MILAGRES

Seriously this was a week of miracles! 

The Elders had a baptism this week and it was beautiful :)

And we have a new pesquisadora named Zione and she's super elect and it was amazing because she found us! We were leaving lunch at a member's house in our area and she just walked up to us since she lives in front of the member's house and she asked for a triple combination of the scriptures haha We were like what? She had been taught before and she had gone to church a couple of times but she'd never been baptized. We started teaching her immediately and we gave her the book and explained about D&C and the Pearl of Great Price and stuff and she started asking about other books from the church so when she came to church on Sunday (she showed up by herself haha we even stopped by her house to get her but her brother said she'd already left to get there early), we gave her a gospel principles book also. She's following all of the commandments now too! We taught about the word of wisdom and her only problem at the moment was coffee but she immediately stopped and there's a drink here called cevada that's really similar to coffee but it doesn't have caffeine and it's not bad and everyone uses it to stop coffee addictions and we gave her a little bit to try since we had a package with us for another investigator and the next day when we showed up to teach her and follow up, she had bought two more packages of cevada and she had completely stopped with coffee!!! We're going to baptize her this Sunday!! It was really funny because one of her main concerns about her baptism was whether she'd be able to take a picture or not haha We explained that we would take pictures before the baptism and give her a copy :)

Whoa that was a lot of info. Ugh bad news now. Ana Rosa finally came to church but when we went to visit her after...she said she basically hated it. She didn't like a single thing about it. She only came for sacrament meeting and it was a fast and testimony meeting and both Sister Rodriguez and I bore our testimonies and she didn't even like that :(((( She said she didn't like how much we talk about Joseph Smith and that she doesn't like how we always say "I know" because we're talking about ourselves too much and not about God...Sister Rodriguez and I left her house almost in tears. It was the most horrible visit I've had on my mission...

But more good news. Besides Zione and Ana Rosa, we had two other people at church! Ariele and Vitória! We made plans to visit them this week so that'll be good. And the sister treinadoras are doing divisions with us this week so that'll be awesome. I can't believe we only have two more weeks left in this transfer! I have no idea how the time is passing so quickly. Oh and I forgot to mention a couple weeks ago that I hit my 6 month mark. It's crazy! I feel like I was in the MTC yesterday haha I'm loving my mission and I'm so sad that I already only have less than a year to be a missionary :( I love serving here and being a missionary!!

Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,

Sister Earls

 

Jaine got baptized! She was terrified of water and was crying and freaking out a little before but everything worked out and it was wonderful!

 

These photos are from a while ago but I got so behind on sending photos that there are ton from when Sister Wootan was here that I haven't sent so here ya go :)

 I got another package during interviews with President Young!! I love you mom!

 

Conferência Geral!!!! E Feliz Páscoa!

Oi meu povo!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend!

Ugh I just love and miss all of you so much! Conference made me reallllyyyyy homesick. I started crying a little when I heard MoTab singing in English haha Conference was amazing and I had some trouble understanding everything and my mind was super dead at the end of each session but it was great :)

So I've been a little sick since quinta feira which is uhhh Thursday, yesThursday. I have really weird symptoms and they've been really sporadic so we've had to call Sister Young a few times but we're still not exactly sure what it is...When we called last night, she got a little worried and said it maybe might be dengue...which makes sense since I've been getting attacked by all the mosquitos here...But I'm sure it's nothing to worry about! I've only missed one day of work and everything else has been fine so we're just waiting it out to see if it passes. No need to worry! :))) And today is P day so I've got time to rest :)

Besides all the excitement from Easter and Conference, this week was pretty normal. We're really struggling to find new investigators :( And the investigators that we've had haven't been progressing much. We're praying for more miracles and we could definitely use all of your prayers too! We watched Conference in the church and it was pretty sad because like none of the members showed up and we only had two investigators come for theSunday morning session (the two friends of Neldierlin who came to church last week). It's just hard because we want to baptize them but since they're so young and their parents aren't members, it's like basically impossible. So this email is getting depressing so I'm just gonna try to send pictures from this week because they make me happy :)

Eu amo vocês!!

