Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Mission Conference

**** Courtney's address is in her profile.  Letters take about 6 weeks. Recommended for packages: padded mailing envelope. (10 days) Don't send anything worth much!   Her email is courtney.hilchie@myldsmail.net****


Bom dia família!!!! 

Sis Hubert and Courtney with Sis De Lima. 
Alright so this week was crazy. And I mean crazy. At the beginning of this week, nos tivemos uma confêrencia da missão(we had a mission conference)! Ah it was awesome to see the whole mission united once again! It's something I'm really going to miss since we don't have transferencias as a missão anymore. But there we watched the treinamento(training) that the Missionary Department gave a couple weeks ago, and it was really good. I learned that I need to improve in a lot of things and that as missionaries, we need to focus more on helping our investigators getting to know our Heavenly Father, His son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost better. Help them know Them, how we know and love each of Them individually and as one. I read a discurso that talked about this by Elder Holland that was really good (can be found in the January 2016 Liahona) that talked about the Trinidade. Elder Holland said that most people don't know the divinity of the Trinity like we as members of the church do. Most don't know that we have a Heavenly Father who knows us each personally and has an infinite amount of love for each of us and that His son Jesus Christ is our one and only way we can get back to live with Him again. Heavenly Father sent His perfect son to earth to set the example. To lead us back home. To be the light in our lives. Anyways it was a really good talk and I would encourage everyone to read it! 

Courtney and her new comp, Sis. De Lima
Later this week we met Walison e Wesley. They are brothers and both friends of Lucas (who was recently baptized). And they are pretty awesome! When we arrived to pick up Lucas to go teach, he said he could call them to see if they were up. So he did and next thing we know, Wesley is at the door. So we ended up teaching Wesley first at Lucas's house then walked over to where the brothers lived to teach Walison. As Wesley opened the door, he proclaimed that he was going to be baptized! It was great to hear that he really wants to, but his mom was not too enthusiastic about this news. She said that he was too young and that if he were to get baptized, he needed to realize that he wasn't making a promise to just anyone, but to God. So we sat down with her, Walison, Wesley, and Lucas and taught about the importance faith, repentance, and especially baptism. Afterwards she was a little more warmed up to the idea and even said she would visit the church Sunday! But at the end, Lucas looked at them and said with all seriousness, "think real long and hard about this. pray muito. isto é um oportunidade de ouro(it is a golden opportunity)!" Guys, it was so awesomely awesome to hear him say that! Ever since Lucas found the gospel, he has grown so much and is so ready to share the gospel with everyone and excited to do everything he can as a member. He is at all the activities, at church every Sunday, and the Young Men's president said that he is a great example and ahead of all the young men in Duty to God. Guys the gospel changes lives. It brings a light and happiness into their lives, and I'm so so so grateful that I get to help them make this change! 

I love you guys! You all are super awesome! Have an absolutely wonderful week! 

Love, 
Sister Hilchie :)       


"Sleepover" (They all live in the same apt!)

Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Working and Walking

OI OI OI FAMILÍA!!!!

I hope you all had a fantastic week at school and work but most importantly, a fantastically wonderful weekend! My week was pretty great! We found a lot of new investigators, and our investigators Sister Marquina and I had before the transfer are still progressing! The Lord is blessing us big time! 

We taught an older couple this week, and they are just so sweet! They live alone in their cute little apartment and were very open to our message. They even have already been to church three time when there were elders in my area almost a year ago. So it's been quite some time since they've been in contact with the church. But they both really liked visiting the church and like how it is set up--with relief society/priesthood one hour, Sunday school another, and sacrament the other--and have a desire to follow a church. They are Catholics but aren't firm in their faith. The only reason they're Catholics is because when the wife's mom was dying, her mom made each of her children promise to follow her religion. So each of them did and till this day all but one are still Catholic. But the husband said that they would like to be firm in one religion and be active participants, unlike they are now but convincing the wife to go against her mother's wishes will be harder. 

Also this week we finally taught Julius again (the one from Africa)!!!! He really likes coming to church and has been there the past two Sundays! The members also are really welcoming and friendly with him and try to help in any way they can. We even have some members that are studying English so they practice their English on him while he practices Portuguese with them! It's great to see the ward helping him and allows us to talk to other members, our leaders, and bishop when we need to. Anyways, we taught him yesterday about the restoration and focused a lot on baptism and the priesthood. He had already been baptized beforehand in Africa and was a bit confused on why he needed to be again. After a lot of explaining and translating (because Sister De Lima doesn't speak English so she would talk real slow and if he didn't understand, I would translate for him), and a strong presence of the Spirit we invited him to be baptized exactly how Christ was baptized. With the same authority that John the Baptist had when he baptized Jesus Christ. And he said he wanted to! Ah guys! I love being a missionary and helping other people grow their faith in Christ and help them start down the path that will lead them to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again! 

Boom. That's about as exciting as it got this week. Other than that we just walked and walked and walked and walked and talked to random strangers in the street. Well I hope you all have a wonderfully awesome week!!! I love you all!!!!

Love, 
Sister Hilchie :) 

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

Buckets


OI FAMÍLIA!!! TUDO BEM?! 



