I’m so excited! I get to finally send pictures now! My comp and I passed a store (sort of) that had the adaptor I needed and it actually works!
I’m officially on my last twelve weeks and another transfer already ending! We are not 100% sure what will happen as far as transfers, but I’m pretty sure nothing too drastic haha.
I just wanted to thank all of you for your sweet love and support. This week I received some letters from Jonny and Jess! How cute were those and Jonny! Your Portuguese is still going strong! Thank you so much for remembering me! Thank you Grammy for the new skirt you sent me! I love it!
Right now my companion and I are in a trio with a sweet girl that is ready to head out on her mission to Argentina. She is from Acre and will be set apart tomorrow as an official missionary. She is just staying with us in the meantime. I also found out last week that Sister Patrini – my short term companion that came and stayed with me in Boa Vista for a transfer – got her mission call to Santa Catarina! Yay! She is headed out a week before I come home so I might be able to see her! I’m so proud of her – she is the sweetest.
These last couple of weeks I’ve been able to reflect and study about the Christlike attributes of love and sacrifice. These last few weeks my companion and I have learned a lot about these things and how when we make sacrifices for our friends, family, Savior, and earnestly seek to help them and put them before ourselves it is incredible how much love is put into our hearts, not only for people that we serve, but also the love that the Savior has for each of us. As leaders in the mission, we are pressured a lot, a lot, a lot for good numbers, the well being of our area, and also the areas of those sisters we have been assigned. It is a lot of work, pressure, and sacrifice making divisions, phone calls, trainings, handling difficult situations, but this week I could feel the love of our Savior for his missionaries and the people of this part of the world.
We went to make divisions with some sisters to try and help them increase their teaching pool, help them with better teaching methods etc. And before the division, I talked to their zone leader about what he thought we could do on the division to better help these sisters. He told us that the sisters were really discouraged and that they had told him it had been a long time since they had seen a miracle in that area. He told me the best thing I could do was show them how to see a miracle. (no pressure)
When we got there, I went up to a Sister that I have looked after before. It was so amazing to see her progress and to see how much her confidence had grown over the past couple of months. As we were talking, she told me that week they didn’t have anyone to baptize and it was our mission goal that no one would zero out. She told me that she and her comp were really sad because there just wasn’t anyone. I felt the strongest prompting to tell her that we would see a miracle that same day. I told her we would find someone that had attended church more than twice, was keeping the commandments of God and who would want to be baptized. After I promised her these things, I immediately felt a weight on my shoulders as I recognized what I had just promised her would really be a complete miracle.
It was obvious that she did not believe me at first. But after a hot, hot, hot afternoon, at about six o’clock we went to buy a snack and saw a young man standing there. I started to talk to him and explained what we do as missionaries. He looked at me and said, “Are you guys super busy right now? I’m having a rough time and need someone to talk to.” So we taught him the Restoration and found out that he had come to church several times with his friend, he doesn’t like coffee, doesn’t drink or smoke, and is keeping all the commandments. This young man was baptized last night.
You should have seen the smile and heard the excitement coming from that Sister to her companion when we met up after the division. I know that Heavenly Father is just so aware of our individual specific needs. I told my companion what I had done and she said, “You are crazy”. Hahaha
Sweet Samira who was baptized a couple of weeks ago bore her testimony today on the importance and the divinity of latter day prophets. My comp and I were very emotional listening to her testimony because this was the one thing that held her back for so long and to hear her bear testimony now of our prophet was so inspiring to me.
I know that Heavenly Father will help each of us in our own times of need. We need to ask, and then have faith that our prayers will be answered. Sometimes we also need to ask for help in recognizing the answers when they come as well. I’m so grateful for this knowledge!
I love each of you so much! Thank you again for all the love and support you give me! Have a wonderful week!
Sister Arbuckle