Hellooo!!!!!! Another week here on the mish!! Only one more week til transfers already!! Time is starting to fly especially now that I am more comfortable with the language haha. But all is well up here in Boa Vista!!
Okay so our baptism we had set for last week got pushed to this week but it's totally good because GUESS WHAT. The little elderly lady I talked about (yeah she's 79 years old ps) - she is the mom of many many many members of the church!! Yeah what. They are all inactive now and it was always hard because their mom didn't support the church. She actually rejected all missionaries for many many years. When we heard this my comp and I were like whaaat she seriously was so welcoming to us! Then they told us that when she made her decision to be baptized, THE WHOLE FAMILY IS GOING TO COME BACK and her kids that are living in Manaus are going to come up to be with her!!! We are seriously so so happy for her. She calls me her `brancona` which means like whitey in Português hahaha. Love it. She had us over 2 times this week and always gives us snacks and hugs us sooo hard haha.
This week I was just seriously so grateful for the members here. If I get transfered I will definitely cry saying goodbye to some of them. I got a little bit sick and our Branch President literally dropped everything to come and give me a blessing and then he drove us to lunch the next day. Then another member drove us to our appointments that next day and it was so so so sweet. That night we had a family home evening and because it was my comps birthday they bought us presents!!!! Like wrapped and everything!! Then they took us to a super amazing barbaque here in Brazil and I was pretty much in heaven haha. This member is helping my companion with her teeth because he is a dentist. How nice is that?? This week Diana (my best friend here) called us and said "I know Sister Arbuckle's favorite thing is breakfast - do you guys want to come over for breakfast tomorrow?" She literally made a huge feast American style with everything that is my favorite including pancakes with caramel syrup (mom it was almost like eating one of yours) and yeah to say I was happy is an understatement!!!
Ah okay so this week our district leaders gave us the challenge of going into the area book and finding some families that were taught but were never baptized. Maybe they are prepared now! We seriously found some amazing families as we worked on this assignment and marked 12 dates of baptism this week! Lots of them were on the street. It's the best feeling ever to mark a date of baptism on the street I love it!!! Many of the families that we are teaching still need to get married before they can be baptized so they will be baptized next transfer. Teaching families is like the best feeling in the entire world. Seeing the kids faces when they see the temple in Manaus is priceless.
This week I went to get my eyebrows waxed with my comp by this lady that was a reference in the ward and she literally USED A STRAIGHT RAZOR on my eye brows. I was like oh wow that looks really nice thank you too bad it will grow back in a couple hours. Hahaha I think I'm just going to keep doing them myself out here.
One thing that I wanted to share with you guys is a quote from this talk that I was reading this week. It was on prayer and it was actually a BYU devotional by Elder Burke. He talks about how sometimes we pray and pray and pray and no answers seem to come. But he tells us that answers always come but sometimes we are not prepared to hear them. What can we do to be prepared to hear our answers from our Heavenly Father? Just as an earthly father talks to all of his children I know without a doubt that everytime one of our Heavenly Father´s children kneel down to talk to Him he listens perfectly to every single word. So this week find time to kneel down and pray out loud and express the desires of your heart to your Father in Heaven. Then we can ask for the blessing of understanding if we are not ready for an answer in that moment.
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH <3
Sister Arbuckle
[email protected]
Okay so our baptism we had set for last week got pushed to this week but it's totally good because GUESS WHAT. The little elderly lady I talked about (yeah she's 79 years old ps) - she is the mom of many many many members of the church!! Yeah what. They are all inactive now and it was always hard because their mom didn't support the church. She actually rejected all missionaries for many many years. When we heard this my comp and I were like whaaat she seriously was so welcoming to us! Then they told us that when she made her decision to be baptized, THE WHOLE FAMILY IS GOING TO COME BACK and her kids that are living in Manaus are going to come up to be with her!!! We are seriously so so happy for her. She calls me her `brancona` which means like whitey in Português hahaha. Love it. She had us over 2 times this week and always gives us snacks and hugs us sooo hard haha.
This week I was just seriously so grateful for the members here. If I get transfered I will definitely cry saying goodbye to some of them. I got a little bit sick and our Branch President literally dropped everything to come and give me a blessing and then he drove us to lunch the next day. Then another member drove us to our appointments that next day and it was so so so sweet. That night we had a family home evening and because it was my comps birthday they bought us presents!!!! Like wrapped and everything!! Then they took us to a super amazing barbaque here in Brazil and I was pretty much in heaven haha. This member is helping my companion with her teeth because he is a dentist. How nice is that?? This week Diana (my best friend here) called us and said "I know Sister Arbuckle's favorite thing is breakfast - do you guys want to come over for breakfast tomorrow?" She literally made a huge feast American style with everything that is my favorite including pancakes with caramel syrup (mom it was almost like eating one of yours) and yeah to say I was happy is an understatement!!!
Ah okay so this week our district leaders gave us the challenge of going into the area book and finding some families that were taught but were never baptized. Maybe they are prepared now! We seriously found some amazing families as we worked on this assignment and marked 12 dates of baptism this week! Lots of them were on the street. It's the best feeling ever to mark a date of baptism on the street I love it!!! Many of the families that we are teaching still need to get married before they can be baptized so they will be baptized next transfer. Teaching families is like the best feeling in the entire world. Seeing the kids faces when they see the temple in Manaus is priceless.
This week I went to get my eyebrows waxed with my comp by this lady that was a reference in the ward and she literally USED A STRAIGHT RAZOR on my eye brows. I was like oh wow that looks really nice thank you too bad it will grow back in a couple hours. Hahaha I think I'm just going to keep doing them myself out here.
One thing that I wanted to share with you guys is a quote from this talk that I was reading this week. It was on prayer and it was actually a BYU devotional by Elder Burke. He talks about how sometimes we pray and pray and pray and no answers seem to come. But he tells us that answers always come but sometimes we are not prepared to hear them. What can we do to be prepared to hear our answers from our Heavenly Father? Just as an earthly father talks to all of his children I know without a doubt that everytime one of our Heavenly Father´s children kneel down to talk to Him he listens perfectly to every single word. So this week find time to kneel down and pray out loud and express the desires of your heart to your Father in Heaven. Then we can ask for the blessing of understanding if we are not ready for an answer in that moment.
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH <3
Sister Arbuckle
[email protected]