OI familia e meu Amigos!! Como vai sua semana e da vida de voces?!! So thanks for the wonderful e-mails mom dad and Jeremy! oh send a thanks to Diane Hunter for me for the sweet e-mail she sent. So I think I lost her address could you ask her for her address. Sorry I seriously think I´ll stop asking for things. But thanks so much for Khyrstynes address and the battery!! bah you have no Idea how much that will help out!!
ok so as for my life here in Brazil. I´m not so sure I´ll have the time to reply to your e-mails because of the time contrants but no worries soon enough I will e-mail you guys personally and maybe write you a letter! bah life is just always on a run! serously this past transfer has flown by! and guess what also? I hit my halfway mark Wednesday... not so sure I like that idea. Just a little stressful you know! haha only becuase I have 9 months to get portuguese down and really finish up my work here in Brazil. Don´t want to go home forgetting anything! haha ok enough with the trunkyness. Bah 9 months can you believe it? ok so news about this next transfer! so guess what!! I´m sticking around here in Fragata! you have no idea how excited I am! But the down side... I won´t be companions with Sister Daniele... Super super sad... But even better! So to explain things more clearly the ward I´m in has a set of sisters and Elders. SO with the changes now guess what? THe elders are getting switched for sisters! can you believe that? To be honest sister Daniele and I are pretty sad about this. Elder Nascimento and Wood are super cool and both of them are getting transfered. SO yeah sister Daniele is sticking around also so that will be nice to have her around. She is going to train a new sister from the Bahia and well is a huge mystery who my new comp will be. Everyone is saying that I will be a senior comp this transfer... yup I have dinosaurs in my stomach and a trillion things in my head. So yeah it should be interesting! oh us four sisters will be in the same apartment. haha this really will be a fun transfer... hehe I´ll keep you posted! oh and also our District Leader is getting tranfered to Agronomia!! He will be comps with the Zone leader there. Cool huh? He will totally baptize Lisandra and Gilmar! SO yeah thats about it with the changes here! I have a bit of mixed feelings but you know what the lords hands are definately in all of this and I will keep smiling and just living the mission up! oh last thing about tranfers I´ll be working in the area of Elders... so yeah it will be kinda like opening a new area. I told them they need to write everything down about their area if they want their investigators baptized. haha oh gotta love transfers.
So now that I´ve takin a year to explain transfers I will talk about something else! haha so Jorge is getting baptized this week! he was going to get baptized tomorrow but with tranfers it wont happen because I´ll be hanging out with one of the members of the relief society all day waiting for sister Daniele and the new two sisters to arrive which will be about 8pm when they come back. SO yeah most likely will be Wednesday! SO yeah we are pretty excited about it all! I´ll send pictures next week of the baptism for sure! so this past week we met a super amazing lady. Leila. She is about 70 something and is getting baptized! She is definately an elect. We ran into her the other day when we knocked on the door of another investigator in the same apartment building. our investigator ended up not being home so we talked to Leila and asked if she would like to hear our message right then. She said yes and invited us to come in her home. we taught her the first lesson and was pretty much the most spiritual lesson I´ve taught for sure. She paid attention to practially every word and when it came down to when we invited her to follow the example of Jesus christ and be baptized by proper priesthood authority she reply with the coolest amazing answer. ``How do I prepare for this?`` I about freaked out with happiness when she said this. We explained everything how we would teach her more and she would feel ready on September 24. so yeah she will definatly get baptized. oh she came to church yesterday how cool is that?! well my time is running out but do know that I love you all and think of you all often! Congrats Bryson and Mickelle with the baby girl!! Love the name Lilly ann! Sorry if i spelled it wrong...
Well Boa Semana!!
Eu te Amo!
-SIster Gregory
Monday, September 12, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
So I hope you all love the pictures I sent to ya! I´ll try to send pictures home more often so you know that I´m not just messing around here in Brazil!
SO first of before I forget. Mom could you e-mail me the lion house recipe for rolls, cinnamon rolls, and orange rolls? I´m pretty sure I have the recipe for cinnamon rolls and orangle rolls in my recipe book. Oh also a great recipe for pancakes? thanks so much! I keep telling Sister Daniele about cinnamon rolls and so now I´ve really got to make them and let her try them! oh also if you feel up to it I´ve been cravind dried mangos from costco... Just when you feel up to it and it doesn´t cost a fortune send some my way... sorry i ask for so much...