Com amor,

Sister Earls

 

Noite Familiar with Alessandra, Manuel, e Antonio! E Bonnie haha I seriously love that dog :)

 

Sardines on the ônibus haha Whenever we take this ônibus to get to one of our lunches, there are always a bunch of kids going to school and they all talk super loud and it's super crowded but it's pretty funny

The battle with mosquitos is real. I use OFF day and night and we had to buy these like smoke things that repel mosquitos from our room...And I still get attacked

 Our district coordenated for Conference (except Elder Bemuyal cuz he's lame so he just took the pics haha)

HAPPY EASTER

 

MUDANÇAS

Oi meu povo!!

So transfers happened and life is still great! I'm still in Sao Mateus and my new comp is Sister Rodriguez!!! Sister Rodriguez is the cutest thing on the planet and I love her and she's from Argentina and she's super spunky and wonderful :)) And she speaks Portuguese really really well and my Portuguese has already improved so much with just one week with her. She's the best!

This week was kinda slow but we've got a lot of good things happening. It was a great start to the transfer. I'm pretty pumped. We only had one person at church yesterday, but Sis R and I met a wonderful family in Carapina this week! They almost came to church...Ana Rosa is the mom and she has 4 kids (Fernando, Daniel, Hanna, e Davi). It was kind of sad because we invited her to come to a Relief Society activity but it got cancelled because of a minor rat problem in the church...They had to clean the church so the activity got moved to next Saturday :((( We had planned to pick her up and walk with her to the church so when we found out that the activity was cancelled, we tried to walk over a little earlier to let her know since she wasn't answering her phone, but when we showed up, she was already dressed and ready to go and she seemed really sad when we let her know. She was even gonna bring her daughter and her daughter had a cute little dress on and ugh it was the worst. They said they would still go to church the next day, but one of the kids got sick so yeah...Bummer :(

Julio Cesar isn't really progressing :( We've been visiting him a lot but his family doesn't want him to talk to us or come to church so it's just not really working out...We have another pesquisador named Moises but he has some form of depression and he like never leaves his house and he didn't come to church even though he promised to come and we walked all the way to his house Sunday morning to pick him up :( It was sad because we had marked a baptismal date for him so obviously it fell through :(

But everything is great and I haven't gotten us too lost in our area haha I seriously love being here still and it feels like a fresh start with Sister Rodriguez. Our area has a lot of potential and we're ready to find all of the elect people here!

Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,

Sister Alia Yun Earls

Casually taking the word of God to the people of Brasil :)

Last pic with Sister Wootan before her flight :(

  GOT TO SEE SIS RICHARDS AT TRANSFERS! She's stayed in Gloria and she's doing great :)

 MY NEW COMP! Sister Rodriguez is the cutest thing on the planet and I love her and she's from Argentina and she's super spunky and wonderful :)) And she speaks Portuguese really really well and my Portuguese has already improved so much with just one week with her. She's the best!

Transferências!

Basically, this week has been craziness. So Sister Wootan is dying tomorrow and I'll be getting my new companion. We left yesterday to travel to Vitória since Sister Wootan has stuff to do here before she leaves so we're staying with the sister treinadoras in Jardim da Penha until tomorrow. We got the calls about transfers last night and I'll be staying in São Mateus. The only other person staying is Elder Malone. All of the other Elders are getting transfered out. It's kinda scary...And even if I'm still junior companion, I'll be the one that knows the area and all of the people so I'm gonna have to lead a lot of stuff so I'm kinda freaking out a little. I've been só used to being with Sister Wootan and she knew like everything about our area.

This week was pretty dang good though! A little stressful but really good. Edivaldo made it to church yesterday and he got confirmed!!! We were freaking out yesterday morning because when we called him to make sure that he was catching the right ônibus to make it to church on time, he said that he was sick and that he wouldn't be coming. We were devastated but we waited a little until after we'd walked past all of our other investigators and we decided to call him again and he said he'd taken some medicine and that he was feeling better so he caught the next ônibus and he made it to church during the second hour and was confirmed during sacrament meeting!! I'm just so excited now that I get to stay in São Mateus and make sure that Edivaldo stays active! I never imagined how much joy I would feel by bringing someone into the church and being a part of every step in the process! It's so wonderful!!!

