April 15, 2014

Sister Phelps' new address

This address if for letters only. 
 
Sister Phelps
Caixa Postal 27
Centro- Sao Borja -RS
97670-970

Packages are mailed to the Santa Maria Mission office:

Sister Sarah Phelps
Brazil Santa Maria Mission
Rua Alberto Pascualine, 121 Sala 403
Centro
97015-907 Santa Maria - RS
Brazil
Phone: 55 (55)-3222-1666

April 14, 2014

Week 35 (14 April 2014)

Well, this week was an interesting one.  Very interesting.

Segunda-feira- We taught a less active member and her family and talked to them about how we can receive answers through general conference.  She took our promise and challenge seriously and said that this was an answer to her prayers.  :)  (Oh, and I completed 8 months of my mission today!)

Terca-feira- We had a great lesson with our progressing investigator So~.  She really connects with the Joseph Smith story so we watched the video of the Restoration with her.  It was great (except for the fact that the member that was with us started talking in the middle of the first vision.)  Don't do that to the missionaries in your ward please.  It just doesn't work.  Haha.

Quarta-feira- So my companion's mom was very sick lately and we found out more information today about how she is doing and it wasn't good news.  My companion ended-up deciding to go home after a lot of prayer and fasting.  She taught me a lot about how the Lord will truly answer us when we are diligently seeking an answer.

Quinta-feira- We taught So~ again and this time it was about the Word of Wisdom... dun dun DUN!  With the help of a member and a lot of help from the Spirit she agreed to live the Word of Wisdom.  It was a miracle, truly.

Sexta-feira- We thought that my companion would be leaving next week because that is when we have transfers, but President called today and she has a flight early Saturday morning.  We ran around all day packing her things and getting her ready to leave.

Sabado- She left at 3am.  :(  But the Lord's work had to continue.  I am in a trio with the other Sisters of Camobi until I go to SAO BORJA!  Yep I am being transferred, which kind of stinks because we found the perfect investigator today!  She accepted to be baptized without a second thought.  We met her through a reference from a member who lives in another part of Santa Maria.  N~'s house collapsed a few weeks ago and this member S~ has been building it for her with no charge.  After this selfless service she wanted to know more about the church.  How wonderful that the Lord was able to work miracles through a willing and worthy member of the church.

Domingo- We said goodbye to everyone today.  :(   But, in Sacrament Meeting there were 4 baby blessings.  How cool is that, and all of the babies have been born since I got here.  It has been a fun ride in Camobi and I am excited for the next adventure!

April 9, 2014

Week 33 (31 March 2014)

Sorry that I haven't been writing you about my weeks the past few times.

This week was good teaching wise, I am finally feeling like I am becoming my witty self again and it is a lot easier for me to get the trust and friendship of the members.  My Portuguese is getting better too!  I had two people not believe that I was American this week and one of the members said that he couldn't tell that it was me talking on the phone!  Wahoo!  I'm finally making lots of progress with the language and let me tell ya, it feels SO GOOD!

Segunda- nothing really happened... everything fell through (but the rest of the week was good.)

Terca- So my companion has a problem with her knee.  We stayed at home today because she was in a lot of pain and needed to rest.  We were able to update our entire area book and organize our list of less-active members, so we still felt like we had a productive day.

Quarta- We were visiting an area that we work in a lot and Sister T~ began to talk to a woman in front of her house.  After a little while I remembered that I had already talked to her twice before, but Sister M~ and I were never able to teach her.  She is wonderful.  Her name is Si~ and she is looking for a church and wants to know which one is right.  It was awesome.  We marked to return Quinta.

Quinta- The Sister Training Leaders got to teach with us today.  Sister L~ stayed with our companionship and taught with us.  If there is one missionary that I look-up to here it is Sister L~.  She teaches so well and always has such a wonderful spirit with here.  We taught So~, one of our eleitos, and were able to [learn a lot about her] just by truly being her friends and asking her inspired questions.  We also taught Si~ and ended-up making a BAPTISMAL DATE!!  She will be baptized on April 19th!

Sexta- We found a less-active [member] and have been teaching him every once and a while, he wasn't home when we went to talk to him so we ended-up teaching his dad who has been to the church once and has a lot of respect for it.  (You know the dad in Sound of Music, he looks like that guy when he was older.)  It was so sad to hear about [some of his concerns ] and how much he worries about [his children] everyday.  It reminds me that as a member and [as] a future mom I am so blessed to know what foundations my family will need to have in order to stay firm and make good decisions in order to live together for all eternity.

Sabado- We were walking down [a street] and a little girl stopped us in the street.  She said, "I like Mormons and my dad was almost a Mormon, do you want to meet him?"  Of course the answer was "SIM!"  So we went and talked to A~.  Turns out that he is the brother of a less-active and was taught by the missionaries a while back and was wanting to talk to missionaries again, but never had the courage to stop us in the street.  He is truly trying to [improve] his life.  We also taught V~ (the daughter of a recent convert who we have been [teaching] since I got here.)  We made a lot of progress today.  We felt that we needed to do something different in order to capture her interest during the lesson so we used Pres. Uchtdorf's talk, "Our Wonderful Journey Home" [https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/your-wonderful-journey-home?lang=eng] to teach the plan of salvation and ... SHE LOVED IT!  She felt the Spirit so strongly, had a change of heart, and accepted to be baptized on the 12th of April!  It was truly a miracle.

Domingo- We taught So~ again and made SO MUCH PROGRESS with her.  She understood everything we said, will pray about baptism, and has started to open her heart-up to the Gospel.

Thanks for the love and support!  Pray for missionary experiences and they will come!  I promise!

Com muito amor,
Sister Phelps