FELIZE ANO NOVO

OI OI OI FAMILIA!!!!

Ah it was so good to see you guys Christmas! Can I just say best Christmas present ever?! I love you guys so much! You guys are literally the best! 

Courtney, Jaciara, and Sister Marquina

Anyways, Jaciara's baptism was Saturday, and it was awesome! The Spirit was so strong and you could really tell that she was so excited with her decision! She couldn't stop smiling and was beaming with the spirit! We also met her brother and sister, who attended the baptism, and are starting to teach them as well. We also have another investigator named Lucio who came to church Sunday! It was his first time and he said that he really enjoyed it and loved how everyone was kind and welcoming! Everyone back home, you guys really do make a difference when the missionaries bring investigators to church! So keep being awesome! 

Weeelll, that's it for this week (sorry it's short but between Christmas and today, nothing else really happened). Hope you guys have a fantastically wonderful week and FELIZ ANO NOVO!!! 

Bro. and Sis. Broadbent

Love, Sister Hilchie :)


Santa in Brazil! With tattoos?!

Add caption

 

Santo Andre


 

Merry Christmas!!

Just a screen shot of our chat with Courtney, no video - sorry!

MERRY CHRISTMAS
FELIZ NATAL!!!!!

We got to skype with our sweet Courtney today!  It was a unpredictable connection but we managed to piece together a conversation with her.  I understand why we can't skype regularly, it was really hard to let her go.  She is so far away and it would be so hard to stay for 18 months with a reminder of what you are missing at home.  She is doing great, we heard her speak some Portuguese and met her companion on line.
Here are some things she told us about Brazil:
1.The traffic is crazy and on top of that there are motorcycles darting in and out of traffic everywhere.
2.The food is good, rice and beans are served at every meal. Chicken is a common dish. She is fed lunch everyday by members in the ward she is serving in. Everyone goes home for lunch, it is the big meal of the day.
3. Christmas is not the same when it is hot outside!
4. Brazilians are friendly and polite.
5.  When she goes to church she gets hugs and kisses from all the females there. Common greeting.
6.  When the sun and the sky is clear it will be a hot day.
7.  The houses are really close together, no yards to speak of.
8.  There are bars on the garages and many of them have dogs in them, so one dog barks and the barking snowballs - so everyone on the street knows they are there!
9.  There are parks dotted through the city with walking paths and exercise equipment.
10. Brazilians have a different time table than us, they are not always home when they say they will be.
11.  One US dollar equals 4 Brazilian dollars
12.  Milk is very different and not very tasty, found in a cardboard box unrefrigerated. (We have a Brazilian missionary here and he doesn't like the milk either)
13.  They do not have pancakes and syrup.
14.  The area she is in is very hilly, Santo Andre.
15.  She is only one of 5 American sister missionaries in her area, most of the missionaries there are from Brazil.
16.  It costs 60 cents to use the internet for an hour, at the internet cafe.
17.  They have a lot of fruit there, similar to ours but there is one from the Amazon that she really likes, Capuacu, it is delicious she says.(I think that is the name of it)
18.  She gets to go to the temple once every three months.
19.  There are a lot of Catholics there.
20.  She has the BEST mission president, he gave them unlimited time to skype.  Thank goodness because we had a lot of connection problems and had a lot of dropped calls.

It was so good to hear her voice and see her face.  We are so excited for the opportunity she has to learn and grow and become a strong woman in character and faith.   We missed having her home for Christmas but she is living the spirit of Christmas every day.  Sharing the Gospel and the love of Christ to the people of Brazil.  Thank you for your support and interest in her mission!  Merry Christmas!!!!

Calor de Mais (Too Hot)

HEY HEY HEY FAMILY!!!! 

I hope you all had an absolutely wonderful week and finishing out the year and school year strong! I love you guys! 