ok onto the mission life! SO guess what! Dara was baptized this past friday! can you believe it? Everyone thought she would never have permission to get baptised and after an amazing spiritual lesson with Dara, her mom, the young womens president, and some young women from the ward her mom was super open minded and said... YES!! bah you have no idea how excited we were. everyone was in tears. Bah it was truely a miracle. Sister Daniele along with our district have been fasting every sunday for miracles and for our investigators to progress and to just find the elect here in pelotas and guess what? the lord is truely answering our prayers daily. Bah it blows my mind daily! I serously just laugh like crazy when we find a golden investigator or experience another experience where the lord's hand is truely in our lives. man we are definantley blessed here in fragata. i thought Agronomia was the best area but nope. its here in fragata! haha no really I´ve learned that obedience is really the key to all the blesssings we´ve recieved this transfer. SIster Daniele and I have a goal to be exactly obedient and boy have we been blessed. i really truely blows my mind. Just this week alone we found two families. two super golden families. one is getting baptized sep 3 and the other is getting baptized sep. 8. bah I just love being a missionary and how the Lord really truely answers every prayer. so about the language question yall asked. So my language is improving a lot but I still get fustrated. but hey my testimony of why I´m here in brazil and why I´m learning a new language grew ten folds this week. this past friday I was a bit frustrated with the language and really just wasn´t loving the freezing cold breeze and the rain and well everyone telling me that i don´t talk or how they don´t understand one word coming out of my mouth. Well I caught myself in all this sadness and said a prayer and just asked for things could turn around so I could make it to the baptizm that night with a smile on my face. Well guess what? soon after this prayer of mine we taught Henrrique and his parents. They are such an amazing family! so Henrrique is 13 and just loves the church and all the activities. one of his friends intruduced us to this family. well when we were teachign them a thought came into my head that I never thought about. Well i have but it wasn´t as clearly as this time was. THe thought was `I am here in brazil learning portuguese so this family. can hear about the gospel.so they can be sealed for time and all eternity in the house of the lord. so they can have happiness in this life and the life to come` bah this has never hit me so hard on the mission but I couldn´t be more happy to be a missionary learning portuguese! I feel so blessed to be able to continue my mission here in brazil. the language will come soon!
well good luck with school! ANd kristina goodluck with moving out! you´ll love the social life there in provo! just don´t get married anytime soon ok? Love ya!! Mckenna have a blast this year in school ok and really if you're lonely just send me a e-mail!
HAPPY ANIVERSARY MOM and DAD!! Love you all!
have a wonderful amazing week!
love ya´ll
sister gregory
Monday, August 8, 2011
Great Area & New Comp, Tornado in Brazil - well almost!!
OI Familia!!
OI tudo bem? como foi sua semana e coises la Utah? ok so you all asked about my new area and comp and well just questions about what happened this past week. So here I go! I´ll explain everything! So guess what! I´m in the Zone Pelotas. Its a pretty big city here in Rio Grande de Sul. And i am currently serving in Fragata North. And you know whats even cooler? I´m opening the area for sisters with Sister Daniele! Cool huh? Crazy and alot of pressure but so far this week has been great! I was super sad about leaving Agronomia but you know what? I just might like this new area just as much or better than Agronomia. So a little bit about my companion! She is from Manus. SO way northern brazil. When people think of brazil ( dirt roads, trees, Amazon river, etc.) Manus is where all of this is! haha but yeah she says she doesn´t live in a tree or anything like that but her house is above the water. Google Manus, Brazil and you´ll get a better picture.But yeah she is super cool! Super happy and just ready to work like crazy! her and I have the same amount of time in the mission. So yeah just about 8 months. Crazy huh? if I went straight to the Sao Paulo MTC I would have totally seen her. But yeah she is a super great missionary and reminds me a lot of Sister Bee so yeah I´m thinking this transfer will be a great one! She is also helping alot with the language. One of her goals in life is to learn english so I am learning how to teach english! With sister Modesto we didn´t have the time for language study because here in the mission your first two transfers in the mission are training so you have two hours for comp study which leaves no time for language. So yeah we now have time for language! haha ok any who Sister Daniele is amazing and we are already witnessing miracles daily