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!

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