Lunch with President Costa

A EI Família?! 

Thursday President Claudio R.M. Costa(of the Seventy, Presiding over Brazil) came to town! He is pretty hilarious and has some awesome stories! He is a convert to the church and came to know that the church was true though 14 hours of reading, studying, and praying about Joseph Smith´s story. Some Sisters had been teaching his mom the lessons but he always sat in another room with the door closed while they taught her. But one day, the sisters were a bit more inteligent and listening to the Spirit and left the door opened um pouco while they taught the Restoration to his mom. He said that he remembers that they taught with so much power, something pricked his heart. After the lesson and as they were leaving, they invited him to read and pray about Joseph Smith and his story. Então he did. He stayed up 14 hours diligently studying. At the end, he said that he had a perfect knowledge that Joseph Smith was a prophet...and ran to the sister's home and told them he wanted to be baptized! Imagine! I can't even imagine how surprised and excited they were. So less than a week later, he was baptized. Other than this awesome conversion story, he had some excellent advice for us missionaries. Hopefully with this advice, we will be able to work more efficiently with our wards and in our areas. I have come to learn that the ward plays a HUGE part in missionary work. Without the ward, this work would be even more difficult but as the members help and have trust in us and us in them, we can work together to bring others to the gospel. 

Wednesday was an interesting day. We had another divisão, and I stayed in the area with a sister (from Honduras) who arrived in the field the same day as me. So we had two new missionaries with 3 months in Jorda who don't know Portuguese fluente. Luckily Portuguese is close enough to Spanish so the questions I couldn't answer, she could for the most part. But when it came down to it, we did pretty well if I do say so myself! We didn't leave anyone confused (*phew*) and taught and spoke to the best of our ability. From this I learned that I know a lot more Portuguese than I give myself credit for and can understand more than I think I can. woohoo!

Welp other than that, everything is going pretty fantastic in Jordanópolis! I hope you all have a absolutely out of this world week and enjoy your week off school! HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!! 

LOVE YOU GUYS!!!

Love, Sister Hilchie :)    

Changes

EH FAMÍLIA!! Hope everything is fantastic down in Georgia! I'm missing the cooler weather that is starting down there....here it is just wonderfully hot every day. But all is well! I only got really sunburnt once this week, which lead to some horrible tans lines mas tudo bem!  This week was super crazy. It all started with last Monday when Presidente Broadbent called us up at 9am....he wanted us to try something different for a couple days. He wanted us to do 50 contatos each both Tuesday and Wednesday and to leave the house at 10:30am. Wow. We had a hard enough time doing 10 contatos every day, how were we supposed to do 50? Well we were about to find out. So for the next two days, we left the house at 10:30am and stormed the streets. And with a little faith and more of a positive/"I can do this" attitude, we were able to do more than 200 contatos between the two of us Tuesday and Wednesday. It was pretty awesome to see how many endereços we recieved! We just needed to talk with the whole world! At the end of this little trial, Presidente wanted us to call him to let him know how it went. So thursday morning we did, and that afternoon had a grande reunião with the whole mission--in which our mission started over. Presidente had been thinking A LOT about our mission and how we could do better and as a result, we have some new protocol. Instead of doing ten contatos every day, we have to do 50...woah. We would leave every day at 10:30am and get to work. Because each missionary was going to be doing 50 contatos, Presidente expects at least one baptism each week per companionship and if we don´t to expect a call from him or one of the assistants. wowdittywowwow. He is really firm in this and hopefully with this change and the other smaller changes, our mission will grow stronger and more unified.  Saturday there had a teatro sobre o Livro de Mórmon. It was legal de mais! The actors were not professionals, just a little theatre group, but it was still very family friendly and explained the story of the Book of Mormon very well, and the guy who played Laman was on point. We had some investigators there and some of their questions they had were cleared up, which is always good because a confused investigator is not a good thing.  Alrighty so people are already putting up Christmas decorations!!! The displays are not as grand or spectacular as the ones in the States but algumas pessoas have strings of lights outside their homes and every house I have been in so far has a little Christmas tree! Ah I am so excited for Christmas!  I hope you all have a superbly awesome week! Eu amo vocês muito!!!! Love, Sister Hilchie

Tudo Tranquilho

Boa tarde família! Tudo bem? 

This past week was definitely more like a roller coaster with its ups and downs but mainly ups actually no, about even steven mas tudo bem because our ups were maravilhoso! Last week for pday, we got together with some other missionaries, members, and investigators and played soccer, ate, played games...all the get togethery stuff! Foi muito legal! I was the only sister to play futebol and man did it feel great to kick around a soccer ball for a bit! Mas the fun has to end sometime and after the wonderful hours of pday, it was time to get back to work. So we walked to our first appointment of the evening with one of the members (Jeronimo). We taught a great lesson and afterwards went on our little merry way to our next appointment. Well our investigator wasn't home and it was close enough to 9pm that we decided to go home. At this point it was sprinkling a bit--nothing to be too worried about--but I was the only one with an umbrella so we hoped and prayed that it wouldn't get any worse....then of course out of nowhere BAM! Let it rain, let it pour--literally. It went from a little sprinkle to raining cats and dogs and there were three of us and one umbrella. AH we tried our best to squish underneath the umbrella with Sister Oliveira and Jeronimo in the front and me in the back. Well this was not exactly working because my back was getting soaked and you might as well give up on trying to avoid the puddles. Haha so Sis. Oliveira had had enough so after about 5 minutes of this, she took her coat, pulled it over her head, and yelled "tacho gente" and took off. By the time we said goodbye and thanked Jeronimo and got home, we were drenched. Our shoes were mini swimming pools and our skirts...let’s just say they gained a pound or two (I'm sure they didn't but it sure felt like it). Welp that's my exciting news for the week. Things around here in Jordanópolis are pretty tranquilo. 

Oh! But we do have a new investigator named Leandro (aka Jack Sparrow) who is pretty awesome. He's pretty chill, go with the flow kind of guy, knows a good bit of English but doesn't have much faith because of some events that happened in his past. Anyways last week when we first met him na rua, we were talking when he asked me where I was from to which I responded "Estados Unidos." Apparently he didn't understand me because he gave me that all too familiar "what did you just say" face. I had to repeat myself 3 times until it finally clicked. But the best part is that he thought I was speaking English and trying to figure out where in the world the estados unidos was! No wonder he didn't understand me! Made me feel a bit better. 

My Portuguese is definitely getting a lot better! I am understanding a good portion of what people are saying (when they talk a bit slower and clearly), read a scripture and understand what it is saying, and am able to respond for the most part. At times it is hard because I am not able to truly express myself mas tudo bem! Um dia! Welp everything else is totally tranquilo com um grilho. We're working hard and livin the missionary life! Thanks for all your prayers and support!

I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!!!! Have an último semana! 

Love, 

Sister Hilchie :)    

Soccer in Brazil! On a basketball court nonetheless!