together. Really blows me away! So yeah about my area. Sister Daniele & I are opening the area of Fragata North for sisters. There hasn´t been sisters in this area for quite awhile. So yeah its kinda cool to think about but quite the work trying to find new people. The Elders that were here before us left a few great investigators for us but between study, making 15 contacts each day, hour or two lunches and going back to the apartment before the sun goes down is a little tricky. Soon enough we´ll get this schedule down! oh you want to know something quite interesting or should I say disgusting? So since the area was for elders before we came we now have the elders' apartment. SO that only means one thing. Our apartment looked like a tornado hit it! And I am not kidding when I say a tornado hit it! It was disguting! When the Elders helped us with our luggage and brought us to our apartment to show us everything I was in shock. I couldn´t say anything. For about the first 10 min I thought it was a joke! There was garbage everywhere! The bathroom was horrible. clothes everywhere and well everything was scattered everywhere! haha man it was a mess! the only thing clean was the dishes. One of the elders living there would clean the dishes each day but thats about it! haha but I guess what can you expect with four 19 year old elders living in one apartment? SO yeah we spent the night cleaning so we could go to bed and then in the morning study. We didn´t get to bed till about 2 in morning. Yeah I know we broke a rule but there was no way I was going to bed in a tornado. haha SO yeah now things are just lovely in our apartment! We spent any time we could the first three days here cleaning. I´ll have to send a video sister Daniele made on her camera to you guys next week. haha oh man it was gross! but like I said things are just lovely now! SO yeah the ward here is amazing! The members help a lot with the mission work and the bishop is such a great help as well! I really am going to like this area! oh also we share the ward with elders also. So in this ward we have me and my comp and elder Nacimento and Elder Wood. Elder Nacimento is from the Bahia or something like that. When people think of brazilians of super laid back and just want to sleep and chill at the beach your thinking of the Bahia. Everyone here makes Bahia jokes left and right with Elder Nacimento. But he is a really get missionary. He is currently training Elder Wood from Brigham Utah or something like that. This is Elder Wood's second transfer here in brazil and speaks really great portuguese! So yeah this week we really witnessed some great miracles here in Fragata. I am really loving this area. We´ve been trying to contact the people that the elders in the past made contacts on the street. IN our Area book we have a lot of people that need to be visited so yeah we´ve been doing that this week and found so many great people! Just yesterday we met Mayara. She is 19 years old and was being taught by the missionaries awhile back but the missonaries stopped teaching her for some reason. Well when we were teaching the first lesson to her randomly her younger brother Pablo walked over to us. Sister Daniele and I thought he would just say hi and leave but nope he stayed for th entire lesson. It was pretty cool because the second he entered and stopped to listen to the lesson the spirit was pretty strong. It was like we were meant to teach Mayara so we could teach pablo. He is super cool. he is 18 years old and seems really interested! the elders have a baptism this friday that Pablo said he would go to and along with church on sunday! cool huh? SO yeah things are turing around! I have a pretty great feeling that here in Fragata the sisters will show the Elders how its done! haha but no really daily we are finding such prepared people here for the gospel. It is such an amazing thing to witness! I know with out a doubt that I am in the right place!
Well thats about it for my e-mail. Thanks so much for all your e-mails! loved them all!
ok so I took my violin to get fixed and well I´m not really sure people here know much about the violin. I got my bridge put back in place but the post inside my violin is still rolling around inside the violin. The person here said that he has never seen anything like this before but he is pretty positive that it should be alright. my pegs are super stiff and the same person said that is was no problem but if I want I could pay for him to put some fine toners on for all the strings. and well my bow he said was perfectly fine. yup I´m just a little worried. Mom could you ask around about my violin again? I try to explain in my broken portuguese about what you told me but everyone just looks at me funny and says that my bow and everything is just fine. So yeah just ask if how my violin is right now will effect my violin and the sound if I don´t get it fixed. Sorry to keep bothering you with the violin but thanks so so much!
next week I´ll try better with sharing more mission experieces I promise! Love you all! Boa Semana!
-Sister Gregory!
