Half way through my mission!

Oi Família! :)

 

Hey! I have so much to tell you about this week! First of all, this week was good yet crazy! Tuesday, we taught Danuzia and Bruno all the commandments. Sister Howell taught the word of wisdom and I taught the law of chastity. It was a little awkward but it was good haha. We found out during the lesson that Danuzia is already married to another guy but they broke up. She has been living with this guy that we´re teaching now for 16 years. So she is still legally married to this other guy. It´s kind of complicated. We told her that she would have to get a divorce and remarry the guy that she´s living with now. If she wants to get baptized. Without hesitation she said ``No, I don´t want to get married again!`` We´ll see how that´s gonna go. On the other hand, we have been talking with Bruno. Since the day I first met him, he has been talking about wanting to get baptized. He straight up told us ``if I want to get baptized I need to stop drinking beer?`` Afterwards he said, ``Well, I need to repent of a few things before I can be baptized.`` It was the coolest thing ever. I can totally tell that he´s ready to be baptized. Heavenly Father has helped us so much with this family.

 

After we were done with the lesson, we had a really bad thunder storm. The power went out and we were stuck in their house for 3 hours. It was fun! We got to their house at 5 and left around 8ish to go back to our mini house. There were trees in the streets. Like full grown trees. We later found out that a tornado was near by. But everyone was okay. The same thing happened on Wednesday but we were with Claudia and Sabrina. The power was out and everything. We left from the lesson early to go home and it was getting late. It took us a hour and a half to get home because of the thunderstorm. It was raining so much that the streets were flooded. It was crazy!

 

Saturday and Sunday we had our stake conference. It was really good! Presidente Perrotti, Sister Perrotti, our ward mission leader, and another member from our ward spoke. All the talks were about missionary work. 

 

This Friday we´re having our multizona with Presidente Perrotti. We have them every 3 months with at least 1 or 2 other zones. Everyone has to prepare a lesson on the Atonement and Presidente will have a hat of all the names of the missionaries. He will randomly pick a missionary to give the lesson. And they have to give it all by themselves. I´m hoping that I won´t get picked. I´m crossing my fingers ha-ha.

 

So that was my week! I can´t believe i´ll have 9 months in the mission. It´s gone by slow and fast. I´m trying not to think about it. I´m trying to enjoy what I have now. I´m glad to hear everyone is doing good! Let me know anything big comes up. I love you so much and hope you have a great week! :)

 

-Sister Whitnah

 

Good but Tough week

Oi Mamãe! 

 

That´s so cool that Tyson is going to Africa! How cool! That must be exciting for the Barfuss family! Tell him I said congrats! And as well for the Gibson family. This is the 2nd person that I know that´s going to Texas for their mission. It must be a popular place like Brasil. But Brasil is a lot cooler in my opinion ha-ha. 

 

This week was good but tough. This week the weather has been pounding on us. It´s getting hotter everyday and it´s harder to work. We switched our schedule so that we work in the mornings until lunch and then do our studies in the afternoon when it´s super hot. I thinking it will work out better that way. The heat is also making me really tired. We found 2 people to teach this week! One lady named Danielle. She´s 31 but looks like she´s 24. We talked for 2 hours...(that normally never happens but it did). We taught here the 1st and 2nd lesson. She believes in a lot of what we believe in but she thinks any type of church is true. I don´t know what to do in that situation, but i´m sure i´ll figure it out with Sister Howell. Another person we found was a guy named Mauicio. He´s in his early 50´s. He´s youngest kid is about 24 years old. Mauicio has been going to the baptist church for a couple years. We taught him the first lesson and he was eagered to learn more. We invited him to read the Book of Mormon and he was excited to read it! We´re going to go back and teach them more.

 

P-day was pretty chill. We went to this place that had fresh homemade mango juice and had cheese bread. Man, it was SO good! We´re emailing now and probably after this we will go home and sleep. I´m super tired. Tonight we have FHE with a family, so that will be fun! :) A little about Sister Howell. She´s 24 and has already done college. She´s a message therapist. She was asked to be a teacher and work down in Dallas Texas for a year before her mission. And she´s from Gilbert Arizona.

 

Well I love you so much! I´m excited to get your package soon! Have a great week! LOVE YOU LOTS!

 

-Sister Whitnah

We had an AMAZING week!

Mom,

 

This week was really good! We had FHE at a member´s house on Saturday night. We invited Danuzia, Carol, and Bruno. The member is in the stake presidency. He´s really awesome! He talked about the Book of Mormon and shared his experiences with us. I never knew how much impact members have on investigators. Meaning, having the investigators come to a member´s house to hear a message. When it´s at an investigator´s house you can feel the spirit, but at a member´s house there´s a huge difference! Danuzia, Carol, and Bruno LOVED FHE and they want to have one every week! 

