Week 17 I ate "Real" peanut butter this week!

aww...I’m so grateful for our amazing family!!! I got that small package from Danny with all the fam giving me advice!! I started to cry right then and there when I opened it and realized what it was...seriously kind of embarrassing because I started to cry a little bit in front of everyone in the secretario!! lol typical!! I wasn’t crying because I was sad, but because of how blessed I am and how grateful I am to have such an amazing family who loves and cares about me and that I can be with my family forever...How perfect is The Plan of Salvation..minha nossa!!!! haha seriously!!!

This week was good...a lot of hard work and a little stressful!! So we are starting a Resgate for our ward!! WE have over 500 members but an average frequencia of about 70. This past week we had 56 people at church!! it´s kind of sad!! BUT...this guy from the stake is seriously THE BOMB!! He is really intimidating but he is really fulfilling his calling...he is so spiritually strong and knows what he needs to do and how to do it in order to help this ala!!! BOOM...he is seriously an answer to our prayers! So yeah we have over 500 members and about 80 come every week, so our mission is to find out if the people in our ward are even still alive and or living in our area! A lot of the names and information that we have for people don’t even have an address!!...so yeah it´s kind of a daunting task to find these people that have barely any information to their name!! The problem is that not a lot of people do their visiting teaching or home teaching; like in the past 10 years! so this list is way outdated and a lot of people have moved or past away or just fallen away from the church because of the lack of support from the ward!!

but yeah so that one of the callings that we have now, to visit and find people in our ward, to see if they are still living in the address that we have in the ward records, or if they past away; its seriously so daunting to see the amount of work that we have to do (us and the members of our ward and stake)!!

Moroni 6:4-6: the importance of going to church every week!!!

This week we had 2 baptisms!!! Mônica and Ellen (mother and daughter) Mônica is the sister to Maria who was baptized last week!! They are seriously sooooo precious and so perfect!! I love them so much! Mônica said to me after her baptism `thank you so much, for everything, for helping me and my family have this new life` ...in these moments, where I can see and feel the pure happiness, joy, and love in the lives of these people, my brothers and sisters, all the hardships and the stress and the struggles just wash away! It is seriously hard to explain the joy that I feel and the happiness that I feel when I see someone that we found and taught through the guidance of the spirit, be baptized and be clean from sin and to have a new life to look forward to, with blessing and love and the holy ghost!! UGH I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!! It´s hard work, but the blessings are unlimited!! 

OH I ATE PEANUT BUTTER THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!!! REAL PEANUT BUTTER...it was Jiff but it was the closest thing to American peanut butter here so I enjoyed every minute of it!!! (I miss peanut butter and pretzels a lot)

Oh, I’m such a ding-a-ling!!1 seriously EVERYDAY I trip about 45267389542736489 times. Not just like aww man stubbed my toe, but like I go flying and of course my reaction is to scream `wooaahh`haha it´s just really funny at times!!

Gabriel: a kid that we met when we were walking past his house...I said Olá and he started to speak English to me and sister Trage ...haha is my accent that bad orrrr do you just like to speak English with whomever!! haha kind of funny...but yeah we are going to start teaching him this week! (he actually called us to let us know that he wouldn’t be home the time that we set up an appt. with him.... I was like HALELUJAH THANK YOU because NO one does that!!)

So I forgot that this week was Thanksgiving...Sister Rios called me and said Happy Thanksgiving to me and I was like uhhh today´s thanksgiving????!!! Haha  Hilarious, but  I just don’t have time to think about that other stuff...BUT NATAL (Christmas) WILL BE HARD FOR ME!!!! Todo munda has lights up and Christmas trees and ugh it´s just really trunky!!

I ate a mango off the ground yesterday (DREAMS COME TRUE)) and it was SOOOOO GOOD.

Have a great week!!

I’m reading 2 Nephi right now words of Isiah. In Portuguese. I’m just kinda lost and confused but oh well haha!! keep on reading the book of Mormon, it is true, I have no doubts! It is the word of God and it is perfect!!

LOVE YOU 

tchau

-sister talentino

-tell juliana and Lilly that I like cupuaçu :) 

Week 16 Tacos with Taco Bell sauce = Happiness

So this week was great, a ton of hard work!! WE had some ups and downs and a lot of lessons fall though, but with that it is so amazing to see the influence of the Lord in our daily work!! Seriously, something that I have been learning is to follow the little thoughts or feelings that I get to talk to someone or to do something!! Só vai...just go! Just go and do!! Sometimes the person doesn’t accept our invite or they are INSANE MOLHE, but that doesn’t matter because maybe they know someone and they will share their experience with them, or their family, or they will be ready for future missionaries, who know!! but something that I’m learning to do is just follow the spirit and to be an instrument in the hand of The Lord!! 

