Monday, January 18, 2016

chuvaaaaaaaaa

This week was pretty fun! Sister Dodge had to go to the hospital last Monday night (on her birthday haha) because she partied a little too hard...Just kidding! She had a weird allergic reaction to something that she ate and she had had some weird rashes that started a couple of weeks ago. I think it kinda just got worse because of the heat and last Sunday during lunch she tried a really spicy pepper sauce for the first time and that was probably what caused the reaction to spread so quickly. So unfortunately, we lost a day of work on Tuesday because they gave her an injection to help with the allergic reaction and she could barely keep her eyes open to eat during lunch so Sister Young just told us to go home to let her rest. But she's all better now! She just had to keep taking a medicine that made her drowsy all week and I've had to help her apply a cream that's supposed to help with some of the more serious rashes. 

Gabriela was interviewed on Friday and she passed of course! We're just waiting for approval from her mom. We did fast yesterday with her and the bishop and his wife since Gabi wanted to try to fast after we taught her about tithing and fasting on Wednesday. And she thought it would help if we prayed for her mom to let her be baptized. So hopefully, with a lot of prayers and faith, she'll be baptized finally this week :)

We've been trying to find new people to teach but we haven't had much luck. Everyone keeps travelling and nobody has been coming to church - aside from our eternal investigators and Gabi. Oh but the other sisters here (Sister Barth and Sister Hernández) had a baptism on Saturday!

I'm super happy and I'm super grateful for the rain this week. It's actually cold enough that I'm wearing a cardigan haha

Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,
Sister Earls
 





 

Fé e Esperança

I'm running out of time but I still just wanted to send a quick email. This week was great and it's been super fun with Sister Dodge. We are working really hard and we have found some amazing people. We are trying to work a lot with some eternal investigators as well so if you can keep them in your prayers that would be great! Some names are: Roberto, Nayara, and Bruno :) Oh and Gabriela isn't an eternal investigator but her baptismal date fell through last week and she'll be interviewed on Wednesday and we will mark a new date with her so keep her in your prayers too :)

When I was doing my personal studies this morning, I read Elder Holland's talk from the most recent General Conference again because I love it. I especially love a part that he says at the end: "Be peaceful. Believe in God and yourself. You are doing better than you think you are." I know that every thing on my mission counts and that I can't waste the time and opportunities of service that I have. And even when I feel like I'm not doing enough, I really am doing better than I think I am. The Lord has trusted me to help Him do His work and I am so grateful to be a missionary :)

Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,
Sister Earls

Oh and today is Sister Dodge's birthday so we're gonna party because it's Pday! :D

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Vocês São Americanas?

So this week was pretty awesome! Tive uma experiência bem legal com O Livro de Mórmon também durante a semana com Sister Dodge. Estávamos batendo muitas portas num bairro e achamos uma família muito grande. Não todos eles moram na mesma casa mas eles moram em várias casa na mesma rua então começamos a ensinar todo mundo. Algumas moças da família (Melca e Valesca) ficaram bem interessadas e ficaram fazendo muitas perguntas sobre muitas doutrinas da igreja. Começamos a explicar sobre O Livro de Mórmon e elas perguntaram onde elas poderiam comprar :) Então explicamos que os livros são de graça e dei uma cópia para elas. Voltamos o dia seguinte e entregamos mais um livro e elas estavam com um amigo (Gabriel). Ele é da igreja Maranata mas ele ficou bem interessado também. E ele fala inglês quase fluentemente então ele gostou muito da gente e começou a conversar mais comigo e com Sister Dodge. Melca e Valesca visitaram a igreja ontem mas só podiam ficar durante a reunião sacramental. Elas gostaram e falaram que vão ir o próximo domingo também e que Gabriel quer visitar a igreja com elas! Melca tem 14 anos e Valesca só tem 11 mas elas são bem inteligentes. Queremos batizar elas mas temos que ver se a mãe delas quer ser batizada também. Já tentamos ensinar ela mas ela não queria visitar a igreja e não ficou tão interessada como as filhas, mas vamos tentar levar ela para igreja no dominga também. Gabriel tem 16 anos então com certeza queremos ensinar ele mais e batizar ele. 
 
I had a very nice experience with The Book of Mormon this week with Sister Dodge. We were knocking doors in a neighborhood and found a very large family. Not all of them live in the same house, but they live in different house on the same street so we started to teach everyone. Some family girls (Milcah and Valesca) were very interested and were asking lots of questions about many doctrines of the church. We started to explain about the Book of Mormon and they asked where they could buy :) So we explained that the books are free and gave a copy to them. We returned the next day and delivered over a book and they were with a friend (Gabriel). He is a member of the Maranatha church but he was quite interested as well. And he speaks English almost fluently so he liked the people and started talking over me and Sister Dodge. Milcah and Valesca came to church yesterday but could only stay for sacrament meeting. They liked it and said they'll go next Sunday as well and that Gabriel wants to come to church with them! Milcah is 14 and Valesca is only 11 but they are very intelligent. We want to baptize them but we have to see if their mother wants to be baptized as well. We've tried to teach her but she did not want to come to church and was not as interested as the daughters, but we will try to take her to church on Sunday too. Gabriel is 16 years old so we definitely want to teach him more and baptize him.

Está sendo muito legal com Sister Dodge. Ela já está falando português muito bem e estou tentando ajudar ela ensinar mais cada dia. Ela falou que está mais feliz aqui então fico muito feliz por isso. Quero muito ajudar ela :)
 
It's been very nice with Sister Dodge. She is already speaking Portuguese very well and I am trying to help her teach more every day. She said she's happier here so I'm very happy for that. I really want to help her :)
 
It's pretty funny because everyone always stops us on the street and asks us if we're Americans. I'm like yes, duh look at my companion (she is super white and has big blue eyes) but it's really funny and it makes it easier for us to do contacting and get addresses on the street. The people love us and our accents and our ability to speak English ;)

My birthday was awesome and the members were super happy that I stayed here in Estrelinha. I ate a ton of cake and the members who marked our lunch appointment made us a japanese food called Yakisoba. It was awesome. And I ate one of my favorite desserts here - pavê. And some members were going to buy us açaí at my favorite ice cream place but they ended up changing plans and bought a huge tub of super expensive ice cream and let us eat a ton and take the rest home haha So it was all good :)

And HAPPY NEW YEAR! This year was awesome. Haha we slept on the roof again and we watched some fireworks because there were a ton close to our house. It was awesome!

Eu amo vocês!

Com amor,
Sister Earls

Sorry I don't have any pics this week since my camera is broken and Sister Dodge's camera was broken. But she got a package this morning and it had a new camera in it so we'll be sure to take lots of pics!