 

On New Year´s Day was our p-day. Sister Howell and I made some goals for this transfer. We made a goal to have
FHE every Monday night with a member family and with an investigator. We looked at our list of members and prayed which ones would be willing to do a FHE night at their home. 

 

After church, we met with a couple of families, and without knowing we made 5 FHE nights this week alone! Our goal was to only have 1 per week. It was so cool to think that Heavenly Father is helping us to overcome our goal. That with him, anything is possible! 

 

 I felt a need to make some changes, I had been feeling this for a while.  It´s moments like these where I need to listen to Him and then ``JUST DO IT!`` you know? But i´m grateful that I listened and chose to act on my prompting.  The Lord is truly helping us out!  He´s blessing me with this opportunity to get to know our members and investigators more. I think it´s so cool!  I am SO glad I followed the Spirit and listened and acted. 

 

We met with the Marinho family last night. Their son just left for the MTC on Thursday. He´s going to the João Pessoa Mission. But anyways, we shared a message with them about how members have a great impact on their friends. Afterwards we showed them a video about the Atonement with Elder Holland talking in the background. It´s really good! We then invited them to think of a friend that they would want to have FHE with. The dad mentioned a guy named Ju, more than 3 times. We set Wednesday to be the FHE night. They´re really excited!

 

For p-day, Howell and I went to Central and did some shopping! I bought this cool shirt for 10 dollars and I bought some perfume for 25 dollars. Here it´s ``cheap`` ha-ha. So far that´s all we have done today. I ran into a couple of elders while we were there.

 

That´s so cute how Mollie adores Sean. How she slept with him every night while he was visiting. I bet she misses him a lot right now. But anyways, I love you so much and thank you for everything! You are the best! Have a great week! :) Eu amo vocês!

 

Tell Dad thank you for the pen drive! And yes, the socks that you bought were from REI. Thank you for taking the time to do this for me. I really appreciate it. :) LOVE YOU GUYS! Btw, thanks for the pictures and the quote! I loved them!

 

-Sister Whitnah 

I am staying in Barao Geraldo with Sister Howell! :)

Família!

 

Happy New Year (Feliz Ano Novo)!! I can´t believe 2014 is already here. Sister Howell and I were saying that this year both of us go home. She leaves in June and I leave in October. For New Years Eve, we went to our ward mission leader´s house for dinner. Howell and I stayed up til midnight watched the fireworks from our mini house. I only got 2 good pictures of the fireworks.

 

Sister Howell and I are staying together for this transfer! :) I´m really happy! This will be my 3rd transfer in Barao Geraldo. I´m thinking i´ll get transferred soon. Oh, sorry that I didn´t email you until today. My zone leaders told us that our p-day was Wednesday but didn´t tell us that we could email on Monday. So we waited pretty much all week to email.

 

Becky is having another boy! That´s awesome! Do they have names picked out? I wonder if this one will look like Ryan? When is he due again? How´s Robbie and Tessa doing?

 

It was really good to see all of you guys! There was so much that I wanted to say. I noticed that Mollie looked at me while I was talking. I miss her so much! I wanted to say more things in Portuguese, but I kept having brain farts. It sucked ha-ha! Sister Howell got to talk to her family but she couldn´t see them until the very end.

 

This week was difficult to visit investigators and even members. Everyone was on vacation or visiting their families. We did get some lessons in this week! :)

 

I´m glad that this week was great! Happy 2014! :) LOVE YOU GUYS!

 

-Sister Whitnah

 

Mom,

Thanks for the package! All the music and the goodies! :) The sandals are a little tight on me. I wore them once and I got blisters on my feet. :( but they look really cute! I´m on my last pair of those socks. I´ve had to throw away the other socks because they have big holes. I think you should buy at least 6 pairs. I also got your conversion story and I loved reading it! Oh if you could, send me my other USB pen drive. I think it´s in my laptop bag? I wanna have it so I can have more space to put mission photos or music. And maybe another memory card just to be safe. I´ve been taking a lot of pictures and my memory card is filling up fast! This package don´t send that much granola bars and beef jerky. It´s kind of funny. When I ate the beef jerky, I thought it was really salty.

 

Anyways, how´s your foot? Is it getting better? It was nice to see all the photos of Braden´s wedding. Alina still looks the same but she always looks pretty! :) 

 

Thank you for everything! LOVE YOU LOTS!

 

-Bethany ;)

 Sister Howell and Whitnah's Christmas tree
 
 

 

fireworks from New years!