Week 62 - Joaquim vs Jesus

Oi! 

I'm kinda mind blown on how fast this week went by. I'm going to be home before I know it 

Muitas palavras

Ok I don't know how Sister Lima does it, but somehow she uses a completely new vocabulary every day. Like, how many different words does one need to express yourself? A lot of our conversations go like this: 

Sister Lima: "Ugh, this is indignante."

Sister Wride: "Hm?"

SL: "This person is being indignante."

SW: "Huh? I don't understand what you're saying."

*pulls out google translate

SW: "What the? I don't even understand this word in English!"

SL: "You don't know the word indignante? How is that?"

SW: "Idk, I've never heard it before."

SL: "Here we are enrolando again."

SW: "Enrolando? I don't know that word either."

*pulls out google translate again

SW: "That doesn't make sense."

SL: "Well in Portuguese it makes sense! I don't know how to explain. It's just part of my culta."

SW: "Culta? What does that mean?"

Poor Sister Lima. She has to repeat herself like 200 times a day, I feel kinda bad. She has so much patience with me haha. 

Martha

Martha is super awesome! We found her a few weeks ago when her son Fabio sent in an online referral, and after we had a lesson with him, he agreed that we drop off a Book of Mormon. When we dropped it off, he wasn't home, but his mom Martha let us in, and although we were strangers, she totally opened up to us about all the things she's going through, how she just moved here and she doesn't have any good friends, how she's worried about her son hanging with the wrong kinds of friends, etc. She was crying and letting everything out, and we just sat and listened. When Fabio showed up, we gave him the Book of Mormon and shared a scripture with them. When explained a little more about what the Book of Mormon is, and Martha's countenance totally changed and her face lit up. She seemed super interested, so we gave her a copy too, and right away she marked the verse we shared with her and started flipping through it! 

She said she really wanted to learn more and come visit our church, but since then we haven't been able to set anything up. We've invited her to come to church the last couple of Sundays, but she hasn't been able to make it :/ 

Until this Sunday, she showed up at church! She came all by herself and didn't even let us know beforehand that she was coming. I was so happy!! There were only like 20 people in the church building and they didn't even have a pianist, but Martha loved it! She totally clicked with the other members and in Relief Society she fully participated and asked great questions, it was just perfect. Afterwards, she asked us "So how long does it usually take for someone to get baptized into this church?" 

Anyways, so Martha is pretty elect, we have a lesson set up for this week, so more on her to come :)

Joaquim

Another person we're teaching is a guy named Joaquim, who requested a Book of Mormon online. Joaquim loves learning, he has lots of questions, and he's cruising through the Book of Mormon, it's great! I thought he was pretty elect, but when Sister Lima got here, right away she wanted to stop teaching him. I was like "What? Why would we want to stop teaching someone who is keeping commitments?!" 

Sister Lima has felt that he's not someone who is worth our time to teach because he sometimes doesn't listen, and he still believes in the law of Moses. He's a very letter-of-the-law kind of guy. So we need to see where his real intentions are, if he's meeting with us just to learn, or if he really is humble and wants to follow Christ. So we decided that this next lesson we would either drop him, or put him on date for baptism. I was kinda anxious. 

We taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ, and things were going well, until we asked him "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?" And he straight up said 

"No."

I was just kind of shook. Like - what?!? How can you not believe in Jesus, especially someone who knows so much about the scriptures?? So apparently Joaquim thinks Jesus was just a cool prophet, but other than that, He has little or no significance to our lives. 

I've never felt defensive for the Savior like that before. Not in an upset way, I was just kind of shook. Like duh of course he's important! Haven't you read in the scriptures how he's mentioned like every other verse? (maybe he just reads the old testament, that might be why idk.) 

I asked him "So God gave us all laws and commandments, right?"

"Yeah!"

"Do you believe that they're easy to follow?" 

"Pretty much"

"Do you believe we're perfect at keeping them?"

"Well of course not!"

