April 28, 2014 (Hannah is halfway through her mission this week!)

Querida família!

 

April has gone by so fast, and it´s really been an amazing month.  We found out that this transfer is actually only going to be five weeks, and so it´s suddenly already ending!  I don´t really know anything yet about skype for mothers day but it´ll probably all be in an email that I´ll forward to you next week.  It should be actual skype, the facebook thing was kind of a last resort.  I´m looking forward to seeing you all!  About Christmas.. I thought I had already answered that question in the last email but I am feeling that I need to stay until the end.  I know the Lord will bless me and our family for staying another transfer to finish the 18 months I signed up for. 

 

It´s been a hard week, not in the way that we´re getting discouraged or sad, but in the way that we just have to laugh at all the things that just go wrong and God´s sense of humor in teaching us humility.  All of our good investigators told us they weren´t interested anymore, our ward is struggling a lot in all aspects, Valdemir´s car isn´t working still, and Cleide, the only other member who helps us suddenly moved away.  And the day ended with a cup of chá de burro, or in other words, corn water.  I hope you know I´m laughing as I write this...

 

I think the best part was Saturday night when our neighbors were playing their awful Paraiba rap, basically the same three songs, until 6:00 in the morning.  And when people play their music here, it´s loud enough to shake your house from the next street.  So needless to say we didn´t sleep or think very charitable thoughts that night, as clearly we are not representatives of Christ from 10:30pm to 6:30am...  but we still had to go walk 30 minutes away to the bottom of a hill to pick up our investigators who were all sleeping so they wouldn´t come to church.  So we get to church late, looking like we just got a bucket of water dumped on us which is really just sweat, but that´s the norm.  But here´s the lesson, I think; Christ really does love us.  If we think it´s annoying to do all that, what must it have been like for Christ when He sweat drops of blood for people who just have no idea of what He is doing for them or what He wants to offer them. 

 

We got to the church and one of our investigators we found that week was there, a woman named Maria who had been taught before by the Elders before us.  She had taken a bus by herself just because she had decided it was time to visit the church again.  She had tons of questions in Gospel Principles and we went to her house afterwards to teach her more.  She is a teacher and very smart and receptive of the spirit.  She told us she would be baptized already if it wasn´t for coffee. And cigarettes.  And the sabbath day.  And tithing.  But pray a lot for her because I think she needs to get baptized on Wednesday :) 

 

I think my most important lesson this transfer is that we are children of God.  The Lord calls us little children in D&C 50, and tells us to not be afraid countless times.  I love when the Savior immediately reached out to Peter when he walked on the water and began to fall, asking why he doubted.  We really know nothing, but we must learn to love God because He loves us SO much.  And that´s what we need to apply to our members and investigators as well.  We need to love them as little children.  They don´t understand a lot, but they will understand that we love them and are trying to help them be on the right path.  We always just need a little bit more faith and patience in the promises of the Lord. 

 

The Lord has been comforting me so much lately.  I love my Heavenly Father and my Savior so much.  They are so patient with me.  They even love our stupid neighbors who play loud music.  I´m so grateful for every day of my mission, and the Lord has been confirming to me that He is accepting my mission, as often as I´ll ask for that confirmation.  I read a really good talk I think from April 2013 by a Seventy called ´´Accepted of the Lord´´.  Feeling accepted is a basic human yearning, and if we can´t get that feeling of acceptance from our ward or even our family, people will look for other ways to find it.  We only need to find the acceptance of the Lord, who says in D&C 97:8 ´´Verily I say unto you, all among them who know their hearts are honest, and are broken, and their spirits contrite, and are willing to observe their covenants by sacrifice- yea, every sacrifice which I, the Lord, shall command- They are accepted of me´´

 

I love you guys so much and hope you have a great week!  I hope the Elders bring my package to the meeting tomorrow, but if not for sure I´ll get it at the next leader meeting the week after.  The church is true!

