Eaten by mosquitos....

Herrrrooo Everyone!
 
 How are ya´ll doing?? I know it’s been forever, but that just means that I have lots of new news!

 I have been taking care of two areas here in Mangabeira, but two weeks ago we received two new sisters here! Two Americans and one just arrived. This is the first time that I am living with Americans and the first time having to share a house. It’s been pretty fun! I am able to remember English and my companion is practicing her English a lot too. It was a little sad to say goodbye to one of the wards I was taking care of, but I am excited to focus my efforts on the Branch. It’s a little weird to only work in one area- I am feeling like I only have a little space to work. But its fun- a new experience.
  We finally had another baptism! Jussara is the wife of Alexsandro, who is a member. She was really excited to be baptized. When the night arrived she was so happy and felt the spirit so strong. My companion and I did a musical number for her. She was crying the whole night! After, we gave her a Book of Mormon with a little note, and a copy of the plan of salvation that we made for her. It really meant a lot to her, because her father died and this is what led her to want to learn more. I love moments like this!
 Well my time is up. I will have to write more! Have a great week and I love you all!
 Sister Gordon

The rest of the story......he, he, he.....

 You can take some of the sunshine here. We have actually had a lot of rain, which is absolutely wonderful! The only problem is that with the rain comes mosquitos, and they loooove me! I have bites all over my body! They especially like my bum, which is really uncomfortable because it itches all day. I guess i have some sweet american blood!

What Have I Learned On My Mission?

Hey everyone!

 This week was transfers and I really wanted to stay here in this area with my wonderful companion! And my prayers were answered! I am excited to continue here and have some more wonderful experiences.
     Nothing much has happened this past week. I was able to talk to my family on Mother´s Day, and it was really nice to see them using skype! It´s incredible to me how fast time flies!
  Other than that, our work here has slowed down. My whole mission it has been the same- We find alot of people to teach, they either progress or no, and then we start all over again. Its now a new transfer, and we will have to start over and find new people. We will have a baptism this Sunday too!
 Her name is Jussara and she is recently married to Alexsandro, a less active member of the church. Other missionaries had been teaching her, but I dont think it was the right time. So when she moved to our area, we began to teach her and get to know her. She opened up to us and told us her doubts about life, and about her father who passed away. With her confidence, we were able to teach her about the Plan of Salvation and how she will certainly see her father again someday. She loved it so much that she wanted a little plan of salvation model for herself!
 The next time that we visited there, she said that she felt really great in the church and knew that it was true. She will be baptized this week and is really excited!
  But my family asked me a good question. What have you learned there? Why are you doing all of this? I have to say that my mission means everything to me. I have learned how important Jesus Christ is in my life. He has done everything for us! My relationship to Him and my Heavenly Father has grown. I have a desire to live with God someday, and I know through the plan that God has for us that we have to do some really important things here on the earth to be able to return to him someday. This is why I am here! To help others know what they need to do now to live with Heavenly Fatehr someday.
  Sometimes I feel a little sad because people think that Christ paid for everything, which means that they just need to accept him one day and they are saved for the rest of their life. I think that it is wonderful to accept Christ in your life, but we need to work hard to show our love for him. He suffered ALL for us, every pain, sadness, happiness, our WHOLE LIFE. So what do we need to do to repay Him? EVERYTHING. What would you do for someone who saved your life?
  I guess one little answer I have is that I would go to another country for a year and a half, leave everything, and walk in the sun till I am about to collapse to show my love for my Savior and to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others.
 I love you all. Have a great week and keep me updated!
 Love,
Sister Gordon

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