here and that they were my very dearest of friends...then I told them I just had a big desire to give them the best present one friend could give to another...bearing pure testimony. After that the Spirit pretty much took over and I honestly have to say it was one of the purest and best testimonies I have given. After I ended my testimony the bishop bore his and said after Sister H leaves he´ll just tell the President to put me into their ward. He also told me how much the ward loved me. It feels good to be loved! WEll I have to go now. I hope you are all well and going great. Never be afraid to bear your testimonies!!! I LOVE YÁLL!!!!! Tchau

The crazy life of a missionary...

Well this week was....interesting. After a super spiritual day with Elder Bednar last Monday things just kind of got a little crazier. Tuesday Sister G and I did splits because I had to stay with Sister H's newbie in her area while Sister H was in a training meeting in Joao Pessoa. So I stayed with Sister Arruda in the area Municipius and Sister G stayed with Sister Oliveira whose companion, Sister Pozete also went to this meeting for people who are leaders and are training newbies. While I stayed in Municipius, Sister G in Tibiri had quite an experience....they ended up being 5 feet away from a man when he was murdered. They were walking on the main street in Tibri at 3:00 in the afternoon when they heard a huge blast near them. They covered their ears and kept walking, but soon turned around to see what had happened. Thats when they saw a man with a gun run away and another man (who they had JUST passed) lying dead on the ground with two gunshot wounds to his head. They ended up waiting there until the police came but were told since they don't live here they can''t be witnesses in court. The man who ran off has yet to be found unfortunately. He was an ex-prisoner who killed this other guy because of drugs. Honestly all the violence down here is linked with drugs. It is extremely rare for an innocent person to be killed...so don't worry! I´m just so glad my dear companion didn't get hurt. Just another testimony that the Lord protects his missionaries! After that incident the week went pretty smoothly. We marked 3 baptisms and worked super hard. I definitely was extremely exhausted every night and slept really well this week.

Mother's note: The next part of the email was rated "D" for disgusting so I will skip to the ending:

Sister H got really sick from eating tapioca from a street vendor and at about 11pm Saturday night I called up President Hall and asked permission to take her to the hospital. After talking about her situation he let us go and we raced off to the nearest `hospital`´. When we got there they put Sister H on IV fluids. It was quite a night for Sister H.... I just wanted to cry looking at her. She was in soo much pain and everything was violently leaving her body. We ended staying there for the entire night and we didn't sleep at all. At about 5:00 am she felt well enough to go home. After arriving home at 5:30 we slept for a long long time. Unfortunately because of spending the entire night in a hospital without sleep my cold got a lot worse, but I ended up sleeping it mostly off yesterday. Sister H is doing a lot better today. It is funny that I took her to the hospital for the same thing she took me to the hospital for 5 months ago. Anyway I will have so many ridiculous stories to tell you guys when I get back. Living an extremely poor life is very ridiculous, but fun. We decided that poor people have a lot more fun and interesting experiences than rich people. Rich people´s lives are so normal...for them to have fun usually means them getting into trouble....anyway. I´m content to be poor for the rest of my life. It is so much more interesting. Well things are getting back to normal now (i hope!) and I´m ready for another week full of hard work! I´ve been listening a lot to the conference talks on my ipod and you guys just have to read the priesthood talks....They are AWESOME. Honestly after listening to all President Monson´s talks during conference (Priesthood, Relief Society, and normal sunday session) I just have such a stronger testimony that he is a prophet of God, called to guide and direct our lives in these last days! I hope you all are doing well and enjoying the cold weather! HAVE A GREAT WEEK

Visited by an apostle and a parasite!

