Serving Through Adversity

                                                                                                                 Sept. 12, 2016

 

Hi family!!! How are you all doing?

 

Today I´m going to make cookies in preparation for a spelling B we´re going to have tomorrow night for our English class. SO EXCITED to decorate the room with little Bees!!!

 



Sister Hall and I visiting the mission home



Getting excited for our spelling bee
for our English class this next week!

This past week, something shocking happened. We were having a district meeting on Monday night, and having a competition like a scavenger hunt inside of the chapel of Ferreira, when all of a sudden, when our group of Sister Hall and I, and two other sets of elders, were trying to move a table to complete a task in our scavenger hunt, the table snapped in half and fell on top of the foot of Sister Hall. It automatically swelled up, and we tried as fast as possible to put ice on it.

    

She wasn´t able to walk on it on monday night or tuesday or wednesday, and monday night the President came to look at it (because he lives in our area), and because he is a surgeon, he said it wasn´t broken but that it was just really bruised and swollen--that she should go easy on it.

Monday night we were treated to dinner with President Thomas, Sister Thomas, and Emily in their home, and we stayed in our house after going to the temple on Tuesday (receiving a ride from a member), and after eating lunch on Wednesday. We didn´t officially work until friday, but when we worked, we REALLY worked. 

 

Tuesday, we went to the temple, and we ended up getting a car ride late from a member so we missed our session, but we instead, participated in other ordinances. I had the opportunity to participate in baptisms for the dead, and Sister Hall participated in Iniciatory, and I realized how much I missed participating in baptisms for the dead. They ended up splitting us up in separate ordinances because they just needed one woman or young woman to perform the work, and I was the only one there available at the time :) 

This past Saturday we had a wonderful ward activity!!! It was organized by our ward mission leader, Brother Kiko, and we watched Meet the Mormons while eating popcorn, and then later eating a lot of treats. A LOT of our investigators came, and that Saturday we found a new family to work with!! Aline, her sister in law and her kids came to the activity, Valeria and Fabio and her son Vinicios, and Elis, Marcos´s parents, and Marcos´s sister named Ana who will be moving into our area soon, and Esvaldo/Letícia and their little baby girl (new family) came to the activity. They all loved it so much, and the Spirit was so strong.

We had a great family night with Aline, Leandro, and family.
We also had the Relief Society Pres. and her family join us. 

Yesterday Elis came to Church, and she´s been quitting smoking. She was fulfilling all her goals, but she unfortunately got really stressed out yesterday and smoked one more cigarette than she should have. It´s super hard for her because Marcos drinks a lot, and she gets really stressed out because of it. Last night, the Bishop and our Ward mission leader went to visit Elis with us, and they talked to her about the law of chastity (since she lives in the same house with marcos in order to take care of Natasha--they sleep in separate rooms and are just FRIENDS, and have been for 14 years), and they told her about her progress towards baptism, and how they were worried that one day she could possibly break this commandment, but at the end of the interview, the Bishop told us that we could mark her for baptism, but go slow with her to help her stop smoking.
I´m so excited to invite her to be baptized!!!