 

Com amor e carinho,

 

Sister Moore

 

April 14, 2014

Família minha,

Feliz Semana Santa!!  J got baptized.  She really has been wanting this change so much. She´s 20 and has a 5 year old daughter and her life has just been full of problems from the start.  It´s a cycle her daughter would´ve started into as well.. Never really knowing better until now, she´s basically had problems with every commandment you can break, which is why it took a while with her (okay, a while if you´re in Brazil).  I love the picture we took with her mom and her daughter, just thinking how little Vivian doesn´t need to live the life her mom and grandma lived.  Luzia, the grandma (super young grandma), wants to be baptized next week too!!  This was really a cool baptism.  

I´m not really that sure what I want to talk about this week, but it´s just been a week of enduring and reflecting on what kind of missionary I am.  Something my companion has taught me is that sometimes we try so hard to be ´´Sister Moore´´ that we forget that the Lord called Hannah and needs Hannah to be here at this time and with these people.  Sometimes our defects make us not want to try because it seems the work is just so much bigger than we are. But the Lord has fit His plan of Salvation to our skill level, and so it is with the mission.  That is why it is so important to not compare your life, your mission, or anything with anyone else.  

I know the Lord loves me.  I just read the May 2013 talk by President Eyring.  This Easter week we all need to again invite the Savior to abide with us, in our homes, in our work. He talks so much about how He just wants to draw near to us. He loves us so much and is so full of mercy and understanding for our weaknesses. 

This week pray for Luzia, Janiana´s mom. Also Cristiane and her three sons who all want to be baptized, João, who probably doesn´t understand a word we say but needs the gospel too, and Elinildo, who needs to quit his sunday job with rooster fighting...  that´s five!  

I love you all so much!! The church is true!

Beijinhos,

Sister Moore

April 7, 2014

Baptism!

Watching conference and eating cake!

Happy, Irma Moore!

 

 

Querida família!!

I´m trying my hardest to send pictures so hopefully it happens but just know I´m trying every week and it never works.  I´m staying another transfer here with Sister Sciammarella!!  I am so thrilled, after this week we have every reason to be excited to stay.  There still haven´t been any more baptisms even though we always have people to be baptized each week.  Things just keep happening and it´s totally out of our control.  I know we´re doing the same work as the people who baptize every week, but I really liked what President Eyering said about patience.  He said something along these lines, if the consequences of obedience or disobedience were immediate, it wouldn´t build faith.  Conference was so great!!!  I got to see all of them including the young womens!  I definitely cried in both videos.  Those missionaries singing ´´sou um filho de deus´´ are us!!  After looking at my notes, these are the things I feel were the General Authority´s counsels for me:

-ease the burden of your leaders

-be thoughtful and Christlike to everyone

-kneel in prayer daily with a real desire to change

-patiently await blessings

-draw faith from your family

-don´t pick and choose commandments

- have an attitude of gratitude!

- help your teammates

- study the atonement during trials

- have love in your heart instead of regret

We have a really great grupo de ensino once again.  Four of our investigators came to the Saturday afternoon (night) session which was just a miracle.  One of them was a reference from Irmã Cleide, who has become one of my favorite members of all time.  It was exactly how missionary work should be. Her name is Sandra and she LOVED conference. We marked a time to come teach her with Cleide and it was a super great first lesson.  Really the spirit has just been in our lessons so strongly this week and people have been listening a lot better, especially to the first vision.  We are also teaching Cristiane and her three sons.  She recently survived a car accident and is so elect and willing to do all the things we tell her.  Right from the beginning she knew she wanted to be baptized. 

Our other awesome investigator is a reference from Valdemir.  His references are getting really good and I know the Lord is blessing him for his desire to help the missionaries.  This guy´s name is Fernando and he´s legally married and has like 7 kids.  He randomly bought a movie about Joseph Smith one time and is super excited to read the Book of Mormon.  Valdemir is my hero.

I am just feeling so good about the work here right now.  I was feeling really stressed earlier but after conference and after a blessing from my Zone Leader, Elder Walker, I feel that the Lord is happy with what we are doing.  Sister Sciammarella is my best friend in the world and we always laugh. 

Janaina is finally going to get baptized on Thursday.  It´s been a journey and she´s got quite the past, but we think she´s finally understanding repentence.  Pray for her, and for Ana Paula, who didn´t come to church, and Elinildo who would be baptized if he would leave his sketchy rooster fighting job...  and also João.  He came to church so let´s baptize that man :) haha so I think it´s six possible baptisms this week...