I then went on to explain how because of Adam and Eve we all sin, and because we sin we can't live with God, because nothing imperfect or unclean can dwell in his presence. Everything has a consequence, and every sin has a penalty. And so, in order to return to live with God, someone needs to pay the price for our sins. Jesus Christ suffered and died for each of us, and because he did so, we have the opportunity to repent. I bore my testimony to him about how much I need the Savior in my life, and how it's only through him that I can change. There are some things that I just can't do on my own. It is only through Christ that change is possible. I could feel the spirit buzzing inside me at that moment, I hope he felt something too. 

So Idk, we'll see what happens with him. He is really curious to know about our beliefs regarding life after death, so we're going to keep meeting with him for now. Joaquim may not be ready to accept the fullness of the gospel now, but I do know that us meeting with him has been a good thing. 

Sorry for the long email. Please let me know if you don't want to be on my email list anymore, because I would feel bad if I'm spamming you!!

Love you all!

- Sister Wride

Pics include:

- A nice man passed by us on the street and gave us lollipops

- lots of flowers we picked

- a sneek peek of our never ending ant problem

Week 61 - Return of the banana man

Oi todo mundo! 

This week was pretty good! We've been doing a good mix of being outside knocking doors, as well as finding people online. Except for yesterday, we stayed inside all day and I spent like 12 hours in front of a screen and my brain was so fried. Never want to do that again 

Muito quieto

The language is getting better, but for some reason I still find myself super quiet. Especially when we're not giving lessons, I just can't think of anything to say. Maybe it's because I'm a perfectionist, and I feel like I can't talk unless I plan out everything beforehand so I don't mess up. Or maybe it's because I'm in a foreign country and I don't know what's going on half the time. The mystery continues. 

Brazilian hot dog

There's this guy in our apartment complex who has a little hot dog stand and every day he's been asking us to buy some of his hot dogs. After like 2 months of avoiding it, we finally bought some hot dogs this week. Usually brazilian hot dogs are super fancy, topped with ground beef, mashed potatoes and batata pilha, but I think my expectations were too high. I don't know if it was the peas or the excessive amount of ketchup that got to me, but I couldn't finish it. (Picture attached)

Fátima

I mentioned Fátima a few weeks ago, but she was the lady who sent in an online referral, and on our first phone call we got talking about the gift of the holy ghost and invited her to be baptized. She said yes, but I think we kind of scared her after that because she stopped responding. We decided to call her one last time this week, and she answered! Then the next day she came to church with us, which was so amazing! She told us how she's visited a lot of churches in the past, but when she walked through those doors, she felt something different. We took a little tour of the church beforehand and although our buildings are very simple, the Spirit really touched her. She was telling us "This was not what I expected at all." She told us how she sent in her referral thinking it was for something else, but she knows now that God placed us in her path. It was cool. She even wanted to take a picture afterwards :) More on her to come! 

Dinho da banana

I don't know if you remember Dinho, but he was our friend who we started teaching from our sweet member friend Irmã Pêra who buys fruit from him. He was super receptive and gave us a ton of bananas, and then he confessed his feelings to Sister Leal and said he wanted to marry her, and since being rejected he kinda backed off and so we stopped teaching him. Well Irmã Pêra hasn't given up, so she invited him over for dinner and she invited us over at the same time, and we had a lesson with him! At first when Sister Lima heard about Dinho and was like "No way we're gonna teach him, he was just interested in Sister Leal" but now we've seen where his real desires are.

He has a ton of questions and is really concerned about the salvation of his soul and stuff, which is great! We invited him to come to church, and although he's super busy with his banana business, he said he would come!! 

Spiritual thought

This week I've been thinking a lot about the people we're teaching, and feeling sad for them when they don't want to hear about the gospel. Sometimes I wonder if they would see it for what it is if they grew up in the church like I did. I feel like I'm at an unfair advantage here. Does everyone really have an equal chance to accept Christs gospel?

Then I was reading in Moroni 7 - 

"16 For behold, the ^aSpirit of Christ is given to every ^bman, that he may ^cknow good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God.

17 But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do ^aevil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him."

Everything that comes from God is good, so when we choose to do good, we are choosing Christ! It isn't a one time event, but it's a choice we make every day. When we choose to be happy, when we choose to love each other, and when we choose to be better, we are choosing heaven! 

