I'm SO excited to Skype and see you all!

Familia!

 

I´m going to be an aunt again! I´m so excited for Becky, Jeff, and little Ryan!! :) I hope this time it will be a girl! :) So, i´m going to be at a member´s house when I Skype with you. We´re going to have lunch at 1 and probably end around 2:15ish. I might Skype between 2:30-3:00 my time. So be online and ready! :) i´m going to use my Skype account. I´m so freakin excited to see everyone!! Oh I have some bad news... I can only talk for 40 minutes. 

 

For p-day, I got my hair cut! It´s been 6 months since I cut it last. I only cut 2 inches, but it´s still long. Btw, thank you for my package! :) I already opened it ha-ha. You know how I am with being patient about Christmas gifts. Sister Howell told me, ``since you opened your package, your mom will probably want pictures ha-ha.`` I have photos of me opening everything. I also have 2 pictures of the Campinas Temple. The temple was so amazing! I like the new movie so much better than the first! 

 

This week was difficult. It´s the week before Christmas and most of our investigators will be going out of town or have family come to visit with them. This week was kind of a blah week, but we visited a lot of less actives. I´m sorry that this email will be short, but i´ll talk more once I see you on Wednesday!

 

I´m going to send some pictures! LOVE YOU! See you on Wednesday!! :)

 

-Sister Whitnah

A week full of Miracles!

Familia!

 

Woo i´m an aunt again! :) Little Duke looks so cute! I can tell he looks a little bit of Robbie and Tessa. How are they doing? Thanks for sending me pictures! The picture of you with your x-ray is kinda funny ha-ha. I´m glad to hear that everyone is doing well! Oh btw, happy birthday Mom! :) How was your birthday? Did you do anything fun?

 

Honestly this week was full of miracles. We have 4 investigators that are interested in the church. Claudia, Sabrina, Cida, and Edina. Sabrina is 10 years old and Claudia is her mom. We have already taught them the 1st and 2nd lesson. They have been reading the Livro de Mormon and praying everyday. Claudia has a boyfriend and we just met him this week. Cida is about 55-60 years old, and she has a daughter named Edina. Edina is about 35-40 years old and has a son that´s about in his early 20´s. This whole week we have been praying like crazy! We also fasted to help these people to come to this Christmas activity and to church. For Cida and Edina it´s been difficult for them. They both have husbands that are alcoholics. They drink too much to the point where they don´t let Cida or Edina leave the house. It´s really sad. For us, it´s hard to know how to help them. But we´re trying our best to help them know the members and to feel loved. We try and visit them often. We invited Cida, Edina, Claudia, and Sabrina to an activity at the church. It was a Christmas dinner. When Sister Howell and I showed up, Claudia, her boyfriend, Sabrina, Cida, Edina, and Edina´s son were there. We were SO excited! They told us that they loved the party and they felt welcomed. On Sunday Sabrina, Claudia, and Claudia´s boyfriend came to church. It was so cool to see them there! It was Claudia´s first time coming to church and she told us that she liked it a lot. 

 

Before I came to Barao Geraldo, I heard that it was a tough area. An area that nobody wanted to serve in, because it was hard to find success. There aren´t many members and the members have a hard time believing that they can have success. We have been helping everyone to become more excited about missionary work. We have an awesome bishop and ward mission leader. Our bishop and ward mission leader have been praying for a long time to have success in their ward. About 2 weeks ago, we received 18 returned missionaries and they are all men. They came to Barao Geraldo for a reason. All of them are super pumped to help in the ward. Some of them are going to go on splits with us this week. This little miracle helped me to see that the Lord knows who needs our help. All of our investigators will all need to get married and that will take some time. But at least when the time is right, they will have a firm testimony. 

 

Tomorrow, all of the missionaries get to go to the temple! We´re replacing our p-day for tomorrow, but we get to email families today for 2 hours. Today is just a normal regular day. Oh, so I don´t know when i´ll be skyping you. I´m assuming after lunch time. Lunch usually starts at 12 in the afternoon and goes till 2. I might Skype with you at 2:30 my time. I´m not sure but i´ll let you know next week. 

 

I love you so much and i´m excited to see you soon...on the computer at least ha-ha. But anyways, have a great week! LOVE YOU!

 

-Sister Whitnah

The work is slow, but progressing

Mamãe!

 

I´m glad that you had a great time in Utah! What was the weather like? I bet it was nice and cold. I wish it was cold here in Brasil... :( Summer hasn´t official started here yet, but it seems like it gets hotter everyday. The sun is so strong that I can feel it almost burning my skin. Plus the humidity with it sucks. We had a couple of huge rain/thunder storms this week. One of the storms lasted for a good hour of non stop raining. It was fun getting soaking wet. :)

 

Saturday, I went to the temple and all of the missionaries were there! There was a choir that sang at the temple. We weren´t suppose to sing, but we had other tasks to do. Like greet all of the people who arrived at the temple. I saw a couple of families that were from my first area. One of the members (Rafela) was so excited to see me! She ran up to me and gave me a huge hug. It was so good to see her! 