So this week was pretty good. Sister G and I have been teaching like crazy and having a lot of success. We worked pretty hard this week and a few days ago I started getting dizzy spells. I thought it was because of the heat, but after talking with a few people I think it is because I have a parasite. We´ve been drinking tap water recently just because it is free, but it turned out to not be such a great thing.... The temperature has been getting pretty hot recently and it has definitely been a lot harder to walk in the streets with the hot sun baking our skin. Unfortunately the weather will just continue to get hotter until the end of the year. So yesterday in our meeting with the bishop I receive some great news....four of my recent converts are signed up to go to the temple this next month. Isn't that just the coolest thing? Also we had several investigators who went to a fireside that Elder Bednar held. They ended up enjoying it quite a bit and we are going to mark their baptisms for this week hopefully. Well I can't believe I´m going to stay another transfer in Tibiri, but at least all the ward members are happy. Several members are wanting to make us dinner in celebration of me staying and the bishop´s wife just wants me to move here after I finish my mission. So today we got to listen to Elder Bednar and his wonderful wife. It was a great experience. He pretty much talked the entire time about how we can become good teachers. He opened the meeting up to comments and questions and I was able to make a comment about a talk he gave a few years ago--Ask in Faith. After the meeting was over President and Sister Hall took the Bednars to the airport. When they returned they told me that Elder Bednar had really enjoyed the comment I made...which of course made me happy. It was so nice to be in the presence of an apostle and to learn from him. With out a doubt he is an apostle of the Lord and a special witness of our Savior. The Spirit was extremely strong in our meeting and I continue to feel it until now. He talked a lot about the importance of acting and not being acted upon. Many people wait for things to happen in their lives, but this is the opposite of faith. When I person has true faith he always acts. We show our faith by acting and not by being acted upon. This is a principle that I am trying to apply in my life during the mission and afterwards as well. After Elder Bednar left all the missionaries ate lunch and chatted. The entire mission was there for the conference which has not happened since last Christmas. It was wonderful to see everyone again. I really have made so many wonderful, lifelong friends on this mission. Sister H and Sister De Oliveira have made such an impact in my life and their friendship has been one of the biggest tender mercies I´ve received on the mission. When all three of us got together we just started talking a million miles a minute and giving hugs. I think I must have given Sister De Oliveira at least 100 hugs today alone. I just hope you guys get to meet these wonderful girls sometday! Well you guys know how I love to talk and today I was on full `´mouth of the south`` mode. I talked and chatted and laughed and cried until our motorist picked us up to go home. I´m so grateful for the missionaries in this mission! They are all so great! After the conference our motorist took us to get Açai (AMAZING, AMAZING, AMAZING) and took the road home that goes by the beach. IT was wonderful to see the rolling waves and beautiful palm trees. Honestly my mission is so pretty! Well I have to go now. You guys should totally read the priesthood session talks. I put them on my ipod last week and have listened to Pres. Utchdorfs and Pres. Monsons talks about 4 or 5 times and still haven't gotten sick of them. Honestly conference is the best thing since sliced bread. Well I love you guys. Have a great Week!

Still here, still faithful...