OI tudo bem? como foi sua semana e coises la Utah? ok so you all asked about my new area and comp and well just questions about what happened this past week. So here I go! I´ll explain everything! So guess what! I´m in the Zone Pelotas. Its a pretty big city here in Rio Grande de Sul. And i am currently serving in Fragata North. And you know whats even cooler? I´m opening the area for sisters with Sister Daniele! Cool huh? Crazy and alot of pressure but so far this week has been great! I was super sad about leaving Agronomia but you know what? I just might like this new area just as much or better than Agronomia. So a little bit about my companion! She is from Manus. SO way northern brazil. When people think of brazil ( dirt roads, trees, Amazon river, etc.) Manus is where all of this is! haha but yeah she says she doesn´t live in a tree or anything like that but her house is above the water. Google Manus, Brazil and you´ll get a better picture.But yeah she is super cool! Super happy and just ready to work like crazy! her and I have the same amount of time in the mission. So yeah just about 8 months. Crazy huh? if I went straight to the Sao Paulo MTC I would have totally seen her. But yeah she is a super great missionary and reminds me a lot of Sister Bee so yeah I´m thinking this transfer will be a great one! She is also helping alot with the language. One of her goals in life is to learn english so I am learning how to teach english! With sister Modesto we didn´t have the time for language study because here in the mission your first two transfers in the mission are training so you have two hours for comp study which leaves no time for language. So yeah we now have time for language! haha ok any who Sister Daniele is amazing and we are already witnessing miracles daily together. Really blows me away! So yeah about my area. Sister Daniele & I are opening the area of Fragata North for sisters. There hasn´t been sisters in this area for quite awhile. So yeah its kinda cool to think about but quite the work trying to find new people. The Elders that were here before us left a few great investigators for us but between study, making 15 contacts each day, hour or two lunches and going back to the apartment before the sun goes down is a little tricky. Soon enough we´ll get this schedule down! oh you want to know something quite interesting or should I say disgusting? So since the area was for elders before we came we now have the elders' apartment. SO that only means one thing. Our apartment looked like a tornado hit it! And I am not kidding when I say a tornado hit it! It was disguting! When the Elders helped us with our luggage and brought us to our apartment to show us everything I was in shock. I couldn´t say anything. For about the first 10 min I thought it was a joke! There was garbage everywhere! The bathroom was horrible. clothes everywhere and well everything was scattered everywhere! haha man it was a mess! the only thing clean was the dishes. One of the elders living there would clean the dishes each day but thats about it! haha but I guess what can you expect with four 19 year old elders living in one apartment? SO yeah we spent the night cleaning so we could go to bed and then in the morning study. We didn´t get to bed till about 2 in morning. Yeah I know we broke a rule but there was no way I was going to bed in a tornado. haha SO yeah now things are just lovely in our apartment! We spent any time we could the first three days here cleaning. I´ll have to send a video sister Daniele made on her camera to you guys next week. haha oh man it was gross! but like I said things are just lovely now! SO yeah the ward here is amazing! The members help a lot with the mission work and the bishop is such a great help as well! I really am going to like this area! oh also we share the ward with elders also. So in this ward we have me and my comp and elder Nacimento and Elder Wood. Elder Nacimento is from the Bahia or something like that. When people think of brazilians of super laid back and just want to sleep and chill at the beach your thinking of the Bahia. Everyone here makes Bahia jokes left and right with Elder Nacimento. But he is a really get missionary. He is currently training Elder Wood from Brigham Utah or something like that. This is Elder Wood's second transfer here in brazil and speaks really great portuguese! So yeah this week we really witnessed some great miracles here in Fragata. I am really loving this area. We´ve been trying to contact the people that the elders in the past made contacts on the street. IN our Area book we have a lot of people that need to be visited so yeah we´ve been doing that this week and found so many great people! Just yesterday we met Mayara. She is 19 years old and was being taught by the missionaries awhile back but the missonaries stopped teaching her for some reason. Well when we were teaching the first lesson to her randomly her younger brother Pablo walked over to us. Sister Daniele and I thought he would just say hi and leave but nope he stayed for th entire lesson. It was pretty cool because the second he entered and stopped to listen to the lesson the spirit was pretty strong. It was like we were meant to teach Mayara so we could teach pablo. He is super cool. he is 18 years old and seems really interested! the elders have a baptism this friday that Pablo said he would go to and along with church on sunday! cool huh? SO yeah things are turing around! I have a pretty great feeling that here in Fragata the sisters will show the Elders how its done! haha but no really daily we are finding such prepared people here for the gospel. It is such an amazing thing to witness! I know with out a doubt that I am in the right place!
Well thats about it for my e-mail. Thanks so much for all your e-mails! loved them all!
ok so I took my violin to get fixed and well I´m not really sure people here know much about the violin. I got my bridge put back in place but the post inside my violin is still rolling around inside the violin. The person here said that he has never seen anything like this before but he is pretty positive that it should be alright. my pegs are super stiff and the same person said that is was no problem but if I want I could pay for him to put some fine toners on for all the strings. and well my bow he said was perfectly fine. yup I´m just a little worried. Mom could you ask around about my violin again? I try to explain in my broken portuguese about what you told me but everyone just looks at me funny and says that my bow and everything is just fine. So yeah just ask if how my violin is right now will effect my violin and the sound if I don´t get it fixed. Sorry to keep bothering you with the violin but thanks so so much!
next week I´ll try better with sharing more mission experieces I promise! Love you all! Boa Semana!
-Sister Gregory!
Monday, July 11, 2011
Warmer Weather & Birthday!
