Trio Part 2

Hey guys!! This week was super duper! Don´t have anything really exciting to say about it but now I am in a trio so that´s fun!! Sister Meza has to go home in the middle of this transfer because of her visa so Sister Vargas will join Sister Negreiros and I and we are going to conquer all of Trindade! Its gunna be interesting because we have to take care of 2 àreas for these next 2 weeks, but im excited.

I love you all and hope you have the best week of your entire lives :)

Eu sei que A Igreja é verdadeira e eu amo o Evangelho de Jesus Cristo com todo o meu coração.

Tchau tchau!!

Sister Richins

I Got Robbed!

This week was the most exciting week of my life! Last pday we had pday with the district and so that was a party. Tuesday we walked até o pó but it paid off because we met some amazing people looking to change their lives. Wednesday Maria com cabela vermelha told us she knows the Book of Mormon is true and it was so sweet. Thursday we ran into Isadora (an old investigator of sister Love and I) and she is still reading the Book of Mormon and wants to be baptised. Friday we got robbed.  Saturday I taught my filha how to yell on the bus about the church. Sunday we had 6 people come to church! I love being a missionary.

But here´s what happened during the robbery:

Sister Negreiros and I were waiting to cross the highway on our way to Jerson´s house and this guy on his motorcycle drove up the side of the rode and almost hit us so of course I moved out of the way but he just got even closer to us so I was extremely confused and in my mind I was wondering what in the world this dude was doing. But then he told us to give him our cell phones and that he wasn´t kidding. Then I realized we were getting robbed and got super scared but I remembered in the missionary hand book it says not to resist robberies so I took our little brick of a phone out of my pocket and said, `você quer isso?` (you want this?´ and he looked at it and basically said `you´ve got to be kidding me no I don´t want that you can keep it` and then he asked us who we are. THEN he took off his helmet to talk to us! I think I would be a better theif than this guy was. But anyway the only thing he ended up taking from us was our number so he could learn more about the church. BUT THEN Sunday rolls around and HE CAME TO CHURCH. His name is Tiago. Needless to say, the gospel changes lives.

Stay safe out there. 

Have a great week everyone, I love you all!! Remember how much your Heavenly Father loves you :) até mais!!

Fluent Portuguese!

So this week was crazy with the Festa de Trindade. Ive seen lots of random things and millions of people everywhere! Its so crazy that we only had 10 members make it to church yesterday. But yeah I don´t have much time today so just want you all to know that I am alive and also that on Saturday we were teaching a mom and her daughter and the mom told me that I am fluent in Portuguese and I almost cried because she was the first person to tell me that! I know that i am for sure not actually fluent but you know it was really nice :) 

I love you all and I hope everyone has a great week!!

Millions of Cowboys and Horses

This week was the best week of my life!! It was hard to say bye to Sister Resquin, but she´s going to live in west jordan after the mission so Ill get to see her again, vai dar certo. 

A story real quick: 2 pdays ago I decided to download talks in Portuguese on my MP3 player. So, like any other person on the planet, I plugged it into the computer here in the Lan House. The problem is that when I plugged it in, my MP3 player deid! It wouldnt turn on or charge or do anything after that, and so I put it on my shelf, my heart becuase of the loss of my MP3. While mourning the loss of my MP3, I said a little prayer that it would start working again, and then moved on with my life becuase really it wasnt that big of a deal haha.  That night I had an extremely real dream that I got out of bed, walked to my shelf where my MP3 was, and turned it on like normal. So guess what I did when I woke up? I dont know why but I didnt get out of bed and check my MP3 player (oh ye of little faith). so a week later I remembered my dream and decided to give my MP3 another chance and yes, it worked!! I learned 2 things from this experience. First, God answers prayers, even the prayers about the little things in life that will not have eternal consequences in my life. My MP3 player mattered to me and so it mattered to Him too. Sometimes I forget that all I have to do is ask God to help me and He will. it is so simple!! Second, sometimes God answers our prayers way before we realize we already have our answer. I suffered for a whole week without music (hinos da Igreja) when I didnt have to! I am certain that if i would have checked my MP3 player the same day I had the dream it would have worked. Instead I was blind to the answer I had recieved and didnt realize it was an answer until a week later.

But anyway, I´m a mom!! Minha filha is Sister Negreiros, shes from Sao Paulo. She is so cute and helpful and I feel like she is training me more than I am training her haha! I am not surprised though becuase there was a moment in the taxi ride to Trindade after I picked her up while she was asleep next to me when the spirit told me that I have a lot to learn from her. The spirit literally slapped me in the face and told me in portuguese `você tem muitas coisas para aprender dela.` It was awesome.  

