Que Calor!

Hello my friends!

 Wow, this week was extremely hott! Want to know the best part? That it really didn;t bother me! I am pretty sure the Lord is giving me strength in this heat to work and help others. My area here is really wonderful. I have made so many good friends with the members who help us a lot. This week we have been teaching people about Christ and the importance of him in our lives. This week it suddenly dawned on me that most people don;t understand the importance of Christ, and without this, why would they want to work so hard and join the church? So we have been explaining about what Christ did for us, and when our investigators understand this, they work harder. It has been incredible to me to see the difference. I have been learning so much about the Atonement of Christ, and really feeling closer to my Savior.
  My companion has still been having difficulties.I dont know what will happen in the end, but I know that I am learning a lot! I have always wanted to be more patient, and so the Lord blessed me with this opportunity to learn. I just hope that I am learning all that I need to!
   I wish I had some really great spiritual stories or experiences to tell, but sometimes we just work, teach and search for people who are ready to follow Christ. Sometimes we just teach, they dont progress, and we continue. We are here to find those who are ready, and that is what we are doing!
  I love this gospel more than anything! I challenge everyone to learn more about Christ and His atonement, and you will find more of a desire to work harder and keep the commandments. He is the only one who understands EVERYTHING that you go through, so why not talk to Him more and rely on him? I am grateful for my mission, and so happy to be here! Look for the positive in things and you can never be sad. I love you all, WRITE LETTERS and let me know how you are doing!
 Love, Sister Gordon

11 Months.......Time Flies!

Wow- 11 months on the mission! It´s so crazy to me!!! Almost a year! I can’t believe it. I feel like I arrived here the other day. Time goes by so fast, doesn’t it??

  This week was interesting. It started with Carnival- which meant that everyone went to the beach or traveled. Or in other words, the city was desolate and didn’t have anyone to teach. We found some good missionary things to do though. Just to celebrate, I made a missionary Carnival mask! Ha ha! You always need to enjoy the moment, so I do!

  We had a mission conference this week that was wonderful. Our president talked about how we need to find men to teach to help the church and priesthood grow here in Brazil. We have a lot of work to do! I always feel refreshed and reenergized when we have conferences. It was nice to see other missionaries and a lot of sisters!

 Our area is doing really well. We have been receiving a lot of references from members, which is the best! We had Jadson´s baptism yesterday. His brothers are recently baptized, and we had been teaching him. He was a little hesitant about baptism, but we marked the date and invited him to pray about it during camp that week. When he returned from young men´s camp, he told us that he wanted to be baptized. He had felt really good there, and decided! We were so happy, and it was wonderful to see all the young men there to support him. The ward we are working in really sacrifices and works to help us. Yesterday we had some less active people, investigators and recently baptized people there. I was so happy to see the members helping and guiding these people,  that I wanted to cry!

  Everything is going well here with the work. I just please ask you all to pray for my companion. She is having some big struggles, and needs some guidance from the Lord. I am being tried alot right now and definitely learning how to rely on the Lord. I love my Savior. The more I learn about the Atonement, the closer I feel to Him. My knowledge of the gospel is increasing more and more everyday, and I am extremely grateful that the Lord called me here. I know this gospel is true. We all need to repent, change our lives and follow the commandments to be happy. The closer we grow to the Lord through keeping his commandments, the more freedom, peace and guidance we feel in our lives. So what do you need to change? This is what the Atonement is all about. Change. So change something for the better.

 I love you all and have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Gordon

Jadson's Baptism

Trantula...eeekkkk!

Zone conference