I love you all so much!  This transfer has some pretty great things to look forward to.. Easter, the 9-month mark and MOTHER´S DAY!  It´s gonna be so awesome.  The church is true and the Lord always knows what we need.  This transfer I want to stop focusing so much on how to be a good missionary and start to learn how to be a representative of Christ. 

Um abração,

Sister Moore

March 30, 2014

Família!!!

I can´t believe Eric is home!!!  Or on his way at least.  What an incredible week to be home for conference!  It really has been a journey, but it´s finally come to an end and now life is about to begin.  At least for me, my mission is just training on how to be a human being.  The principles of the gospel need to be actively exersized in every part of life, no matter how safe or how smart we think we are.  When the wind and tempests come to tear us down, we need to make sure we´re built upon the rock of our redeemer (Helaman 5)

This was a harder week.  We both were sick, but not at the same time so we had to stay in almost the whole week.  But the Lord really did keep blessing us and we ALMOST baptized and we ALMOST had someone at church haha...

We´re a little bit frustrated with the world right now, our investigators but even more so the members.  I read this morning in Mosiah 26 about how Alma didn´t want to deal with their members who were sinning so he took them to Mosiah like `´Hey Mosiah, these are YOUR people, what are you going to do with them?`` and Mosiah´s like ``I gave YOU responsibilty over the church, YOU have to deal with them´´  and Alma´s like ``Fine... I´ll go ask the Lord what to do´´.  I paraphrased just a little.  So we just need to try new things to get our ward to help so we´re just going to visit all of them this week and teach them how to prepare for conference.  You guys can do the same!  

First of all, we need to make sure people are reading the scriptures, praying and having family night.  The kids also need to listen to conference and they need to understand what it means that the prophet will talk to us.  Then individually everyone needs to pray and even fast to be able to receive revelation during conference for the things they need.  We can make lists of things we want answers to during conference.  Then we need to listen to our feelings and take notes.  We need to sacrifice everything else we would be doing to hear all four session.  I also want everyone to read Elder Hales´talk at the beginning of last conference in the Ensign.  

After I made this list that we´re going to challenge all of our members to do, I realized it´s just everything you´ve always taught me.  I know I always complained about reading scriptures basically my whole life, but I´m glad you never gave up.  I do remember when I was probably only 8 years old, one of you asked if I would give up all of my toys to follow to prophet, like when Lehi and his family left Jerusalem.  I realized how that still had an impact on me.  Just the very first part of the Book of Mormon.  I wasn´t sure if I could do that because my life was just the things I had, my toys and my house and my TV.  Parents need to teach their kids the gospel, and I´m so glad you did that with me.  Even though kids are so annoying and I´m not sure if I want any. 

I don´t want to be negative, but we just really need to Lord´s help to get our ward to help us. We have some big problems with retention and it starts with just the basic things the members are doing.  I won´t go off about the things they aren´t doing right, but it´s been a huge lesson to me about the things I haven´t been doing right my whole life.  It really is important to magnify your calling, support everything in the church and to fellowship others.  It is a commandment.  We have never had a problem before with investigators going to church and not really being impressed.  But it´s just a challenge that the Lord has given us and he trusts us to do our part to help change things here.  Our members are great and they want to do the right things, they just need to know how they can help.  

I know that God does everything for a reason and in His own time.  His thoughts are not our thoughts.  We didn´t baptize, but our district leader who´s ward is in the same chapel as us baptized two people and he´s been struggling so much.  We considered it just another way of God answering our prayers.  Everyone in our district baptized at least once this month and our mission getting better.  I don´t think Carnaval has anything to do it, but just the worthiness and hard work of the missionaries AND the members.  

That was a really cool statement about Zion and your mission in Boston.  We are trying to do just that here.  Thank you so much for raising me in this Gospel and doing all of the simple things to make sure I grew up with an understanding of Christ.  The church is still true and I love you all so much!  I hope I get to see Eric and Myles in the Ensign or on the screen!  Sister Johnson and some people from my last area in Prossind are also going to be there.  

Muito amor,

Sister Moore