Mãos que Ajudam

This week was super fun! We had a reunião de zona and a Helping Hands activity with the branch/district. Oh and the branch had an activity on Saturday called a quadrilha which is basically like a hoedown haha There were so many people there and 6 of our investigators came and we received a ton of references!!! It was awesome!

So yeah the week was filled with fun but we got a little discouraged because we had investigators dropping us and we had to cut some others since they haven't been progressing...Gabriel was one of them. I've been working with him since I arrived here in Colatina and he's been interviewed twice and he's already been to church like 5 times and he came to the activity on Saturday but he didn't come to church yesterday and he just doesn't want to baptized even though he knows that he needs to. So we finally had to cut him because we lose a lot of time visiting him instead of people who really want to progress. But we're still going to be seeing him a lot since he is best friends with Gabriella and we've started to teach her again since she still has a lot of questions about the church. 

Ahhhh I just love all of the people here in Colatina and it's so hard to see people stop progressing. Like, we've also been teaching Uanderson (13 years old) and his family. Uanderson and his uncle came to church a couple of weeks ago but haven't returned and we've visited Uanderson a few times and he was interviewed earlier this week, but the next day he got really discouraged and decided that he didn't want to be baptized anymore because he doesn't think he'll be able to stay firm in the church on his own and his family is kinda crazy :( Sister Hibauza cried a lot during the lesson and I almost cried because he said that the first day that he met me and Sister Alós he was really needing help and he said that God had sent two angels to his house to help him...

During our zone conference, the zone leaders shared a quote with us that I loved. Sorry it's in português: "Vocês missionários vieram até aqui para mudar o mundo, mudar vidas, mas há um custo. Exige colocar tudo que você tem sobre o altar de sacrifício - seus medos, seu orgulho, sua preguiça, sua desobediência, suas fraquezas; não podemos reter nada." Sei que realmente eu vim até aqui para fazer isso. Estou aprendendo muito e estou tentando de colocar tudo que tenho sobre o altar de sacrifício. Muitas vezes, eu tenho muita preguiça e muitas fraquezas e acho que não quero trabalhar mais, mas eu vim com um propósito e essas coisas não importam. Sei que tenho que esquecer de mim mesmo e ir para o trabalho.

Eu amo vocês!!!

Com amor,

<3 Sister Earls

Oh and sorry I'll have to send pics next week because we took all of the photos on Sister Hibauza's camera but the computer is being really slow and not reading her memory card :(

SÓ ARGENTINA!

Argentina loves me! My new companion is AWESOME! Sister Hibauza is adorable and beautiful and creative and super intelligent and hilarious and my third companion from ARGENTINA!

Sorry I'm running out of time again so I'm just gonna copy and paste what I sent to President Young...Sorry about my portuguese...

Esta semana foi muito boa. Só que a gente ficou um pouco desanimada ontem por causa de nossos pesquisadores. Tivemos 3 pessoas na igreja mas nenhuma delas foram as pessoas que realmente estavam progredindo e que estávamos esperando. Todas ela já tinham ido na igreja várias vezes mas não querem ser batizadas. As outras pessoas que estávamos ensinando e que tiveram datas não foram na igreja então ficamos muito tristes. Mas a gente vai tentar de criar um novo grupo de ensino e vamos cortar as pessoas que não realmente vão progredir por enquanto e tudo vai dar certo.

Eu amo minha companheira com todo meu coração. Sister Hibauza é um grande exemplo para mim e já estou aprendendo muito com ela. Ela está me ajudando com meu português e estou ajudando ela um pouco com inglês. Ela ensina muito bem e está me ajudando a ter mais confiança e a falar mais. Estou muito animada para trabalhar aqui em Colatina com ela.

Também, estou muito animada porque parece que os membros têm mais confiança na gente. Durante a semana passada, recebemos muitas referências e parece que as irmãs estão gostando muito da gente. Também, mais membros ofereceram sair conosco. 

Woohoo!!

Oh and I wanted to share a quote that has been helping me out a lot during the last month. 

"We acknowledge that your path will at times be difficult. But I give you this promise in the name of the Lord: rise up and follow in the footsteps of our Redeemer and Savior, and one day you will look back and be filled with eternal gratitude that you chose to trust the Atonement and its power to lift you up and give you strength." -President Dieter F. Uchtdorf

This quote was from one of the recent Ensign magazines and it really stuck in my head. I am truly grateful for the Atonement and the power it brings into our lives. I have truly learned on my mission how to apply the Atonement in my life and how to teach others how to apply the Atonement in their lives. Life is filled with difficult times, but I know that as we follow the path of the Savior, we are truly filled with more strength and He is able to help lift our burdens.

Eu amo vocês!!!

Com amor,

<3 Sister Earls

 

TCHAU Sister Alós! Haha this was the struggle because we live on the fifth floor and her cart thingy broke and we had to cross the bridge so we had to catch an ônibus and it took us like a half hour to get to the rodoviária but we arrived safely and just in time to catch our ônibus to Vitória (we only got a little sweaty haha)

 

I love transfers because I get to see all of my friends!!! And I get letters and packages! (Thanks mom!)

Sister Hibauza is obsessed with açaí também!

Sister Hibauza is the coolest and she knows about TOTORO! She loves that I'm asian hahaha

 

mais uma em colatina!

