LOVE São Paulo Members

I am so grateful for the many members in the São Paulo West mission who take such good care of Jace and the other missionaries.  This week I received two sweet notes and photos via Facebook from members who fed Jace lunch.  I am forever in debt of these strangers who truly demonstrate Christ like love and service.  As a mother, I can't think of a greater blessing to have mothers watching out for my son while he is so far away from home.

Thank you sweet friends in the gospel.  God Bless!

Feliz Natal!!!! Fotos tiradas em minha casa agora a pouco!!!!!

Hoje o almoço foi assim: com bênçãos em dobro!!

Lunch with the Zone Leaders

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Christmas in the Air (The HOT Air)!!

This week we had trainamento and 5 appointments. Training was good.  I saw all my buddies from D 34A from the CTM again.  They are all doing great. Then our day was full of walking and a few compromisos fell through.  But was a good day.  The Family of Allison, Maide, Evalyne, Gabreil are awesome; they are accepting us, and they invited us to their kid’s birthday tomorrow. We are only stopping by for some cake at 8:30, don't worry we wont fubecar ;)

We also made French toast this day. Which was great, and we forgot syrup or sugar so I used ice cream and banana :) It was good.  Next we had a divisão I stayed here, with Elder Jacobs'e'n. We taught like one lesson, and walked a whole lot again.

I got my stocking and Christmas Tree up.  Weird to be celebrating Christmas in the Summer.

Saturday, we had the unique experience of teaching a Pastor of another church :) with two other young men, 20 and 19.  The great thing was, the Pastor was so into the lesson. He confirmed everything we were saying. He accepted the LdM and is going to read it. He was the reason that the two young men went to church with us Sunday!!!

Sunday was good.  We had the two guys at the meeting and it was testimony meeting. Brazil is really different.  When the Bishop announces the testimonies, everybody who wants to share goes and sits on the stand. So neat, because like 20 people are trying to race to the pulpit :)

SO this week was good - other things I did:  I read that book that I should have read before, "Bring the World his truth" it was great..... Everyone needs  to read that before you go on a mission.... 

Scriptures :) 

D&C 35:13-14

Jeremiah 20:7, 9

1 John 4:7-8 & 5:3 

Love is the trick people, remember to love everyone, everything, every moment, and when you think you cant love that person, moment, event, just think that this event is building you for the person the man or woman that you will be one day. 

And when you think your mission is hard, read Ether 12:5 and Ether13:2,13 and when you want to burn someone read Acts 5:29 :)

We Found Slow-MO

"We found Slow-Mo!"

 We received about 10 of these video clips.  Really just missionaries being silly.  TiP:  watch it in fast forward mode, if possible :)  It did make us happy to see Jace will a soccer ball at his feet.  I can feel the energy!  No games with balls are allowed in the mission, so they do a little juggling in their apartment to keep up the skills.

A Little of Brazil

December... What?

I received my first Tom Cruise reference the week past. An Irmã in our ward was just talking to me and stopped, and said, you know what, you look like Tom Cruise :) haha I just smiled and agreed :)

Also I have decided that when people point here they purposely choose the opposite way, and point 180 degrees the wrong direction.  It really bugs, when people are like 100 meters from something in their house, and they point the opposite way, I just think "This is impressive, you are literally pointing the exact opposite way."

I am emailing today because it is a day of the temple. Again the temple was wonderful.  I am understanding a lot more, and the people are awesome in the temple :) Honestly it is weird but English was hard to speak this week. Elder Jacobson and I were talking in English because we were going to teach in English.  The lesson fell through, but we were practicing and I kept saying words in Portuguese.  This makes me nervous for our chat on Christmas day; I think you will laugh at my english and thats alright :0 .

We had a split this week, I was with Elder Jacobs'e'n  and I got my first taste of real Brazilian rain. It was crazy. One minute it is fine, and the other there is rivers in the streets and lakes at the bottom of hills :) And it would stop and start, and stop and start, until finally it came with such force for 30 min. We were in the garage of a guy, and we just talked about the rain, the gospel, and other things. He didn't want to hear,more but we left contact info, and he said we could pass by. 

They also made us some killer pancakes :)

In the world of investigators, we have Romario, the smoker.  He smoked 50 cigarettes everyday, and he says he is slowing down, and I think he is trying.  In one week he dropped to only 5 a day, and he keeps saying that this is the last one. We will see we are praying for the man. He is 20, he loves the idea of church and has been at church the past two weeks. He has a kid now, and he is worried about the whole chastity thing. But he is trying and he wants to get baptized, so we are passing his house a lot :) 

His roommate Luciano, is a little less strong willed and didn't come to church this week, last week he did. But they are awesome and let us stop by whenever we want. 

We met a new family that is awesome, two kids with a 9 year old girl and a little boy with special needs that is 5. He is awesome, we taught the Restoration and they loved it. We know because the 9 year-old is reading and is already a few chapters in the LDM!!! Awesome, we have another meeting with them wednesday (tomorrow :) But the coolest experience happened when we were teaching them. The youngin, Gabreil, was coloring and drawing in a notebook the entire time, and not really paying attention, but when we left and were saying good bye, he came up and gave me a hug... (shhhhh don’t tell presidente... ;) It was so so cute :) love the youngin already.

My comp says that he does not have a girlfriend, but when push comes to shove, he buys a giant teddybear for her.  We just wanted to take some pictures with it for ya’ll a little early Christmas :) 

For the spiritual thought of the week:

I have learned one thing really fast here in the mish, everyone is dedicated until Sunday morning at 9 ;) haha   I say this with a half way joking attitude, but it is serious. We prove ourselves when we have to do things we don't like and we aren't used to. So are we doing the things that are a little out of our comfort zone to be better members of the Lords Church??

I have said it before, but Alma 26 is my favorite!

Also, don't forget to PRAY PRAY and when you dont want to PRAY, PRAY harder!

Thanksgiving Feast

We celebrated with pizza with a chocolate boarder and Ice cream, so you can say we are living the life!

Lunch Date with Irma Helena

Sweet words from Irma Helena, "Your son is very special. a few minutes ago they helped me get a box for my son in the post office.Yesterday I took them to lunch at a restaurant. He ate a lot and was sleepy."