So yeah I picked up minha filha on Tuesday and guess what else happened on Tuesday?? THATS RIGHT BATISMO!! An investigator of Sister Vergas and Sister Monteiro(who is home now) got baptised on tuesday, so Sister Negreiros got to see a baptism her first day in the feild! Im pretty sure she is the first missionary in the world that got to do that on her first day. Also she gave a talk at the baptism on...baptsim! Needless to say, I was one proud mama.

Also this week has been really interesting becuase of the festa de Trindade. There are so many people in the city its crazy! Also every morning since Friday the Padre wakes us up at 5 so thats awesome. His voice is megaphoned from the Basilica so all of Trindade can hear him say prayers and stuff which is really cool, but i dont know why it has to be at 5am, ya know? Theres a lot of weird things going on here becuase of the Festa. On saturday we were walking home and all the sudden millions of cowboys on their horses come out of nowhere, so that was exciting!

Also Sunday was great becuase we had 4 people come to church! one of them is called Maria de Lourdes. We planned to meet her in front of the Jean Darrott at 8:50 so we were there waiting until 8:59 and she didnt show up. Church started and after 10 minutes I turn around and she is there!! Turns out she made it to the Jean Darrott and we werent there so she asked God to guide her to the church. He guided her!! It was awesome.

Thats all for this week, thanks for reading!! I hope you all have a great week and remember that Heavenly Father loves you with all of his heart.

Here are some pictures from when we said bye to Presidente Bührer. These are the people I arrived in the feild with!  But I lost the thing that I plug into the computer to put the pictures from my camera in my emails so sorry about that, it might be a while till yall see pictures of my cute filha and I.

Trainer!

Hey all! So transfers came today and.... Eu vou ser mãe!! WOOHOOOO I´m going to train here in Trindade so that means most likely I will be in Trindade for at least 3 more months :) and that´s okay because I love it here! (I´ve been here in this area for my whole mission so far). I´ll tell you about my greenie next week because I will pick her up tomorrow and I literally know nothing. 👊

This week was great ! On Wednesday the whole mission met in Goiânia for Presidente Bührer´s farewell. Oh man it was so good. He will be missed. Our next president will be Presidente Piros, and I am excited to meet him!! 

I dont know if you guys remember when I said to stay tuned for the baptism of Gabriel, but yeah he literally disapeared so not sure what to do about that. I´ll keep you all updated :P

But other than that all is going well in my area! The Festa de Trindade will start on the 28th so most of our investigators are going on vacation to avoid the 3 million people that will be here next week. I´m not sure what to do about that either haha. We´ll see what happens.

ALSO BIG NEWS the Trandade branch will become the Trindade WARD on the 30th!! WOOOHOOO we are growing so fast haha, the work of the Lord cannot be stopped!! Seriously I have seen so much progress with the members since I got here 5 and 1/2 months ago. There are so many people coming to church now that there arent enough chairs. And yesterday they ran out of sacrament water so they had to bless more so that everyone could partake. ALSO mine and sister love´s recent convert, Moacir, blessed the sacrament for the first time yesterday!! He was so nervous but did so good. Also he wore a white shirt and tie for the first time so yeah, proud of him. 

I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I love all of you, and I hope  you all have the best week of your lives :)

FOTOS

Power of the Priesthood

This week I got to see the power of the Preisthood in action. One of our investigators has been sick for more than a year and the doctors havent been able to figure out what is wrong. She is in constant pain and is losing her ability to walk and just move in general. Three weeks ago Sister Resquin and I asked if she would like to recieve a blessing. She said yes and so we called our branch president and he came to give her one! He explained to her that the blessing would be answered according to her faith and that the will of the Lord might be something other than what she wants. In the blessing President Sanchez blessed her that her doctors would be inspired to know what the problem was so that they could move forward and so that she could start to heal. On Friday we recieved the news that they doctors finally discovered what was wrong! Oh boy was she happy to tell us that news! She has a surgery scheduled for today to remove a lump that is growing in her hip and effecting her spinal cord and causing so much pain.  All will be well with her soon and I am so grateful for the priesthood. It really is the power of God here on earth.

Thats all I have time for this week but heres some pictures. Love you all so much!!!

Sister Richins

pics: the entrance to Trindade :)