It´s a little frustrating sometimes when appt. falls through or a person doesn’t follow through with the compromissos that they make, but this is when I need to learn patience, amor, diligence...seriously I have learned so much! I love this gospel and I love the feelings I get when I know a person that I´m teaching understands and is feeling the spirit!! It´s hard to explain, but it is a feeling that I love and am so grateful to have these experience, good and bad!!

So this week we had BATISMO!!! WAHHOOOOOO MARIA!! she is seriously Eleita...I love her and her desire to really learn more and to search for the truth!! 

This week we talked with her and her family (her sister Mônica and her niece Ellen will be baptized this week) and Maria said that she wont be home this week (Thursday, Friday) because of meetings in the Interior...sister trage and I were like nooooo don’t leave, we need to meet with you so you don’t flake! ha-ha but seriously...Satan is a loser and he is always working to get people to move away from Christ and from doing the right thing!! So yeah Sister Trage and I were a little anxious!! So Friday we went to her house at night and Maria wasn’t there...NOOOOO...she works in the hospital so sometimes her schedule is crazy and she works through the night!! (for the past week and half we haven’t had credit so we couldn’t make any phone calls till Saturday) Saturday S.Trage and I had to go to the Institute here all day for a Job Fair that was there to get references and fazer contatas, so Saturday was a little difficult..BUT Maria went to the Fair and she was interviewed there to be baptized (MIRACLE) and the interview went so well she said and she said she was so excited to be baptized the next day (she also said that she went to her sisters house that lives in the interior and she said she almost stayed there so she wouldn’t have to be baptized...SATAN) haha I was like minha nossa thank you Heavenly Father for answering our prayers and helping Maria come back to Natal!!! but yeah, she is seriously so sweet, I love her and her family!! After she was baptized she started to cry, so I started to cry, and she said that she wants to share this experience with her family, she wants all her family to feel the way that she felt, and also her friends that we are teaching (Matheus and Emanuele)!!

The gospel is seriously such a blessing in all of our lives!! It´s seriously so amazing to see the difference in the face and eyes of people, the happiness that they have after we teach them the restored gospel, the spirit that they have through following the commandments, through poraçao through, the scriptures, through going to church!! The blessing that we can receive from God and limitless, all we have to do is have faith and to follow the counsel that he has given us!!

I am soooo HAPPY to be here in Natal!! I´m getting a little trunky thanks to all of the Christmas decorations...they don’t have anything here for Thanksgiving so it´s all just Christmas!! all the lights and decorations and minha nossa I love it all but I sinto saudade of snow.here it is getting more and more hot!!

I am so happy that I have this chance to help people come closer to Christ, to have an opportunity to have eternal families, to have TRUE AND PURE HAPPINESS AND LOVE in their lives!!

FUNNY STORY:

-during lunch in a members house the Irmã asked, `so I have 4 Brazilians in my house...?!?!?! AYYYEEEEEEE hahah she thought I was Brazilian HAHAH I was like umm não sou americana...she said oh well your Portuguese is really good for an American (smirk face)

-another situation happened like that again, sister trage and I made a contact with this guy in the street and he started to talk about something, and I responded with a scripture and I started to talk about attributes de cristo and amro and charity...depois the contact Sister Trage said hey, did you understand what he was saying..I said yeah most of it, why? she said that she had a hard time understanding and that she was happy that I said something cause she didn’t know what was going on..HAHAH GIFT OF TONGUES BABY!!!

-So sister trage and I met this family, but we haven’t taught them anything yet. So we passed by their house to teach them and to confirm another appt with them. When we got there, they were having a party for there son who turned 14 years old. We were like oh we´ll come back another day..but the dad (he is this big guy, like BIG muscyular Police guy) he is like no no no come in and sit down, we have bolo, comida, coke, please sit down!! S. Trage and I are like no no serio it´s okay we´ll come back tomorrow...KID YOU NOT, the dad (his name is Melquisedeque haha boira batizar)  he comes over and grabs my arm and puts me in a chair..hahah he siad no seriously sit down, them he hands me and sis. trage a plate of bolo and other treats!! hahah I was so scared (not really but just like umm idk what to do lol) The cake was SOOO GOOD though hahah so I was happy in the end that he literally forced us in to eat some cake!!

-but seriously...I love you all and I love this gospel!! 

2 Nephi 25:26 ( I think this is the scripture I'm thinking of)

-have a great week and I love you all!!!

-Sister Talentino