So just to put your minds at ease, I didn't die last week and I wasn't transferred. I´m staying here in Tibiri until Dec 2nd! Waahooo! I´m so happy I stayed and luckily the members are as well. 8 months in one area!!! Crazy huh? But luckily I´m super happy. I´m going to stay with Sister G and Sister H and another new sister, Sister Arruda who Sister H is training. She seems so cool and I´m ready for another transfer full of hard work and fun! These past weeks have been pretty great. Tons of crazy things happened, but I think it is best that I save these stories until after the mission. Things are going great though. Lindenberg will most likely start his mission papers in 2 months and I´m thinking that it will be so crazy to have someone I baptized on a mission! Elizabeth was confirmed and bore her testimony the same day. It was a simple but amazing testimony and it was so awesome to hear. It is amazing the change that can happen and the testimony a person can gain in a matter of a few weeks. She talked with the bishop this last week to receive her temple recommend to do baptisms so she´ll be headed to the Recife temple in 3 weeks. Sweet huh??! As I was sitting in church this Sunday I was very satisfied with my work here in Tibiri. My baptisms are passing the sacrament, giving prayers, bearing testimonies, baptizing others, being ushers, teaching classes, doing visiting teaching, preparing for missions, etc. I´m very happy to have been able to see all the progress during these 8 months. It definitely is a blessing! As I´ve said a thousand times, the mission is the best decision I´ve ever made. I´m glad I´ve been able to be an instrument in the Lords hands to help change some peoples lives. It is a good feeling. I can't believe I´ll be home in 5 months...so weird. It will be so weird to go to a house that doesn't have a concrete wall around it, it will be so weird to see grass yards, it will be so weird to knock on a door instead of clap, and it will be so weird to eat something besides beans and rice....but I´ll get used to it. THe U.S. will be a huge shock to me, but it will be good to return home in April! I´m doing great though. Happy and ready to work harder than ever this transfer! Elder Bednar will visit our mission this next Monday, so that will be cool. I´m really excited to see an apostle close up. I took their visits for granted when I was at BYU. I´m sure Elder Bednar will whip us into shape and inspire us to be better than we are! I´ll be sure to write you guys all about it next week. I love you all and hope you guys are doing well. Always remember the importance of scripture study and prayer!

Well wasn't conference just the best?!!!! When President Monson got up to say the closing remarks I couldn't believe that conference was already over! It flew by and was just what I´ve been needing to give me more incentive to be my best! We got to see the Relief Society session in Portuguese and I LOVED President Monson´s talk. Honestly, as women, judging is one of our biggest faults! I love that President Monson spoke very directly and sternly, but with love. After the Relief Society session was over a man in the stake came up and asked us if we wanted to watch the rest of the sessions in English. Sister Garrett and I about died of happiness. It is still a little hard for her to understand everything in Portuguese and I definitely jumped at the chance to hear a little of my native tongue. So it was a tender mercy really when we watch the other four sessions in English. I honestly started to cry when I saw temple square and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and heard the talks in English. I got a little homesick, but I got over it quickly. After all the inspiring words of conference, I´m ready to refocus on my mission and give everything I have to these last 6 months. Don't be surprised if I arrive barely breathing and extremely sunburned and mosquito bitten when I get home..after a few months I´ll recover! Life will be so different when I return...so different than my life here. I was thinking about it the other day when I woke up with mosquitos buzzing around my head and fresh blood on my sheets from the constant battle with the mosquitos. I think I´ll just leave everything here when I come home. All my sheets are covered with blood from the mosquitos, my clothes are slowly gathering permanent mold, my shoes are cover with dirt that will take several days and a scrub brush to clean, but I´m happy....extremely happy. I know the Lord will provide for me after my mission. This week turned out to be pretty great. We had a double baptism with the other sisters and it went really well. We sang `´ Eu Sei Que Vive Meu Senhor`´ ( I Know That My Redeemer Lives) and it turned out to be so beautiful! Elizabeth was SO excited to be baptized and was just beaming the entire night. So I´ve officially decided that I was sent to the perfect mission for me. In the intermission of conference they had a few shots of Brazil and everyone was dancing and carrying on....that´s definitely BRazil! I think the Lord knew I needed a mission with people like me-- people who like to have fun and who really know how to enjoy life. I love this place! I´m going to ask President Hall to let me stay in Tibiri one more transfer (that would be 8 months here!)....I hope he lets me. The people here are like my familiy and I just don't want to say goodbye yet! Anyway more about conference....Wasn't it just the greatest ever?? That talk by Elder Holland made me feel sooo guilty and I definitely made of a lot of goals to change my ways. President Utchdorf´s talk was.....wow...and Elder Christoffersons talk....LOVE iT. President Monson´s talk about gratitude made me really rethink how I need to better my prayers and my life....anyway conference was amazing, amazing, amazing, and answered every question I had. I hope all you guys got to see at least a couple sessions of it! Well the weather is heating up A LOT down here....and we are still just in the spring. dang it. pretty soon it will be like a literal frying pan. I´m really happy I have a sunny mission though. It would be difficult to get up at 6:30 in the morning if it was cold! So I´ve been trying to work on my language skills and recently started reading `´Le Livre de Mormon´´ and `´Das Buch Mormon`´...(French and German). I´m was getting close to reading 2 Nefi in French a few weeks ago and decided since I was understanding a lot of it I would begin reading in German. Well today I began the German and it will be a long, hard, bumpy road until I finish it. German is way harder for me to learn than French, Spanish, or Italian. I read a few verses in an Italian Bible the other day and understood 90%! It is great how all the romance languages are so interlinked. Don't worry though I´´m not going crazy with languages....just trying to see what other languages I would like to learn. A guy in the CTM (who also works in the U.S. embassy in Brazil)knew 7 languages and said it is best to learn several languages at the same time....not to focus on one and perfect it before moving on to another. Anyway in the little spare time I have, I~m trying to expand my language abilities. Well I hope you guys are all doing great! I pray for you guys always and know that the Lord is taking care of you all! I would give you all the same counsel that President Monson gave....when the conference talks are available,,, read them, and reread them....set goals and do everything you can to reach them. I love you all!! Até próximo semana!

