You Are My Sunshine

Another week! I wish I had a lot to say, but unfortunately I don't. We work a lot, but things are about the same! One funny thing:

 I am teaching my companion English, and she speaks pretty well. While we walk, we teach each other songs in our native language. I have taught her a few funny songs! The other day we were talking about transfers, and how we would like to continue serving together. Suddenly she started singing "She is my sunshine, my only sunshine... Please don't take my sunshine away!" It was pretty funny! I love my companion!

Other than that, it has been raining which is absolutely wonderful! I am so happy with this cooler weather. We had one day of sun that almost killed us after having cooler weather. I got a pretty good burn! But that´s life!

I wish I had more to say. I will think of some fun things to say next week!

Oh- funny story. One day we were walking and talking about people and how they make life difficult for themselves. I was a little passionate about this subject, (after being tired of hearing everyone´s selfish problems..) and I said rather loudly `Your life is only difficult if you want it to be!!` When I said this, there happened to be a man outside of his house who, at the exact moment, responded`It´s true!` I thought that was pretty funny! And kind of embarassing.. oops!

But I hope you all have a wonderful week. Write me! I love you all

Tchau!

Sister Gordon

All is Well!

Hello everyone!
  This week was really great. It rained again, and again, and I think we were the only ones singing and happy on the street this week. I love this weather!
  Yesterday we celebrated Easter. Here, it isnt too big of a holiday. People buy big chocolate Easter eggs that have toys inside and give them to one another. Friday was part of Semana Santa (or holy week) and everyone ate fish instead of meat. This holiday also means that no one was on the street or at home because they were all at the beach. So we walked a lot and tried to work, but it was difficult.

 My companion and I celebrated Easter American style! I told her how we make Easter baskets with gifts inside, and hide eggs around the house. We made baskets for each other! She actually made a paper basket for me and also hid paper eggs! She was more American that I! But it was really fun. It makes such a difference when you have a wonderful companion.

 Our work here is going okay. It is just really difficult to get people to work! They understand and feel that the Gospel is true, but are too lazy to change their life and get going. These thing sometimes take time. I just hope that I am training my companion well so that she can have great success in the future. But the work always continues!

  The other night was pretty interesting. I know that you guys were missing my stories about cockroaches so I decided to tell a new one. Ha, ha! I was in our room preparing my companion´s easter basket, when I heard something fly into the room. We live on the third floor, so if you can imagine what that´s like to hear something fly in. I looked at the floor and saw a huge cockroach running around. I quickly covered my basket and called my companion to come help me. She was taking her time, but by the third time i yelled her name she ran in. When she entered, it scared the cockroach, which then began to fly around and almost flew into my mouth! ughhh... But you have to have moments like this to have a funny story.
 Well have a great week! I love you all and miss you :)
Love,
Sister Gordon

 American Easter

Steph failed to mention what happened....bug bites I'm sure.

A Marvelous Week!!! Rain Rain DON"T go away!

Hello Everyone! This week was marvelous- wanna know why?? Because it was actually a little cold!! This week
it rained and rained, which makes me so happy. Today we went down to the center of Joao Pessoa and saw all of the old churches there. It was pretty fun! I took a lot of pictures, but for some reason this computer isn’t downloading them. O well! I guess you’ll have to wait ‘til next week!

  My companion is really great! We are getting along really well, and having a lot of fun. She
likes to work, and so do I, so we work and have fun. She also loves to speak English,
and keeps me laughing all the time because of her funny accent and phrases. I
recorded her talking,  I’ll have to send it sometime! She is really cute. On my one year mark, she woke up at 5 in the morning, made me a cake and an American breakfast! It was so sweet of her. It
really made my day special. We love to cook healthy food together, and she cooks really well. What a great companion!
   This week we visited a lot of less actives- or at least we tried to. It’s hard to do everything we need to do in the short amount of time we have! We were able to find a few new people to teach, and visit them with members (which is always really good!). Segundo has been going to church every week, even when we have a conference in another area! We met his children this week and hope that together they can all join the church. He is feeling really good about everything, but taking his time to be baptized. He will be soon enough!

  We are always teaching a lot of people, but we teach and drop them so fast that it’s not really worth it to talk about them all. The people here LOVE to hear about the church and God, but they DO NOT LOVE to work. Ha ha! I like what was said in the last conference about being a member of the church of Jesus Christ- it’s not easy! Well we know that, and finding people ready to follow is really
difficult, BUT not impossible.