This week ended up being kind of frustrating since our baptisms fell through. Romário was super excited for his baptism until yesterday. When we went to pick him up at his house, he wasn't there and we tried calling him the entire morning but when he finally answered, he said that he had gone to his father's house and that his parents had convinced him to not be baptized anymore. Eduardo came to church but he is an eternal investigator and doesn't feel comfortable about being baptized. He likes the church and understands the lessons and he even likes seminary, but he has firmly said that he just wants to continue attending for now. 

Wanderson (13 years old) and his uncle José Paulo came to church too. We set a date for next Sunday for José Paulo and he seemed very excited. I marked parts of the Book of Mormon for him to read after church and when we saw him later that day, he had already read the Introduction and 2 Nephi 31! We're hoping that he will be able to continue to progress quickly. 

Sorry I attacked everyone with tons of photos! Even though the work this week was a little frustrating and stressful, we still had a ton of fun because Sister Alós hit her one year mark and we planned a super awesome party for Elder Verçoza's 20th birthday and Elder Simonsen's farewell. We even got members of their families to send videos and Elder Simonsen cried like a baby haha They both were super trunky.

Oh and transfers are this week. I'll be staying here in Colatina but Sister Alós has finally been transferred after 7 months in the same area. I'm super anxious about getting a new companion since I'm still kinda lost in this area, but I know everything will work out :)

Eu amo vocês!!!

Com amor,

<3 Sister Earls

 

We love Brasil!!!

 

Say hello to the fattest cat in the world haha

Elder Simonsen died...He'll be off to Florida tomorrow

Colatina is so pretty!

We helped our ward mission leader throw a surprise birthday party for his daughter :)

Sister Alós and I are basically the best party planners ever and everybody loved my cake :)

 

´MERICA

Oi meu povo!!

So many things went down this week! Sorry I sent so many pictures haha

Oh and HAPPY 4th of JULY!!! I actually got super trunky and homesick the night before the 4th because I really wanted to be at home and I realized it was the first time I wasn't with at least one member of my family for the 4th...But I had a pretty fun day and our zone leader is American and he called us and sang America the Beautiful for me even though he can't sing well so that made life a little better haha And we called him back that night and I sang the national anthem. It was pretty horrible since I can't sing well but oh well haha

I cannot believe that I hit my halfway point! The mission is going by so quickly and even though I definitely get homesick and trunky sometimes, I don't want my mission to end!

So we had a pretty great week. And we're hoping to have 2-3 baptisms during this last week of the transfer. We have three dates marked for this Sunday for Romário, Eduardo, and Thayná. Romário was taught a few months ago by some Elders and he was almost baptized but he ended up traveling that day and the Elders just dropped him. So we started teaching him again and he came to church yesterday and he was interviewed by Elder Verçoza and his only difficulty is with café but he has been drinking tea instead and he's pretty excited to be baptized. Eduardo and Thayná were taught by Sisters about a year ago but they never progressed. Thayná only went to church one time and she didn't really like it, but Eduardo went to church I think 3 times and he was even going to seminary and activities. He just never committed to be baptized. Thayná isn't really that firm but she committed to try to be baptized on the same day as her brother so we'll see if she makes it through this week without drinking coffee. Eduardo is keeping all of the commandments and he was interviewed yesterday and he understands everything really well so we're hoping that he won't just bail out at the last minute. Keep them in your prayers!

This week we had an amazing experience with another investigator. Her name is Viviane. We had gotten her address with her husband a couple of weeks ago and set up a return appointment, but we got lost and never found her house. During this past week, we stopped to make a phone call and we saw Viviane walking past us but she looked really sad and at first we didn't recognize her so we just started talking to her. We didn't realize it was Viviane until she started talking about her husband and the difficulties that she's been having. She started crying and saying that she didn't want to go home so Sister Alós told her that the church was close to us and that we could give her a tour. We showed her everything and she started crying even more in the church and we taught her and she said that she felt a huge peace in the building. It was one of the most spiritual moments on my mission. We visited her more during the week but she ended up moving this week to a part of our area that's kind of far and she wasn't able to come to church but we're hoping that she'll come this week since she committed to be baptized. Hopefully we'll see some progress there too :)

Eu amo vocês!!!

Com amor,

<3 Sister Earls

 

GUESS WHO HIT THEIR 9 MONTH MARK??? THIS SISTER MISSIONARY! Sister Alós made me an awesome cake to celebrate haha It was pretty funny though because we ran out of gas in our apartment and we both forgot so when we got home and Sister Alós started making the cake and left it in the oven and went to check on it after 20 min, it was only partially cooked so she ended up cooking it in the microwave hahaha But I ate it and it was pretty good and I didn't die and we gave the other half of it to the Elders so it worked out :) I know it's super weird to see pregnant photos but Sister Alós forced me to take my 9 month pictures so yeah...

 

AÇAÍ & SORVETE! We kinda went a little crazy to celebrate my 9 months and we ate everything we could think of haha

We even stopped for bread and coca-cola

Aaaannnd we ended the day with cheeseburgers at home even though we were stuffed haha

Just trying to patriotic on the 4th of July out here in Brasil...

Yesterday after church, there was a random group of people riding horses on the street...Brasil is cool