 

I talked with Sister Menden a little bit and she told me that my package is here! I´m so excited to get it! I actually can´t get my package until Dezembro 27th. Sister Perrotti is making all of the missionaries wait to get their packages until that day. So it won´t really matter if I can´t open my package on Christmas day. I do have some plans with some members in our ward for Christmas Eve. A popular thing in Brasil is having a HUGE barbecue! It´s very different to the barbecue that we know but I think it´s a lot better! In Brasil it´s called a Churrasco. It´s the same thing we had at Tucanos.

 

I´m excited to Skype with you too on Christmas! I´m excited to see pretty much everyone! I´m hoping that Skype will work okay. If it doesn´t, Sister Howell mentioned to me that she uses Google Plus or something like that to talk to her family. If you can, make an account and give me the username and password. That will be our next option if Skype doesn´t work. But i´m sure Skype shouldn´t be a problem. I will use my account to talk to you. So when you see me, it will be through my account. I was told that I can´t call on the phone for Christmas and Mother´s Day.  

 

This week went a lot better. We taught the 1st lesson to Sabrina and her mom Claudia. They had watched the Restoration video and read a little bit in the Book of Mormon. We gave them the invitation to be baptized and the first thing Claudia said was WHEN?! She seemed really excited! We found out that she has a ``husband`` meaning she lives with her boyfriend. A common thing here is that a lot of people live together but aren´t married. So it may look like Claudia and Sabrina´s baptized might have to wait a little bit. A new batismo rule in Brasil is that if you have an investigator that´s between 9-15 years old and the parents don´t want to be baptized, they have to wait 3 months to be baptized. It´s really crazy. We also taught Cida and Edina the 2nd lesson. They´ve been having trouble with coming to church. Cida works a lot and is tired when Sunday rolls around. We´re inviting them to an activity that we´re having at the church. It´s going to be a Christmas dinner!

 

 

P-day, Sister Howell and I went to Shopping Dom Pedro! It´s this huge mall that has Walmart and a bunch of shopping centers. I bought this cute Brasil shirt! Sister Howell bought a lot of Christmas gifts for her family. I thought about getting one gift for all of you for Christmas but I couldn´t think of anything. If you do want something let me know! For lunch we ate açai! It´s so yummy! Ask Sister Woodhouse about it! It´s a type of fruit in Brasil that they use to make it like a slushi. They put granola, strawberries, and leite condensado! I took a picture of it and it was so good! You might want one just by looking at the photo ha-ha. 

 

The work here in Barão Geraldo is going slow but is progressing. Sister Howell and I prayed a lot about how we can help our ward. The answer that we both felt was working a lot with the members and less actives. There´s a HUGE list of less actives that we´re trying to figure out who wants to come back to church or doesn´t want to come back. It´s a good 22 page list. It´s a lot! So we are focused on helping the less actives to come back to church.

 

I´m glad to hear that you found out about your foot. I´m sorry that it´s broken, but I hope you can find something to do to help you keep yourself busy. I hope you enjoy the pictures that I have for this week! I love you so much and can´t wait to hear from you soon!! 

 

-Sister Whitnah  

My Patience is being tried

Familia!

 

You will never believe this! I can send pictures now! :) I used my other memory card and it works! I´m so happy! For p-day Sister Howell and I went to Central in Campinas. It´s kind of like the farmers market but for shopping. Everything there is super cheap! I needed a pair of sneakers.  They´re grey and hot pink! They reminded me of Tessa. My comp bought some jerseys for her brothers and her dad. She also bought a bag because our mission is making everyone use side bags now. It´s a good thing that I still have my polka dotted bag. Sister Perrotti wants all of the sisters to look stylish.

 

Heavenly Father definitely tried my patience this week. Throughout the week I was super tried and frustrated. There´s a member in our ward that always wants to ``hangout`` with the sisters. She´s a good person and all, but it gets to the point where it´s too much. If you know what I mean. 3 times this week, she planned activities and called us a couple hours before to let us know. And by then we´ve already planned our day. We still let her come with us to our appointments, but in the end I felt really frustrated. She complained about every little thing when we were at a less active member´s house and even walking on the street. By the end of the day, I was really annoyed. We had a 10 year old girl come to church with us for the first time and it was Fast Sunday. We explained to her how we have Fast Sundays at the beginning of the month. The same annoying member started to tell the 10 year old girl about paying tithing and expounding on it for at least 15 minutes. How she needed to fast and went on and  on. It drove me nuts. When an investigator comes to church for the first time, you don´t blast them with every single detail of what they need to know about the church. You help them learn the simple and basic things. This lady went super deep and detailed about everything we do on Sundays. This is why I was frustrated and felt like I needed a lot of patience.

 

On the flip side, we taught the first lesson with these 2 older ladies and they are pretty hilarious! They seem like they want to know more about the church! Their names are Edita and Cida. We found them by giving them a Joy to the World invitation.  

 

I forgot that Thanksgiving was this week. Here, it was just another day. It was the same thing for Halloween. Nobody here knows those holidays because it´s an American holiday. 

 

This Saturday, there´s an activity at the temple where our stake is having all members and non-members sing Christmas songs. Sister Howell and I have 2 investigators that want to go. So we get to go to the temple! I´m excited for it! :)  I´m sorry that I don´t have a lot to talk about, but i´m glad to hear that everyone is doing great! I´m excited to see you on Skype in a few weeks!!