  Continue to pray that it keeps raining, and that we can find men and families to baptize. I am
so happy! I hope you all are doing well and I can’t wait to receive letters from y’all! (Please send her a letter so she'll get off our backs! Ha, ha)

Love,
Sister Gordon

A Wonderful Week!

 What a WONDERFUL WEEK! I have a lot of reasons to be happy. My first reason is the miracle that occurred yesterday. We invited a lot of people to general conference, which we watched in another church building. Saturday- no one showed up.  But Sunday, we had 6 people that watched conference, and all had friends who are members!  I am so excited, because they are all showing progress and have a lot of support. We are teaching men, families, and young adults. It’s so wonderful to see the blessings of the Lord after a period of trials. This area hadn’t been baptizing or progressing much until Sister Mares (my first comp here in Mangabeira) showed up. They had a few baptisms. Since then, I feel that this work is ready to go forth in this area. We are in charge of a Branch and a Ward, and have great investigators in both areas. 

   One man that is visiting the church is named Segundo. It´s actually a funny story how we found him. The night of Carnaval, we were out on the street trying to work, but it was difficult on the biggest holiday in Brazil. My companion was complaining `What are we doing here?? No one will listen to us! Let´s just go home..` But I said `No. We will stay here. Who knows? Maybe someone will see us and want to learn more.` I started praying to have the Lord send someone that night, or that we could make a difference. I said Hi! To everyone on the street but hardly anyone listened. A man passed, then returned and started talking to me. I thought he was just a flirt, (because he was really flirty- which isn’t anything new. Being American and blonde here attracts that). We talked, and invited him to church. Now he has been coming every week and we are teaching him. He said that that night, God finally touched his heart and he noticed something different about us. He likes the church, and i hope will be baptized soon.

I really enjoyed the conference talks. The funny thing about Elder Bednar's talk- When he visited here, he was with my mission president and his wife. While they were touring Joao Pessoa (where the sun rises first here in Brazil) he stopped everything and began to write. After a little while, he said that he had received revelation about his new conference talk. Yesterday I understood that of course he would talk about the sun after visiting here!

  I am so grateful for all the blessings the Lord is showing us right now. I am so happy to be here and help this area. These people here take such good care of me that I dont even have time to be homesick! I love you all and WRITE LETTERS! I want to know how you are doing!
 Have a great week!

My Teva sandals after a year.....just had them resoled.

 

A New Companion...

Hey everyone!
 I dont have much time, but I really quickly wanted to say hi! I was called to train a new sister missionary again and received my new companion yesterday. She seems really cool and I am excited to work. This week is conference, and I am so excited to hear from the prophets. ( You get really excited about this stuff on the mission- ha!) It´s been incredibly hot here this past week, to the point that my body can't stand it anymore. I almost got really sick, but I am doing better. Pray that I can have strength! 

I think its so neat to know that I have a family legacy. The other day, a member of the church was asking me if I had pioneers in my family history, and I was able to tell him some cool stories. He thought it was so neat, and I was really proud of my ancestors. I hope I am making them proud. Even though I am not pulling a handcart, I hope I am showing my faith through my struggles and accomplishments here in Brazil. I know they are rooting for me! I like a quote that Sister Hall told us `You leave your family to serve, serve so that other families can live together forever.` It´s true, and I am so excited about this. 

   Well, I thought I would share a special moment I had this week.  As you know, I had a lot of difficulties with my last companion. She didn't have a testimony of the the mission and was really struggling. I prayed, fasted, gave advice, loved and did my all, along with many other people, and in the end she decided to go home. The other day, I talked with my mission president in an interview, and he said some wonderful things. I had been a little worried about everything that happened. He looked at me and said `Sister, I know without a doubt that you did everything that the Lord expected you to do. You helped that Sister more than you know, and these past 5 weeks will have changed her life forever.` He said some other wonderful things and I felt so great. It was a confirmation to me that I fulfilled the purpose that the Lord had for me. As I was leaving, he said to me `You know, I never worried about Sister Alvarez, because I knew that she was with you.` I was so happy to hear this and know that my President trusts in me. I am not saying this to brag, but to share a good moment that I've had here! 

  I miss you all and am so happy here. I am really excited for general conference! Pay attention and don't fall asleep!  I love you all and hope all is well. Write letters please! It´s been FOREVER since I received one!
  Tchau!
Sister Steph

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