September 27, 2010

Well this is going to be REALLY fast because there is a new internet guy who is really mean and is kicking me off! My week was really good though. I ate chicken intestines and cow tongue for lunch...i didnt really like it, but whatever. Elizabete wasn't baptized yesterday because 1/2 the city was without water....That whole lack of water problem happens a lot here in the northeast. BUT elizabete will be baptized tomorrow. que gloria! Welll I´m officially being kicked off. I´m doing well though and love you all! Thanks for the emails and enjoy conference this weekend!

What goes down, always comes back up...

Oi Familia!

Well this week was better. Last week I was really down and out. When your body gets tired and out and the mosquitos are biting and the sun is burning...it is easy to get a little down. BUT this week went well. We arrived in the house of one of our investigators this week and before we said anything she asked to be baptized.....why can't everyone be this easy to baptize? She had a dream after we taught here the first lesson that she was going to church with her neighbor and arrived at the chapel here in Tibiri and told her neighbor she was a Latter-day Saint. Cool huh? She came to church so beautiful in modest clothes (EXTREMELY RARE) and immediately was fellowshipped. Severina helped her learn how to sing the hymns, the bishop welcomed her with open arms, the young women immediately crowded around here to help her feel at home, and even Leandro and Leandro (two of our recent baptisms) took down here phone number so that they could invite her to activities. She is very excited for her baptism this next Sunday and we are too. She will most likely be baptized with another awesome girl! We ended up having a bunch of investigators in the church as well, so that was nice. This week we had a conference with Elder Godoy (1st counselor in the area presidency of Brasil) and it was AWESOME! He has so much energy and spunk! He talked about a lot of cool things but the thing that really stood out to me was a story he told or actually an analogy. He drew a picture of a tree trunk that had been cut so that you could see all the rings on the trunk, or the years of the tree´s life. Some rings were darker than others and some rings you could tell had been damaged. He went on to talk about how one of these dark rings happen because a forest fire struck the forest that year and another ring showed that insects had invaded the forest that year. Through all these events the tree lived on until it was cut...and you could see its history perfectly....everything it passed through. He related this to our lives and said we are a little different than the tree. He said as we go through our lives it is almost inevitable to escape without a mark or blemish from sin...they just happen. We are imperfect and as the years and years of our lives go on, like the tree we acquire these marks....and then we are cut (aka die) and stand in front of our Maker....where He doesn't even need to ask us a single question...he just looks at our trunk (body) and our lives are completely laid out in front of Him....but the good thing is, unlike the tree these marks can be erased. The damage or mistakes can be completely erased in a way that we can stand before Heavenly Father without a single mark. He continued to talk about that this is possible because of Christ, this is the gift he gave us. That despite how many marks we have, we can stand pure and clean in front of God because of the atonement. I loved this analogy because it made me remember a time when we were all together at chimney rock. We were all walking down the trail when Dad stopped us at an old tree trunk and talked about the life of a tree. Ahhh what great memories we all have together! I cant wait to have more when I come back in 6 months!! Ahhh can you believe this week marks 1 year!! Goodness time flys!! Well I gotta go preach the gospel and baptize the folks aqui em Tibiri. Espero que vocês estâo bem! Te amo de mais!