We tried to work with Julio Cesar this week too but it got a little crazy. The zone leaders came to do another interview with him on Tuesday and their plan was to have him interviewed and since he's living all the commandments and since he's attended church twice, they wanted to baptize him that night. The culture here is a little different and baptisms just work like that here. But Julio Cesar really didn't want to so that didn't work so we just kept visiting him and we had some really spiritual lessons and he went to another activity, but he didn't come to church yesterday :( I think he just got a little overwhelmed. But I'll be staying in São Mateus so I'll get to help him progress and hopefully get baptized!

I can't really remember what else happened this week but I'll just try to send some photos :)

Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,

Sister Alia Yun Earls

 

 I finally got my PACKAGES! Thanks mom!

 

 So I don't remember if I mentioned that we don't have dryers here and that we have to hang up our clothes to dry which normally isn't a problem, but our washing machine has been broken and we were stressing a lot this week with laundry because of packing and everything so this had to happen one morning before we left haha So effective

 Pretty view on the way back from Aviaçao

We bought liters of acai since it was Sis Wootan's last time!! Haha it took us like two or three nights to finish them

Waiting for our onibus haha

 

BATISMO!!!!!!

This week was amazing!!!! Guess who had their first baptism?!?! This Sister missionary!! It was so wonderful to finally have a baptism. We were able to baptize Edivaldo from Liberdade! It was kind of a complicated situation since we weren't sure if he would be going out of town on Sunday to Linhares but we finally got everything settled and he was able to have an interview with Elder Hidalgo on Thursday and we got him to church and it was great! We're planning on following up a lot this week to make sure he'll be at church this Sunday to be confirmed. 

We've also been working a lot with Julio Cesar. He came to church last Sunday so we had plans to meet with him every day this week. We were lucky to have the sister training leaders here because Sister Patricio is awesome and I went on divisions with her and we worked in the Aviaçao and Centro and Fatima/Ideal areas and she was able to mark a baptism date for him for the same day as Edivaldo. It ended up falling through though becuase he didn't feel ready. He believes in what we've taught him and he really likes the members of the church and he's already made a lot of friends and he went to three activities this week, but he's worried that he might move away and that he won't stay strong in the church after baptism if he moves. So we're going to work with him this week a lot too. We're hoping he'll feel ready to be baptized this quinta or domingo. 

Everything else is pretty great. I can't believe this transfer is almost over...And Sister Wootan will be leaving early next week which is crazy haha I can't believe I'm already killing off a Sister and that she's going home. It's really weird. I really want to know if I'm staying in Sao Mateus or if I'll be transferred. Everyone thinks that I'll be transferred and that our area will be white washed but quem sabe? 

Oh something cool that happened this week haha I'm still struggling with the language obviously...But! Sister Wootan got tired of talking to everyone on the phone this week so she kept asking me to take phone calls and I was like what? I can't understand anyone in person when they're speaking portuguese so how am I supposed to talk to them on the phone? But I did it! And people actually understood me and I understood what they were saying (most of the time) haha So yeah I'm basically fluent...not.

I made it to Alma in the Livro de Mórmon this week! Everyone should read Alma 5 because it's awesome and a huge call to repentance. Still pretty sure I won't finish the Book of Mormon this transfer but I'm gettin pretty far and I'm actually starting to understand what I'm reading without looking at my English copy so that's pretty sweet.

Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,

Sister Alia Yun Earls

P.S. BATISMO!!!! Sorry I'm just really excited

 

EDIVALDO!! He's 78 years old and he's awesome. Elder Hidalgo (our district leader) baptized him! I don't know why brasileiros don't like to smile in pictures but Edivaldo is still killin it haha

 

 

Brasil is weird and they don't have mops so this is how we clean the floors...with brooms and powder laundry soap. It's super fun

 

Alessandra, Manuel, and Antonio! I love these kids but it kind of sucks because they're going inactive. We've been trying everything to get them to church and we do FHE with them every week but they don't really have any friends at church and their parents don't help and it's just sad because they're great kids :(

 

I'm Still Alive But I'm Barely Breathing

Oi meu povo!!! I hope you are all alive and well and healthy and happy!! This week has been an adventure!