WEll hello everyone!!
So guess what it my birthday and guess where I am? oh you guessed it right! I´m in Brazil and guess what´s even better? its getting warm here! I didn´t have to wear my coat today! I really think the weather here is more Bi-Polar than Utah. Its so crazy!! I was thinking about a week or so ago that my birthday would be the coldest I´ve ever had to have on my birthday but nope! Its warm, the sun is out and I´m loving being a missionary!! So for my birthday today so far Sister Modesto surprised me by making some yummy brownies, got some balloons! I love balloons!, a happy birthday sign, earrings, and hello kitty stickers! haha she is so funny! but yeah my birthday has really been pretty great so far. Its been nice that its p-day and all. Get to relax a bit and write letters, finally do my hair. For lunch we made a really yummy lasagna caserole thing. Super good. I´ll send the recipe to ya someday. And then tonight we are going to finish up our contacts and watch the legacy with some members! And thanks so much daddy! I´ll take you up on the offer of buying dinner! Tonight we´ll have pizza, brownies, ice cream and soda! Feel free to do the same back at home and picture me at the table or something and I´ll do the same with ya´ll and it will be like we celebrated my birthday together!! haha but yeah thanks so so much for all the Birthday wishes everyone! I´ll try my best to reply to your letters today or next week! love you all! OH sister swenson called me today to wish me happy birthday and guess what! I got another package! Thanks to who ever it is from!
ok so about this week. So to be honest things are a little on the rough side this week. The weather was pretty cold and for the past two sundays none of our investigators came to church. But the sun finally came up saturday evening and we had a follow up appointment with one of our new investigators fatima. So sad story. We had planned to meet with her friday evening but when we stopped by her house her son said that she wasn´t home. SIster Modesto thought she was in the house but didn´t want to meet with us anymore. IT didn´t make sense because the first time we met with her things really went really well! She wanted us to come back that week and she said she´d make us some tea and banana cake. Sounds gross but its actually pretty good! Well anyways we found out saturday night that she thought we were coming by friday afternoon and not the night. And we found out that both her and her son Alexandre read the restoration pamphlet, prayed about it, and got an answer! They want to learn more! They are so getting a baptism invite this week! haha man its crazy how at times things are pretty tough but things change and the well the sun actually does come up! So amazing!
Well I´ve kinda lost my train of thought... oh glad Ya´ll had fun reading my umbrella story! haha it was pretty fun writing about it. And no I havn´t bought a new one yet. I´ll probably buy one next p-day when we go to the city. oh before I forget. Mom I think my violin is getting a little affected by the humidity here. My bow is looking a little strange... What did sister shippin say or someone say would happen to my violin and bow in the humidity? I´m just a little nervous about my violin getting destroyed here.
Well I better run but thank you all for the amazing birthday wishes! love you all! oh I almost forgot. HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICCA ON THIS PAST SATURDAY!! I hope it was the best 18th birthday you´ve ever had! Love ya nick!!
Well love you all! Ate logo!! EU TE AMO!!
-sister Gregory
So guess what it my birthday and guess where I am? oh you guessed it right! I´m in Brazil and guess what´s even better? its getting warm here! I didn´t have to wear my coat today! I really think the weather here is more Bi-Polar than Utah. Its so crazy!! I was thinking about a week or so ago that my birthday would be the coldest I´ve ever had to have on my birthday but nope! Its warm, the sun is out and I´m loving being a missionary!! So for my birthday today so far Sister Modesto surprised me by making some yummy brownies, got some balloons! I love balloons!, a happy birthday sign, earrings, and hello kitty stickers! haha she is so funny! but yeah my birthday has really been pretty great so far. Its been nice that its p-day and all. Get to relax a bit and write letters, finally do my hair. For lunch we made a really yummy lasagna caserole thing. Super good. I´ll send the recipe to ya someday. And then tonight we are going to finish up our contacts and watch the legacy with some members! And thanks so much daddy! I´ll take you up on the offer of buying dinner! Tonight we´ll have pizza, brownies, ice cream and soda! Feel free to do the same back at home and picture me at the table or something and I´ll do the same with ya´ll and it will be like we celebrated my birthday together!! haha but yeah thanks so so much for all the Birthday wishes everyone! I´ll try my best to reply to your letters today or next week! love you all! OH sister swenson called me today to wish me happy birthday and guess what! I got another package! Thanks to who ever it is from!
