NATAL(IE) IN BRAZIL: Week 19 - Natal MIssion Conference

Natal Mission Conference December 2015

Natalie walking the streets of Natal!

Haha I got grandmother´s card... I was like what am I gonna do with 10 dollars, but it´s always nice to get a letter!!:) tell her I love her and thank you so much for the written letter and the smile that I had that day because of her love!! The fam is lookin GOOODDDD...so do Del and Karl! the two pics that you sent after the Star Wars movie and the Cleveland orchestra didn’t show up!!

For skype, what time is best for you guys? We have a place already to go, but I don’t know what time is best!! We were talking about 3, 4 in the trade!! but let me know what´s best for you guys!!!

Forget the measuring cups hahah...I’ll look for some here!! (Mom note: Natalie asked me to send measuring cups to her. The $4.00 measuring cups would cost me over $20.00 to send to Brazil and take over 4 weeks. Needless to say I told her I'd put money in her account to buy them in Brazil!)

This week was a little average...I always feel like I can do more!! Our Heavenly Father blesses us so much its ridiculous!! Sister Trage and I are really nervous for transferências this week!! I love her...we work really well together and we have so many metas for our area and our ala its just like please don’t transfer us!!

This past week we had Conferencia de Natal...ALL THE MISSIONARIES IN NATAL MET IN ALECRIM!!! IT was sooo awesome!! The treinamento, the talks, everything was just sooo good!!! We had a treinamento from the assistentes about how important it is for our pesquisadores to go to church and how each day we need to give them compromissos to help their faith develop and for them to be mais proximo to our heavenly father!! With each compromisso that they do, they are growing more in faith!! so we were talking about how important it is for our investigators to understand the importancia of going to church each week to partake of the sacrament and to remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ!! We, as missionaries, need to EVERYTHING we can to get them to go to church with us on Sunday....This is a hard task because EVERYONE goes to the beach (it´s like 5 min from here) and everyone likes to sleep and the capela is far away from our area...BUT as missionaries we need to do EVERYTHING POSSIBLE!!! sometimes I’m like I wish I could literally drag there people from their bed to church, but everyone has their agency (UGH!!!!) ha-ha but ya it was awesome!! I saw Sister Coelho. She goes home this week...a lot of tears were shed haha!! (typical)

BATISMO this week: Luiz Neto!! He´s seriously sooo perfect!!! his family is a little closed hearted towards us, but he will be the light and example for his family!!!

This week we marked baptism with Edivânha..she´s 21 yrs. old and has a 4-year-old and the first time we met her she was really drunk so we returned to her house and she wasn’t drunk (yahoo). She talked with the gente and she´s had a rough life...but we told her that all her sins and the sadness and the hard times in her life can be taken away because of the Sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ! And that she can be clean from sin through baptism!! She actually brought up baptism first, she asked us if her daughter her needed to be baptized! We said no, but you do...lol...not really like that but em fim...later in the week we went back and she was dunk again and she said that her sister (she lives with her sister) doesn’t like our religion and that she wont go to church with us or be baptized!! ugh I WAS LIKE NOOOOOO PLEASE DONT SAY THAT...my heart was broken!! there wasn’t much we could do because I don’t think that she even would remember us taking to her the next day!! Sister trage and I left. I was really sad, but I kept saying to myself that I need to smile and be happy cause this gospel is so perfect and that I need to get over it and find the next person that needs this gospel! Literally when I thought that, I looked up and boom, Lenilson... 22 yrs. old that is just so legit and bubbly and happy! He showed us his new bible that he bought the other day and he was so proud of it hahah!! He didn’t go to church but we´re going to visit him this week!

Yesterday after lunch sister Trage and I were heading back into our area (our lunch was in the area of the other sisters) and we were like alright, we need new people to teach! So we prayed and we asked to find new people that wouldn’t be flaky and that were really ready to receive the gospel and that lived in a condominium and that needed to hear our message that day!!...We crossed the street and Sister Trage hit the call button for an apt. to a condo...someone answered and em fim it didn’t work out. So we turned and started to walk away. After about 3 minutes of walking sister Trage was like, bora voltar...haha so we returned and she started to press all the call buttons. Finally, the last apt., this rapaz answered! em fim he invited us up....haha I was like umm my mom taught me to not enter a stranger’s apartment, but all well cause the Lord will bless and protect us haha!! We taught this rapaz (his name is really strange I don’t remember) the plan of salvation because he just had a lot of questions about it since his brother passed away 2 months ago...it is just so amazing to know that we are servants to our Heavenly Father and he will always help us when we ask for it in humility!!

This week was good but I´m excited to work more this week! I just feel more edificado when I do all that I can do, but I still know that I can do more!! (makes sense?)

I love being a missionary!! The happiness and joy that I feel when I see the changes in the lives of the people that we´re teaching!! Such a privilege to be a missionary!!

-LOVE YOU SOOO MUCH!!!!

FELIZ NATAL!!!

Luiz Neto's Baptism