So basically I got really sick. Sorry I don't want to worry anyone so I'll just start out by saying that I'm totally fine and today is my first official day without having to use my medicines so we're all good! 

I'll try to explain what happened really simply and quickly but I'm not very good at writing emails so sorry in advance. Monday night we came home and started planning and I started feeling really naseous and lightheaded. It was super weird because I had felt fine the whole day so Sister Wootan and I thought maybe I was just tired. We grabbed one of our fans and I just sat on the ground in front of the fan and tried to breathe really slowly but after like ten minutes I barely made it to the bathroom to start throwing up. So yeah...That's where it all started. I threw up for a while and it finally stopped so I showered and tried to go to bed but I couldn't sleep. I was hot and uncomfortable and still in a lot of pain and really naseous.so I only got like an hour and a half of sleep and I ended up throwing up more and there may have been some diarrhea...sorry haha We called Sister Young (president's wife) since she helps whenever we're sick and she helped us a little and told us what to do. We ended up staying inside all day Tuesday and I only ate an apple and like maybe ten crackers.

The weird thing was that we had been calling the Elders about what was happening and Elder Malone (the one in our district from Riverside, CA) got the exact same sickness. He was throwing up at the exact same times and couldn't sleep. Somehow he made it to our lunch appt that day but he was dying and he and his comp stayed home the rest of the day.

The next day I was feeling a little better (still really weak, but better) and we decided to try to work since I hadn't thrown up since the morning before. We made it to Liberdade but after our first lesson, I started feeling a lot of pain. Like a lot. I really wanted to work since we had a member with us so I made it through two lessons and then we went to meet with Edivaldo. We started the lesson and I couldn't speak. Sister Wootan finally asked me to testify at the end since I hadn't said anything and I said like two sentences and started to cry a little. Not embarrasssing at all...Sister Wootan started freaking out so we left, but we had to wait for the onibus to make it back to Centro so we called Sis Young and she told us to go home (obviously). We made it home and the rest of the day seemed kind of normal and I slept a little and tried to eat a little and I wasn't feeling that sick, but around 9pm I started to feel a lot of pain and I threw up again. We called the Elders too, but Malone wasn't sick still so we called a member to get a blessing. After the blessing, I felt better for a little so I tried to go to sleep but then I felt an insane amount of pain, more pain than I've ever felt in my life...So we called the members again (Vilson who gave me the blessing and his wife Gedilza who is the RS pres - love them so much) and they walked us to the hospital (we called Sis Young for permission). I had to walk to the hospital...Sis Wootan and Gedilza kinda dragged me because I could barely walk. I broke out in a cold sweat all over my body but we made it there and got help and they got me an ambulance to another hospital. The pain finally stopped and we made it there and they told me I had a fever. They gave me an IV (first time in my life!) and they took some blood and I peed in a cup and they made me sit a wheelchair and it was great...After a couple hours, they told me I had an intestinal infection. 

They took us back home in the ambulance and I finally slept!!! Oh and great news, Brasil is awesome and everything was free! We made it to District Meeting the next morning and I got my meds but we stayed home to rest for the rest of the day. I was really really weak. I lost 7 pounds in those three days. But we made it back to work after that and life has been wonderful!!!

Guess what?! We had 3 investigators at church yesterday!!! Edivaldo made it from Liberdade and he has committed to be baptized this next Sunday so we just gotta make sure he comes to church again! And we had two random people who we had never even talked to before! Julio Cesar and Vitoria!!! We'll be teaching all of them this week like crazy. And it's great because the Sister Treinadoras are supposed to be coming tomorrow. Vamos batizar y'all!!!! This weeks email title should have been milagres haha

Oh and I made it to Mosias 18 this week in the Livro de Mórmon! 

Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,

Sister Alia Yun Earls

And really, don't worry I'm totally healthy now and I'm eating normally again. We're still not exactly sure what happened but it was something that both Elder Malone and I ate...So we narrowed it down to two things that we ate last Sunday so we're just gonna be careful when we go back to those members' houses.