September 13, 2010

Oi Familia!
This email is going to be extremely lame, but I´m just not with the highest of spirits today and think it is better to say nothing than to murmur. Dont worry I´m good though and I love you guys so much. This week will be better. Elder Godoy will be at our zone conference this Thursday and I will probably get my package so I´m getting excited about that. I pray for you guys always and love you.

Staying put for now☺

So guess what?!!! I stayed in Tibiri. Yep I will have officially 5 transfers (7 months) in this area! WHOOOO. I was actually really happy I stayed. The thought of packing all my things up was just tooooo scary. I stayed with Sister G which I´m content about. I kind of miss having Brazilean companions, but President knows best. This past week and a half flew by and there really isn't that much to report. I´m really tired today. We spent the morning in João Pessoa looking for a dress for Sister G. Sister H stayed as well which means I´m happy about life. We are two peas in a pod and she wants me to date her brother when I get back. Since she goes home to Utah in December I told her she can be my ``João Batista`` and prepare the way for my dating life. Things are going well though. The temperature is starting to heat up and soon summer will be in full swing....which 100-110 degree weather for a few months. Yeah I´m excited about that. I feel like Tibiri is my home though...I know so many people here and could walk these streets with my eyes closed. I love the members, but stress about them a lot....taking care of the Lord's flock really can wear down on you. BUT I´m excited for 6 more weeks in Tibiri and know there is a reason I´m staying here. Until next Monday!
LOVE YOU ALL!
Love sister wood

The font runneth o'er!

So this week FLEW by. I almost don't believe today is pday... again! This week was full of tons of great and funny experiences, but this computer keyboard is very retarded and I will just write the highlights! Yesterday we had stake conference and a member of the area seventy was there. His talk was so amazing and it talked about the importance of prayer. He explained many concepts about prayer that I had never thought about before and I felt extremely edified in the end. It was so nice to have stake conference and see everyone I know and love. It was impossible to talk to everyone I knew, so I ended up giving a lot of hugs and kisses on the cheeks. I think it might be hard for me to break the whole kiss-on-the-cheek habit when I go back home...but I´m pretty sure the single guys won't mind it. Anyway during the conference Lindenberg and Senhor José received the Melchizedek Priesthood! I was so so so proud of them. I wanted to jump up and clap and shout for joy when they were told to stand up and be recognized. I practiced self-control though and just sat in my chair with an ear-to-ear grin of happiness and tears in my eyes. It really is just wonderful to see someone go from....well what they were...and be baptized, confirmed, receive the Aaronic priesthood, receive a calling, and receive the Melchizedek priesthood....next step....THE TEMPLE NEXT MONTH!!! WOOOOO!!! Honestly it was wonderful to see the fruits of our labors! The day just kept getting better after the conference. Rafaela and Leandro were baptized last night and it was sooooooooo awesome. I wish you guys could have been there. At least 40 members arrived for the baptism, I made 2 cakes, Sister G and I prepared a special musical number, it was perfect!!!! (except for the fact I left the water running in the baptismal font and it flooded the chapel a little bit :) ....ha ha what can I say...I´m still Ariel, even in Brazil. But dont worry it got cleaned up fast! ) But honestly the baptismal service was awesome! Another cool thing...Leo (another Leandro--pec knows him!) who we baptized recently performed HIS first baptisms...yep he baptized his friends, Rafaela and Leandro. It was so cool to see someone Itaught that was baptized, baptizing others. Talk about awesome. Anyway things are going great. I´m happy and very much in love with Brazil. Obviously there are some things that I miss about the U.S., but leaving Brazil in 7 months will break my heart. I´ve gotten so attached to this place. Yesterday we were walking to Marcos Mouro ( an extremely poor area) and we went the back way. As usual, we greeted people along the way. We passed by a woman with 4 little children and when I passed by and said ``boa tarde` they started talking about my hair. Eventually one of the little boys (4 or 5 years old) yelled --`` druga, eu quero ficar com da gallega`` (dang it, well I want to stay with the blonde)....after saying this he ran up behind me and grabbed my arm and just started talking and talking and talking. The others soon followed after us. It was so cute walking to Marcos Moura on the tiny dirt path, in the midst of banana and coconut trees, talking to the cutest Brazilean kids ever. I´ve been very used to my life here and the people of Tibiri are used to me as well. A man this past week told me that Tibiri never would be the same when I left. What a compliment....I hope I´ve made my mark here. I feel like I know everyone...from the men who play games in the plaza, to the woman who sells batata frita, to the politicians, to the school teachers, to the boys who break dance next to the Catholic church, etc. I will miss this place so much. I don't know if I´ll be transferred or not next week, but I hope I stay here! Anyway, the Lord knows best where I need to go!