Okay so this week we found one of God's elect. The name of this wonderful person is Jaciara. She is fifteen years old and is very interested in the gospel--and I mean very. She has been coming to church the past four Sundays with her friend who is a member (Adrieli). After Jaciara had been to church about 2 or 3 times, Adrieli approached us and asked if we could teach her friend. Well of course we can! So this Wednesday we finally met Jaciara. We were so excited to meet with and teach her. The first lesson we taught about following the example of Jesus Critso in all things and particularly baptism. It went really well and at the end of the lesson we invited her to really think and pray about what we had said and about the baptismal date we gave her. Welp we returned the next day (Thursday) to see if she prayed and how her prayer went. And yes sir she prayed and received an answer! wootwoot! She felt that she needed to be baptized and that this was the right path for her. Oh man were we excited! So with this energy and spirit we taught the Restoration, gave her a Book of Mormon and marked a part for her to read and pray about. Now this whole time we had been teaching her in Adrieli's home, which is a bit noisy, so Friday we decided to swing by Jaciara's home and teach her there. We had never been to her house before so when Friday rolled around, we searched adn searched and searched for a good hour up and down hills in the wonderful heat until we finally found her house. And guess who wasn't home? Jaciara. But her mom (who is not a member) was which was good because we had a chance to talk to her about Jaciara's decision. She is very supportive of her daughter and is excited that she had found the gospel in her life instead of finding and doing other not so good things. *phew* we were a bit worried about meeting with and talking with Jaciara's mom but all went well! Finally knowing where her house was, we visited again on Saturday to talk to Jaciara. And she was home! We asked her how reading the Book of Mormon went and not only did she read the part we marked but she also started to read from the beginning, and wow is she smart. She understood the story perfectly. Sister Marquina and I were blown away at how much she had learned. Even better, she prayed about the Book of Mormon and know it's true! Ah she is my dream investigator come true! Except we were talking about her baptismal date (December 20th) and all was well until she said she wanted to be baptized the 27th so she could start the new year off right and have a bit more confidence in her decision. ahhh no we know she is ready and marked a baptismal interview for this Wednesday and are really hoping that the Elder (along with the Spirit) will touch her heart so she will have more confidence in us and the 20th. We will see what happens this Wednesday. 

This week I had pancakes for the first time in four months! Well sweet pancakes. Here a lot of the members like to make pancakes, roll them up, and stuff them with meat. They are really good but not as good as a traditional pancake.

 Also Saturday we had a nice downpour of rain, which we were not expecting at all. We woke up with not a single cloud in the sky so we didn't even bother to bring an umbrella. Well was that a mistake. We were walking back from an appointment when it all started. At first it was just a little sprinkle then out of nowhere BOOM! Hello rain! And we had no nearby shelter so but the time we got to our next appointment, we were drenched....there was not a part of our bodies that was dry. But it felt really really good because we had been dying of calor for most of the week. 

Também I had to give a last minute talk Sunday. We had a meeting with the bishopric this Sunday and at the end, the bishop looked at me and said that the member that was supposed to give a talk that day called and said she wouldn't be able to make it, and asked me to take her place. Wow I was not ready for this at all but told him I could. Thankfully Sister Marquina had a Liahona with her so I took the First Presidency’s message for this month and created a five minute talk. Man maybe I should write some  talks beforehand so when this happens again I will be prepared. 

Well I love you all and hope you have a superbly fanastical week and can't wait to see you all on Christmas!!! AHH!!! 

Love, Sister Hilchie :) 

Santo Andre!!!