ok so about this week. So to be honest things are a little on the rough side this week. The weather was pretty cold and for the past two sundays none of our investigators came to church. But the sun finally came up saturday evening and we had a follow up appointment with one of our new investigators fatima. So sad story. We had planned to meet with her friday evening but when we stopped by her house her son said that she wasn´t home. SIster Modesto thought she was in the house but didn´t want to meet with us anymore. IT didn´t make sense because the first time we met with her things really went really well! She wanted us to come back that week and she said she´d make us some tea and banana cake. Sounds gross but its actually pretty good! Well anyways we found out saturday night that she thought we were coming by friday afternoon and not the night. And we found out that both her and her son Alexandre read the restoration pamphlet, prayed about it, and got an answer! They want to learn more! They are so getting a baptism invite this week! haha man its crazy how at times things are pretty tough but things change and the well the sun actually does come up! So amazing!
Well I´ve kinda lost my train of thought... oh glad Ya´ll had fun reading my umbrella story! haha it was pretty fun writing about it. And no I havn´t bought a new one yet. I´ll probably buy one next p-day when we go to the city. oh before I forget. Mom I think my violin is getting a little affected by the humidity here. My bow is looking a little strange... What did sister shippin say or someone say would happen to my violin and bow in the humidity? I´m just a little nervous about my violin getting destroyed here.
Well I better run but thank you all for the amazing birthday wishes! love you all! oh I almost forgot. HAPPY BIRTHDAY NICCA ON THIS PAST SATURDAY!! I hope it was the best 18th birthday you´ve ever had! Love ya nick!!
Well love you all! Ate logo!! EU TE AMO!!
-sister Gregory
Monday, July 4, 2011
Umbrellas in trees & miracles
Well hello everyone!!
SO how was your week? From the lovely e-mails I received it sounds like everyone is doing wonderfully!! thanks always for the love and support you all give!! Mom i finally got the second package! Oh my goodness you went above and beyond. THank you so so so much! And yes I did ask for more things. Sorry about that... really if its going to cost a bunch don´t worry about it. And the pictures of christ are small pictures like 3x5 or something like that of christ. you can just put them will a letter or something in a small envelope so you don´t have to worry about spending so much. but thanks so so so much! Glad you all are have a lovely 4th of July weekend! Sure wish I could see some fire works... oh well there is always next year!
ok so about my week! Things have improved alot. we are still struggling with finding good solid investigators to contribute to the mission goal for this month of 100 baptisms but hey things could change soon right?! our numbers did go up this week and we found 9 new investigators! woot woot!
So funny story. This week like every other week it rained a bunch so one day sister modesto and I were running late and we decided to bring our big umbrellas. haha oh how they are so big. I feel pretty funny using them but hey they keep us dry. well we were walking pretty fast on this busy road and guess what! This lovely tree with thorns decided that it didn´t want to get wet anymore and grabbed my umbrella. haha oh goodness. my umbrella was pretty stuck. so I yelled for sister Modesto to stop walking but because of all the cars and the rain she could hear me. Also I guess I don´t talk very loud when I speak portguese so that didn´t help either. So here I am with this tree attacking me as I try to save my umbrella in the pouring rain with my companion getting further and further away. I finally yank my umbrella free and ran after sister Modesto yelling after her. I felt pretty funny running with a broken umbrella yelling in the rain. I think I got some lovely looks. haha well I finally caught up to sister modesto and told her the story as we both laughed like crazy. haha oh gotta love brazil!!
So I haven´t given you an update on the language lately! SO I think its actually coming along. The other day I had to call sister swenson about some scripture covers since I don´t have any and it was so weird speaking in english! I had the hardest time and kept going back to portuguese. So I guess this is a sign that I´m learning the language. People keep telling me though that I need to talk more but its not like I´m the biggest chatter box on the planet so maybe just maybe one day I´ll learn how to talk more. But yeah I really do love the portuguese language. Sometimes sister modesto will ask me to say a word in portuguese or read a word in english and I forget the word or pronounce it the way you would in portuguese. oh goodness my brain is getting so confused! And then there is those days were I will be teaching and out now where I will say a english word! haha english, portuguese, gotta love languages!!
SO this past week we had a wonderfully family home evening with the vargas family! we taught about eternal families and the temple. it was probally the most spiritally lesson we´ve had with this family. towards the end everyone was about in tears! So cool. And guess what! Lisandra and Gilmar agreed to quit smoking, get married and baptized this month! SO cool and definately a miracle! We are going to head over to there house tonight to check up on things because the other day we didn´t get the greatest of news of gilmar leaving. But hey I really am feeling like things will work out for them. THey are such a specail family and so that only means that satan will be working so hard on them. so keep them in your prayers!!