Time just flies...

THis week FLEWWWWWWWW by! Last Tuesday and Wednesday Sister Garrett and I went to João Pessoa for a training. All the zone leaders, district leaders, and trainers were there for two whole days of intense training. Sister Garrett and I were the only sisters there, but it turned out to be fun anyway! The training focus a lot on learning how to teach people, not just lessons. They talked a lot about different technics we should be using and then we just ended up practicing a lot. Like I said it was fun, but I missed my area and my investigators. I find it a little annoying to sit in an air-conditioned room for two days. My body isn't used to air conditioner and I just end up getting the worst headaches at these types of meetings. Honestly I think my body is just getting adjusted to a more humble way of living. When Sister Garrett and I slept at the Presidents house at the beginning of the transfer it took me a week and a half before I could sleep comfortably again. The bed at the President's house was an excellent mattress, but I´m so used to sleeping on a half-sunken mattress on wooden slabs that it just threw me out of wack. I´ve also gotten used to the hot weather. When the temperature dips below 75 degrees I pull out my jacket, wrap myself in whatever blanket in closest, and drink cevada (a barley drink that looks a lot like coffee). Honestly I think I might die when I return home. I´m hoping the weather will already be warm in Georgia when I get back! After the first day of training we went to Mangabeira (sister de oliveira´s area) to try out the things we learned...and it was awesome! I honestly felt like I had learned so much in the training and was ready to apply my new-found knowledge. We taught a lesson with Sister De Oliveira and Sister Gonzalez and it was just so so great. They made me teach the first half of the lesson and as soon as I started it was like I was just an instrument for the Spirit. I don't remember anything I said. I just remember that I was being taught at the same time I was teaching these people. Sister De Oliveira sat there with a face full of surprise and afterwards she just kept telling me she never heard a lesson taught so well! She told me I taught great when we were companions, but that night was just a whole other level! It was so cool to put the things I learned in practice and to be an instrument for the Spirit. After the night was over we stayed at Sister De Oliveira´s house and she and I just talked and talked and ate and talked and did our nails and talked and talked and talked. It was so great to see her. I just hope you guys get to meet her one day! She is just one of the coolest people ever and one of my best friends. THe only thing sad about the night was that Sister H wasn't with us....we are the 3 musketeers! At least I think you guys will get the chance to meet Sister H one day! She is just as cool and awesome as Sister De Oliveira...only difference is that she´s American! Goodness I´m writing way too much! Time is slipping away! Anyway...things are great. a recent baptism of mine got called to be a counselor in the Primary and a guy we baptized a few weeks ago received the aaronic priesthood. Everyone is doing great!