I love you all! If you made it this far, send me pictures of the fall trees, because I'm kinda bummed to be missing out. 

Remember to read your scriptures today!

- Sister Wride

Week 60 - Another weekly

Olá! Tudo bem?

This week was good! Sorry if in my other emails I sound like I'm depressed. I've gotten a few concerned emails from people asking if I'm doing ok, and I promise I am! (Thanks for the emails by the way <3) I honestly love it here! I've found that the most joy comes from little things, like the flowers that I collect from off the streets, homemade Brazilian food that I get to eat every day, insights I get from personal study, and sometimes I even like cold showers! I just don't write much about those little things. But yeah, I'll try to sound more positive, even when I think it's funny. 

Sister Lima is my new comp, and she's super sweet! It's always kinda weird getting used to a new companion and figuring out how their mind works. But things are good! I've mostly figured out her Rio accent. And my Portuguese is getting a lot better too! I've started reading the Book of Mormon in Portuguese and I even have had a few dreams in Portuguese!

We're teaching some good people too! There's this one guy we're teaching named Joaquim who loves learning. We gave him a Book of Mormon and right away he made a goal to read it for 30 mins a day! In our lesson with him, before we even said anything he started talking about family history and the scattered tribes of israel and stuff, which was pretty cool! Sister Lima wants to stop teaching him though because he doesn't believe in Adam and Eve. I have faith though! 

Also happy halloween the other day! To celebrate we made pumpkin cookies and did scary things like eating food out of a kitchen infested with ants. 

Remember to read your scriptures today!

Love you all!! Tchau!

- Sister Wride

Week 59 -

Alright, um starting to loose motivation for these emails. So here's a quick summary for this week: 

Sister Leal got transfered out, so I'm now leading the area, which is too bad because I'm directionally challenged without mountains and I still don't know where anything is. We're both lost

My new comp is Sister Lima and she's from Rio de Janeiro which is cool. She has a Rio accent so I don't understand what she's saying half of the time. 

Here we're only allowed to listen to official church music. I've been listening to the same mutual albums for the last 3 months and I can't take it anymore. I sure hope in the Celestial kingdom we can listen to music other than church music because if not, imma hop down to the telestial kingdom. Someone go listen to Bruno Major for me. 

Love you all!! Tchau!

- Sister Wride

Week 58 - Crashing a funeral

Oi pessoal!

I'm still out here. We've been working hard, eating good food, talking to lots of people, and having a good time. 

Ninguém veio à igreja, de novo

This week we invited a bunch of people to come to church, and there were some of them who were totally firm on coming. We reminded them the day before and the morning of, we offered rides, basically begging them to come. We even talked to them about how "You know, the devil is going to tempt you and tell you that you don't need to come to church. We don't want him to win this victory, now do we?" and they responded "Oh no no, of course not. I'll come for sure, don't worry." One guy even said that he was going to bring his whole family! I was so pumped, I was sure that we would have at least 7 people show up. And guess how many came?? Zeroooo!!! 

I know this isn't a unique thing for missionaries, but it was still kinda sad. 

Miracle phone call

We had a pretty awesome miracle happen this week. The other day we were inside messaging people when we got this phone call from a random number, (which doesn't ever happen.) A little confused, we answered it, and this guy says: 

"Oi! Remember me?" 

"Um... no?"

"About two months ago you guys left this book with me at the building where I work, and you gave me your number saying to call once I read it. So I finished it, and I loved it so much! And I have a question - Can I come visit your church?"

When we heard that we died. This guy read the entire Book of Mormon!! Oh his own!!! We were shook.

He went on to talk about how much he loved the book and how he wants to give one to his son too, and how he's already looked into our church online and how he really wants to come. Wow!! It goes to show that this really is Gods work. We can contact people all day, but when there's someone who's ready to hear the gospel, God places them right in our path.

Funeral

Yesterday we both felt like we should go visit Jardim Continential, a cute little town with lots of horses and chickens roaming around. Also lots of trash and lots of drunk people.

We had a list of people to try and visit but literally all of the addresses were wrong, so we ended up wandering around for like an hour. We don't really know how to street contact, and neither of us are assertive enough to knock doors, so it wasn't too productive.