SO also guess what! sister missionaries will be stayiny in my area for a lot longer!! SO that means after this transfer I could end up staying here! but all keep ya posted when transfers come around in 4 weeks. Crazy time is sure flying by.
Well thanks for all the b-day wishes. I´ll let you know what I end up doing next week. We are thinking of going into the city and hangin out there for a few hours and then that night eating some pizza with some of our investigators and members. so that should be some great fun!
Well love you all!! EU TE AMO!! Boa Semana!!
-Sister Gregory
SO how was your week? From the lovely e-mails I received it sounds like everyone is doing wonderfully!! thanks always for the love and support you all give!! Mom i finally got the second package! Oh my goodness you went above and beyond. THank you so so so much! And yes I did ask for more things. Sorry about that... really if its going to cost a bunch don´t worry about it. And the pictures of christ are small pictures like 3x5 or something like that of christ. you can just put them will a letter or something in a small envelope so you don´t have to worry about spending so much. but thanks so so so much! Glad you all are have a lovely 4th of July weekend! Sure wish I could see some fire works... oh well there is always next year!
ok so about my week! Things have improved alot. we are still struggling with finding good solid investigators to contribute to the mission goal for this month of 100 baptisms but hey things could change soon right?! our numbers did go up this week and we found 9 new investigators! woot woot!
So funny story. This week like every other week it rained a bunch so one day sister modesto and I were running late and we decided to bring our big umbrellas. haha oh how they are so big. I feel pretty funny using them but hey they keep us dry. well we were walking pretty fast on this busy road and guess what! This lovely tree with thorns decided that it didn´t want to get wet anymore and grabbed my umbrella. haha oh goodness. my umbrella was pretty stuck. so I yelled for sister Modesto to stop walking but because of all the cars and the rain she could hear me. Also I guess I don´t talk very loud when I speak portguese so that didn´t help either. So here I am with this tree attacking me as I try to save my umbrella in the pouring rain with my companion getting further and further away. I finally yank my umbrella free and ran after sister Modesto yelling after her. I felt pretty funny running with a broken umbrella yelling in the rain. I think I got some lovely looks. haha well I finally caught up to sister modesto and told her the story as we both laughed like crazy. haha oh gotta love brazil!!
So I haven´t given you an update on the language lately! SO I think its actually coming along. The other day I had to call sister swenson about some scripture covers since I don´t have any and it was so weird speaking in english! I had the hardest time and kept going back to portuguese. So I guess this is a sign that I´m learning the language. People keep telling me though that I need to talk more but its not like I´m the biggest chatter box on the planet so maybe just maybe one day I´ll learn how to talk more. But yeah I really do love the portuguese language. Sometimes sister modesto will ask me to say a word in portuguese or read a word in english and I forget the word or pronounce it the way you would in portuguese. oh goodness my brain is getting so confused! And then there is those days were I will be teaching and out now where I will say a english word! haha english, portuguese, gotta love languages!!
SO this past week we had a wonderfully family home evening with the vargas family! we taught about eternal families and the temple. it was probally the most spiritally lesson we´ve had with this family. towards the end everyone was about in tears! So cool. And guess what! Lisandra and Gilmar agreed to quit smoking, get married and baptized this month! SO cool and definately a miracle! We are going to head over to there house tonight to check up on things because the other day we didn´t get the greatest of news of gilmar leaving. But hey I really am feeling like things will work out for them. THey are such a specail family and so that only means that satan will be working so hard on them. so keep them in your prayers!!
SO also guess what! sister missionaries will be stayiny in my area for a lot longer!! SO that means after this transfer I could end up staying here! but all keep ya posted when transfers come around in 4 weeks. Crazy time is sure flying by.
Well thanks for all the b-day wishes. I´ll let you know what I end up doing next week. We are thinking of going into the city and hangin out there for a few hours and then that night eating some pizza with some of our investigators and members. so that should be some great fun!
Well love you all!! EU TE AMO!! Boa Semana!!
-Sister Gregory
Monday, June 27, 2011
Hello everyone!!
SO like usually time is rushed on p-day and we got to the internet place a little late. so if this e-mail is short you know why!
So things are really getting cold here! ANd it makes it even better with the humidity and lovely hard wind in your face! Today I feel like I´m ready to go play in the snow! gotta love it! Who knew you could about freeze in Brazil?! I sure didn´t!