Sweet dreams

Well this week was normal for the most part! It was filled with tons of work, long hot days, and a ridiculous amount of walking, but it was fabulous! Hmm...where to start... we taught a lot of cool and interesting people this week. We met a missionary for the Baptist Church and he asked us to come to his house for a Bible Study. We accepted and when we arrived it was very apparent that he just wanted to prove our religion was false, but he was nice about it. He wanted to know about what we believed and since I knew he wouldnt go to church with us ( he really was just looking for dirt on us), I told him about why our religion was so awesome. I talked about eternal marriage, baptisms for the dead, the spirit world, the pre-existence. It was a really great experience though because I just gained a stronger testimony of how perfect the gospel is and how merciful Heavenly Father is with His children. For instance, a lot of religions believe if you aren't baptized in this life you don't have another chance, that you can't repent after this life and that we are all just going to be sisters and brothers, not husbands, wives, children, siblings,etc Goodness when I was talking about the spirit world and baptisms for the dead I realized that Gods plan literally is perfect. He has made it so easy for us to return to him...he gives us so many chances! Anyway, we left the guy's house on good terms.

So yesterday I found out that one of my converts is going to receive the Melchizedek.Priesthood in the stake conference in two weeks! I was so excited when I heard about his progress! Yay for converts that say firm in the church!

These past few weeks have been weeks of lots of politics. They are having some elections down here which means that every stereo system or amp that can be found is hooked to the top of a car or truck to blast propaganda to the good people of TIbiri. It has gotten to be a little annoying walking in the street with all this constant noise, but very funny at the same time. The politicians here use a lot of funny jiggles to pitch their platform. Well this last week we were in the square at the end of the night with the other sisters heading to an appointment together when one of these politicians came by with a parade of at least 10 cars honking and blaring music. People were hanging out of every car window and streaming and throwing confetti. It was quite the party. It was just such a ridiculous sight that I started laughing my head...well the politician saw us 4 missionaries and jumped out of the back of a truck and ran up to us talking about his platform. As soon as he arrived so did the cameras. He talked about all the things he would change and then asked us if we were from here....I was like....ahh no. It was hard to keep from laughing just because of the situation. Fireworks were going off over our heads, the ridiculous political jingles were playing in the background, and the paparazzi were in full force. He took a lot of photos with us so who knows if my face is in the local paper.

So the spiritual experience of the week has to do with our beloved investigator Rafaela. The first time we taught in her house we actually taught her parents not her. During the lesson the spirit was extremely strong and so we thought that Rafaela´s parents would turn out to be awesome investigators. After several follow-up visits the realization that they werent interested was very apparent and we were confused why we felt the spirit so strong in that house. Thats when we met their daughter Rafaela. Shes 20 years old and a complete doll. We´ve been teaching her for the past few weeks and marked her baptism for a week and a half ago. Unfortunately she missed her baptism because of work. She works on Sunday and can only go to church if she gets off early. We got a little frustrated because of this situation, but we didnt lose hope! This past week we met with her and she told us that she wouldn't be able to go to church this Sunday. We ended up getting a little sad about the situation, but continued to pray for things to work out. Yesterday we were sitting in the church when who should arrive but Rafaela! She told us she told her boss that she would be leaving work early every Sunday in order to go to church and that she had an experience and wanted to be baptized. Turns out she had a dream after we left her house last week and in the dream she heard a voice saying---Just follow, just follow. She awoke and according to the feelings she had she knew she had to be baptized. It was an amazing thing to hear and I started to tear up because of how thankful I was in that moment. I realized that the Lord really is preparing people for us and he is doing His part in this great work. It was just such a humbling experience to realize that the Lord can work with sometime so simple and weak as me. It really is one of the coolest things about the missionary work....the Lord uses the weak things of this earth to bring about the eternal salvation of His children. This week Rafaela will be baptized along with 2 others equally wonderful and precious investigators. ´