OI OI OI FAMILIA!!!    Arrival in Santo Andre I can only hope that your week was as fantastic as mine! I am lovin Santo André and Sis. Marquina! There are so many more people here than Jordanópolis, it's mindblowing! Sis Marquina is the bomb! She is super friendly, easy to talk to, and hard working. She even knows a bit (actually a lot) of English which is fantastic because when I have no idea what a word means in Portuguese or am trying to say something but don't know how, she is right there with an answer. This transfer I am still living in an apartment but with another pair of sisters--Sis Lucena e Sis Ferril. Sister Lucena is from Brasil and has about 10 months under her belt while sis Ferril is from Argentina and has 15 months under her belt. Então I am this little new sister living with a bunch of experienced, well trained sisters! This is quite wonderful actually because I am learning A LOT from them and so far we are all meshing well (hopefully it stays like this).     Despite the rain that was gratefully welcomed this week, Sis Marquina and eu were able to find and teach a lot of new investigators! Nos temos um chamado Juliana que é muita boa! Muita boa mesmo! She and her cute little family just moved to Santo André a few months ago and are looking for a church. They were attending another igreja where they lived before but began to disagree with what the pastor was teaching. And that's when we found them! The one and only lesson we had with her went really well and now we are focusing muito em eles because they have great potential. We also found another wonderful older woman named Terezina. We knocked on her door thinking to find someone else but nope. The other person gave us the wrong endereço but worked out just fine because we found Terezina. She lives alone with her cute, little dog because her husband left her and her two sons passed away due to medical problems. They both we completely dependent on her their whole lives so when they passed away it was really really hard for her. She has been through so much and também is looking to be baptized. She was already baptized but feels like something wasn't right about it so is looking for the right way to be baptized. Well Terezina, that is exactly what we are here to help you with! I cannot wait to start teaching both Juliana and her family and Terezina.    Também esta semana, I was reading one of the general conference talks by Sister Wixom that talks about our divine nature. I don't know if you all have realized this but because we are filhos of a loving Heavenly Father, we all have a HUGE future ahead of us and a capacidade greater than we can ever imagine. So when things get tough and you don't think you can go the extra mile, do as Elder Holland said: "don't give up. don't pare. continue cominhando. continue tendando." As we do this and put our confidence in the Lord, everything with work out just fine and our divine nature will become more and more apparent.    I hope you all are getting ready for Christmas because it is literally just around the corner and enjoying this holiday season! I love you all so super much! Thanks for all the support and love you send my way!    Love,  Sister HilchieJ

4 Months and Transferred

FAMÍLIA!!!!! Oh how I love you all! 

I hope that you all had a fantastically wonderful Thanksgiving break and stuffed yourselves full of food and family time! Sorry I didn't email you guys yesterday. Since this week was transfers, Presidente moved pday to Tuesday instead of Wednesday. Alrighty so about transfers: the Sunday night before transfers, we always get a call telling whether we will leave or stay. That way we have time to get organized and packed. Well Sunday we got a call saying that Sister Oliveira and I would both stay in the sweet little town of Jordanópolis. woohoo! I was so excited when we received this news because I would be spending Christmas with an area, members, and companion that I knew. After the call, we planned for Monday. We had all the people we were going to teach written down with alternativas and were ready to go! Monday we started off strong! We were teaching lessons and doing contatos until we got a call from Presidente.....he told sister Oliveira he was thinking about changing some things, asked her some questions, and said he would call us back. Well about 30 minutes later, he called. Called with a decision: Sister Oliveira would stay in Jordanópolis while I was to be transferred....tbh I was not very excited. I really did not want to leave but had no choice or say in the matter. This is when things got crazy. We scratched most of our other lessons so I could pack and say goodbye to some investigators and families. It was hard to say goodbye but sister Oliveira is still there and will take care of them so that soothes me a little bit. Now I am in Santo André--a much larger area more towards the city of São Paulo with a lot more hills....wootwoot! No but I really am excited! My new companion is Sister Marquina from Peru and  has one year under her belt. I am excited for this new adventure and can't wait to start working side by side with her! 

Besides hitting my 4 month mark Sunday, nothing else super exciting has happened. I love you all so much and hope you have um ótimo semana! 

A ward family they visited often. 

Hugs and kisses, 

Sister Hilchie :)