Hmmm what else? Since all our really progress investigators got baptized last week yesterday I have to sadly report we had no investigators in sacrament meeting. First time here in brazil! But hey I guess thats bound to happen right? No worries we have faith things will progress. We are still working with Lisandra and Gilmar (the parents of the vargas family) to get married. Cross your fingers and pray that its this month. And guess what! Nina (i think I mentioned her in a past e-mail.) isn´t the girlfriend to Paulo. Aparently they just live in the same house? haha I really don´t know! I sure something new will come up this week. So yeah we are kinda at a road block right now with investigators. They all pretty much need to be married or a good push in the font. haha so yeah we are going to keep working hard with them. Today we set some goals for finding more investigators. the goal for the mission is for each companionship to baptize one family so we´re going to do all that we can. I´m kinda excited because for the first time this week we are going to go tracting! haha ok so we won´t be knocking doors but will be clapping our hands off! haha just fyi they don´t knock on doors here they clap or yell a person´s name. interesting huh? so yeah I´ll have to let you know how that goes! SO yeah this week will be a week of finding and working really hard with our investigators!
So working with the Zone Leaders isn´t all that bad. They help out alot. SO since they are working in the same ward as us we had a meeting with the bishop this week. We needed to meet so we could split the area and have more things figured out. And guess what! We got assigned to the area where we have the majority of our investigators and recent converts! Such great news. It is a different side of town with all the dirt roads and the people don´t have that much but sister modesto and I were pretty happy to stay in this area. And guess what else I found out this week. So the reason why we have another set of missionaries in the same ward is because they are trying to make the church bigger here. They (church leaders and mission president) think in about a year or so the ward will split and soon down the road they will have a new stake. Crazy huh!? so they want more missionaries here to strengthen the members and find more people that will help strengthen the wards. so like we are suppose to find future strong leaders in the church! Its really exciting yet a little intimidating! Alot of pressure! But hey we have faith! ANd also everyday for lunch the elders eat with us. every family that has the missionaries over has not 2 but four missionaris over. I guess us sister weren´t eating enough. hahah everyone say ``eat more sister, eat more!` haha gotta love members!
Well thats it for the week. Not to much happening.
Love you all! Eu te amo!!
-Sister Gregory
SO like usually time is rushed on p-day and we got to the internet place a little late. so if this e-mail is short you know why!
So things are really getting cold here! ANd it makes it even better with the humidity and lovely hard wind in your face! Today I feel like I´m ready to go play in the snow! gotta love it! Who knew you could about freeze in Brazil?! I sure didn´t!
Hmmm what else? Since all our really progress investigators got baptized last week yesterday I have to sadly report we had no investigators in sacrament meeting. First time here in brazil! But hey I guess thats bound to happen right? No worries we have faith things will progress. We are still working with Lisandra and Gilmar (the parents of the vargas family) to get married. Cross your fingers and pray that its this month. And guess what! Nina (i think I mentioned her in a past e-mail.) isn´t the girlfriend to Paulo. Aparently they just live in the same house? haha I really don´t know! I sure something new will come up this week. So yeah we are kinda at a road block right now with investigators. They all pretty much need to be married or a good push in the font. haha so yeah we are going to keep working hard with them. Today we set some goals for finding more investigators. the goal for the mission is for each companionship to baptize one family so we´re going to do all that we can. I´m kinda excited because for the first time this week we are going to go tracting! haha ok so we won´t be knocking doors but will be clapping our hands off! haha just fyi they don´t knock on doors here they clap or yell a person´s name. interesting huh? so yeah I´ll have to let you know how that goes! SO yeah this week will be a week of finding and working really hard with our investigators!
So working with the Zone Leaders isn´t all that bad. They help out alot. SO since they are working in the same ward as us we had a meeting with the bishop this week. We needed to meet so we could split the area and have more things figured out. And guess what! We got assigned to the area where we have the majority of our investigators and recent converts! Such great news. It is a different side of town with all the dirt roads and the people don´t have that much but sister modesto and I were pretty happy to stay in this area. And guess what else I found out this week. So the reason why we have another set of missionaries in the same ward is because they are trying to make the church bigger here. They (church leaders and mission president) think in about a year or so the ward will split and soon down the road they will have a new stake. Crazy huh!? so they want more missionaries here to strengthen the members and find more people that will help strengthen the wards. so like we are suppose to find future strong leaders in the church! Its really exciting yet a little intimidating! Alot of pressure! But hey we have faith! ANd also everyday for lunch the elders eat with us. every family that has the missionaries over has not 2 but four missionaris over. I guess us sister weren´t eating enough. hahah everyone say ``eat more sister, eat more!` haha gotta love members!
Well thats it for the week. Not to much happening.
Love you all! Eu te amo!!
-Sister Gregory
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