But we did find one member named Maurico, who let us into their house. We waited outside of their little living room for a minute while he went to get something, and when Sister Leal peeked inside, her eyes widened and a look of horror fell across her face. She tried signaling to me what she saw, pointing and crossing her arms across her chest and I thought maybe it was someone without a shirt on?
Mauricio came back and took us into the living room, and then I saw it. Lying there in a coffin, was A LITERAL CORPSE!!

I was standing next to dead body! Apparently one of their family members died and they were holding a mini funeral right then. The coffin was open and I looked into it's face and I almost passed out. There were a bunch of people gathered who were crying and stuff and it was probably the weirdest thing to ever happen to me. It was cool though, they were saying how "God sent you here to comfort us" and we shared a message about the Plan of Salvation and passed around some pamphlets.

Compartilhar o evangelho é sempre uma coisa boa

I shared the gospel with our Uber driver today!! Usually when we ride Uber we stay quiet and don't talk much, because sometimes I feel weird to start talking to them. Today I felt like I should maybe talk to the driver, but I was like "eh", until the last 5 minutes when I finally asked "Você é de Campina Grande?" Then we started talking and he asked us where we're from (he thought I spoke pretty good Portuguese for only being here 2.5 months) and he was saying how we seem different, like there's a light about us. We were like "Yeah, it's the light of Christ!" Then we explained that we're missionaries and he asked us what our purpose is here, and we left our number and a restoration pamphlet an with him, it was great! Sharing the gospel really is a simple thing. God works his miracles through imperfect people, but only when we open up our mouth.  

Anyways so I invite you to share the gospel with someone this week! It can be as simple as a text, but it makes all the difference!

Amo vocês! Remember to read your scriptures today!

- Sister Wride

Week 57 - DIY helicopter 🚁

Oi pessoal!

This week was good. We worked hard and contacted like 200 people, visited some of our recent converts, had a few lessons... The usual. We contact lots of people, set up lessons, the lessons fall through, they stop responding so we stop teaching them, we find new people, then all over again. Nothing too interesting, but I'm happy

Brazilian food is so good! We ate feijoada the other day (bean soup stuff with mystery meat on rice) and it made me really sick afterwards but it was worth it. Vale a pena. 

Sorry for the short email. Remember to read your scriptures today!! It's super important!! If you need a suggestion go real Alma 32 :)

Amo vocês!! 

- Sister Wride 

Photos include:

- Brazilian food 

- Another pic of the district

- More pictures of little houses because I think they're so cute 

- A homemade helicopter

Week 56 - No more bananas

Oi pessoal! Como vai? 

I hope you all liked conference! If you haven't watched all of it yet, go watch it!!! 

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/broadcasts?lang=por 

This week was pretty decent. Here are some highlights:

- We out on the street and this guy walked up to us calling us all kinds of swear words and he almost threw a broom at my head.

- We got a Book of Mormon online referral and the guy actually wanted it! Wooo! He seems super solid and he even watched conference! 

- Eduarda also watched conference with us and she enjoyed it!

- Our friend Dinho confessed his feelings to Sister Leal saying he wants to marry her and when she told him it wasn't gonna happen, he stopped responding to us. I guess we won't be getting free bananas anymore :'( This is the 4th time on my mission that an investigator confessed his feelings, and can I just say, why is it always to my companion and not me?? 

Also I'm pretty sure our apartment causes depression. There are some days where I wake up and I'm just so depressed, with no real reason why. I get annoyed at the smallest things and I feel like I'm a failure missionary and it just sucks. But after watching conference, I remembered
that I can choose to be happy, no matter my circumstances! I realized that's it not always easy like flipping a switch, but it often takes effort. It's not easy to get out of a miserable mindset, but when I repent and try to be just 1% better, I'm so much happier!

Amo vocês!! Tchau tchau 

- Sister Wride

Pictures!

1. The pizza on the left is straight up cheeze with nutella. It wasn't that good but I ate like half of it. 

2. District council

3. P-day Bowling

4. Meme

5. Sister Leal made "pancakes"

6. Cool flower