Brazil backwards starts with Liza!

This week we made a real scene going to church- and I liked it.  We took 3 little girls which I'm pretty sure is a crime but don't tell. They are 6 (Julia), 10 (Maria) and 13 (Beatriz) and they live with their grandparents. One day (awhile ago) we were walking down the street and they said do you teach about Jesus? Can you give us a lesson?  Last week we taught them about the word of wisdom and the youngest one said "why aren't you guys telling this stuff to adults, they're the ones with all these problems?" (their gma smokes and their gpa drinks). They are so cute.  We also took our friend Ana Clara and her boyfriend's sister Pamela. Anyways we had a long line of bikes going to church this sunday and it made me so happy. But we were just as happy to take those girls back home and tell their grandparents that they didn't die on the way to or from church.  Miracle:  So awhile ago we went to visit a less-active lady named Giselle who ac...

This week was another goody. We found this awesome lady named Isabel who was riding her bike on the street and she stopped to unlock her house. I talked to her and she invited us inside right then. We gave her a lesson about faith, repentance and baptism and she accepted a baptismal date. I was literally shocked that she said yes. She was crying almost the whole lesson and she told us that she knew it was an answer from God that we had stopped to talk to her that day.   God really does prepare people. One thing that I always have to remind myself is that our purpose is to teach and invite people, not prepare them. Sometimes it is so hard that everyone has their own option to choose and we cannot make anyone do anything. It is important to not  be hard on ourselves for things that we can't choose and ultimately cannot control at all.  We started teaching the guy that helped us with my comp's flat tire and when we went to give him the BOM he told...

There's a different missionary couple that came to Ubatuba! This one has a car which just made my life wayyyy better. I don't have to take the 2 hour bus ride to district counsel anymore- it's only an hour in a car. They are from Uruguay and the first they said to my companion and I was "We want to be your grandparents". We accept. SCORE. Driving in the car with them is hilarious because I have to give him directions in portuguese but he is still learning because they speak spanish. Also I think he is still learning how to drive too. Half the time he doesn't understand my directions and the other half I'm trying to explain that the bike lane is for bikes-not his car. haha  Our mission presidents came here and they told us that Saturday we could choose to do whatever we wanted (except swim). So we drove up the coast towards Rio and we stopped at a waterfall and saw a ton of unreal beaches. (have to scope it out for when I can fully enjoy it.) They t...

^^so that happened  and this ^^ is how we felt abt it. We had transfers but luckily we get to stay in the land of bikes, beaches, and vegan cafes so that's a score.  One of our investigators Miriam finally went to church! We were so happy and she loved Relief Society! She told us after that she had dreamed one time that she was in a place with a bunch of other ladies around her and she felt super happy and that she was pretty sure this was her dream. Now we are praying that she has a dream where she is getting baptized!  Yesterday the lady whose husband has brain cancer, who we sang for at christmas time, went to teach a lesson with us. She is so cute and she made popcorn and put it in a huge bag and we went to this lesson eating popcorn and then she talked the whole time and basically taught a way better lesson than I ever could. She is literally the best and she is always happy and positive but her life is so ha...

^^ not all in the same place  We taught a lesson to this lady named Malu. When we walked into her house she said "oh yeah so I have lots of cats. 47 actually."  It took all of my will power to not turn around and run away. You can only imagine the smell in her house.  Another random thing that happened this week. We went to teach this less-active member's mom but her son came to the door (he's like 30 yrs old or something). He started saying a bunch of stuff about how his mom was giving attention to him right then and she couldn't talk to us. Then he started telling us that his suitcase was packed and he was about to leave the house. Then he told me "I have already smoked weed, I have already gone to jail, I have already been accused of murder that I did NOT commit, and I have already been in the drug traffic....do you think I should be treated differently than other people?"  Me: YEAH definitely.  *oops he wanted me to say no  um actually no...

So we basically did a triathlon on saturday. we went for a run in the morning which is pretty rare but it happened. Then we had to ride our bikes to one side of our area for lunch and then we rode to the other side of our area and then I realized that we had ran and biked that day and all I had to do was swim (I'm pretty sure we biked like 12 miles) . Luckily the blow up pool was already set up at the church and this member's wife got baptized. so at least somebody went swimming that day (along with all of the tourists that were ALL AT THE BEACH W/OUT ME)  She is super awesome and she is helping her husband a lot bc he is kind of less-active. She painted the Salt Lake City temple and put it in their room bc they have a goal to get sealed! Unfortunately I had to break it to them that the SLC temple is closed for 4 years.  Christmas Eve and Christmas was super weird but good. my companion and I kept looking at each other all day and saying "today is christmas" b...

Apparently i wanted to be super festive or something bc I woke up on tuesday with red dots all over my body. It basically looked like chicken pox, we slept in the other sisters' house in our zone to go to the christmas zone conference that morning and they were all freaking out telling me random diseases in portuguese that I might have. I think one of them said zika and i think this other one meant chicken pox, but I had no idea what they were saying. (also I've already had chicken pox so it's all good in the hood) Basically I still have no idea what it was but it's almost gone, so that's a plus.  everyone here rides bikes everywhere. People here have mad skills. I have seen people riding a bike with 3 little kids hanging on to them or in their lap. Also I saw a guy riding a bike with another bike on his shoulder. The best that I've seen is a guy riding a bike with a TREE. Literally, it wasn't that big but it was pretty big. Also it rains a ton here so e...

{" chaves caíram no buraco"  according to trusty Google translate= keys fell into the hole! haha.} So our keys fell into this ditch on the side of the road that's like a drain thing but it's covered with these pieces of cement and there's little cracks in between each slab of cement. So my companion accidentally dropped the keys and of course they fell right into the crack that's big enough for keys but not my arm (shoot). So I literally started pulling on the piece of road, aka cement and we just ripped out the cement and grabbed the keys and put it back. it's right in front of our house and we always look it at and laugh so hard bc we just tore up the road.  My comp reading the BOM in English looking at these words:   "righteousness...that´s hard"  "Withersoever...não vai não"  I am with my new companion now and her name is Sister Chaves. She is from Fortaleza which is the NE of Brazil. She came speaking Portugues...

"I want to go to BYU Ohio" (a girl in the branch here)  "Um I REALLY don ' t think that exists, maybe Hawaii or are you thinking of Idaho?" (me)     hahah a  everyone here wants to go to BYU but apparently they think that it ' s in whatever state they want.  M aybe BYU California exists..if it does ,  sign me up mom.  "julgar menos, ajudar mais" "judge less, help more" (President of the Branch)  "Much more than ice cream, a nutritional food!" there ' s an ice cream store with this written in huge letters on the sign. so good ,   B rasil.  This week was the last week of the transfer and my companion sister Alexandre was transferred but I am going to stay in Ubatuba. I still don ' t know who my companion is because she will only get here tomorrow. I am going to be in Ubatuba for Christmas which will be super good.  when we received the transfer it was 10 pm and my companion had to  p ack h...