Welp this week was the last week of transfers and Sister Marquina and I hit it off on a high note. We had two baptisms Saturday!!! But the road to the baptism of Lucas and Maria Eduarda was a bit interesting. The adversary was definitely trying his best to stop them from being baptized. It all started Wednesday. Wednesday was the day of Lucas' baptismal interview--at least we thought it would be... He was supposed to be at the church at 3:30pm but when it rolled around to 3:30, he hadn't showed up. So we waited a little bit longer, figuring that he was running late. But 4, 4:15 rolled around and he still wasn't at the church. We tried and tried to call him but no one answered until my district leader decided to try calling him. When his mom answered the phone, we were a bit worried and asked where Lucas was. She said that he wouldn't be able to make it to the interview because they were on their way to the hospital. yikes. Lucas had been hit by a motorcycle on his way to the church. Luckily the damage wasn't too bad, and his mom said that we could swing by Thursday to talk to him. Thursday rolled around and us and the elders and a member went to visit Lucas. When we arrived, his knee was all bandaged us along with his elbow, and wrist. But he said he was feeling a little bit better and that he still wanted to be baptized Saturday! Literally, Lucas is like no other 14 year old boy. He is so dedicated to the gospel and even stayed up until 9:30pm reading the Book of Mormon one night and is super excited to receive the priesthood and prepare, pass and one day, bless the sacrament. His mom said she has never seen him so happy in his life than right now! After this little adventure and after both Lucas and Maria Eduarda passed their baptismal interviews, Saturday finally rolled around! Their baptism was supposed to start at 4:30pm so we met with our ward missionary leader at 3pm to make sure everything was ready to go. Come to find out that the font still had water in it from two or three weeks ago along with some bugs. And the smell....well it was just awful. So we had to unplug the drain and man did it take forever for the water to drain. But finally it did and by 4ish, we started to clean it a bit and let the font fill back up. At this time people were already starting to arrive and we started to panic. So to make the process a bit faster, we took buckets, filled them with water, and threw the water in the font. So here we were, two sisters along with the elders, and two members running around hectically with buckets of water to and from the font. Then the water started to disappear. Ah we could not
believe that we were running out of water but had enough for the person baptizing to kneel down with Lucas and Maria Eduarda sitting down in the font. So that's what we ended up doing. It was still so awesome to see them so happy to be following their Savior that it didn't matter how many problems we had encountered till this point. I am so excited for both of them and can't wait to see where this decision takes them! But what is funny is that after their baptism, "the rains came down and the floods came up" quite literally. It started to pour. We had prayed beforehand for water so we could still have the baptism, and the Lord blessed us with more than enough afterwards. Anyways, sister Marquina and I weren't about to wait to it to stop so we ran and ran to our next appointment. But the time we reached the gates of the apartment complex, we were soaked. We ended up not teaching because the member that wanted to come with us was running errands so we remarked with the members and off we went to do street contacts and with whom? Ourselves. Because no one was in the street. So off we went back home to dry off and get ready for Sunday.


OH! I am staying in Santo André but not with sis Marquina....I am excited to being staying in Santo André but a bit sad to let her go. But at the same time, excited to start a new adventure with a new companion! One last thing, the rules for transfers changed and now our zone leaders will call us Sunday night to let us know if we will be transferred or not and if we are, we have Monday to pack and then off we go to our new area....ALONE. *phew* was I excited to hear that I would not have to travel to another area by myself. I get lost in my own area, Santo André. I can't imagine trying to navigate the train/bus system. I wish the best of luck to sister Marquina! 

That's all for right now! Have a superly fantastic week! I love you guys so much!!! 

Hugs and kisses, 
Sister Hilchie :) 

Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Feliz 2016!!!



FAMILIA!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT'S 2016?! Wow this year flew by. It literally seems like just yesterday I was at BYU but no...that was a whole year ago. Man time flies. And speaking of, I hit 5 months this past week. Wow ditty wow wow. That's kind of crazy. 

Anyways this week was awesome! We started teaching two younger people (and by younger I mean 14 years old) who have a really strong desire to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized! One, Maria Eduarda, is Jaciara's sister. She attended Jaciara's baptism and came to church these past two Sundays! She is super animada to learn about the gospel and even before we started teaching her, she had already started reading the Book of Mormon! Then we have Lucas. He is Jaciara's and Adrieli's friend and when we started teaching Jaciara, he was there for the first couple lessons but then hid on us. But a couple Sundays he came to church with two of his friends! That week, we decided to revisit him and see how he was doing. Well we did just that, and he had been thinking a lot about baptism and what we had marked for him to read no Livro de Mórmon. Ele também decided he wanted to be baptized! He has a huge desire to learn about the church and is sempre searching for and asking questions. He is also really interested in the priesthood and has a strong desire to prepare, pass, and one day bless the sacrament. Ah guys Maria Eduarda and Lucas are awesome! I really don't think that when Adrieli (who is a member) invited us over to teach Jaciara, that it would have this big of an effect. But the happiness you get by living the gospel is just so contagious that how could someone not want to learn more and live it? Ah I love being a missionary and seeing excited other people are to learn about the gospel! 

Guys guess what?! I did a street contact in English this week! We were walking down the street when Sister Marquina stopped to talk to a man. Even before she could start, he said, "sorry I don't speak Portuguese." Ah well I was super excited because I could actually fully communicate with him and understand 100% what he was saying! So I started to talk, but it didn't turn out the best it could have because I kept saying Portuguese words instead of English but in the end, I got my point across and visited him yesterday. So yesterday we taught about Jesus Christ and the example He set for each one of us when He was baptized. And this time, my English was a little bit better and what was even more awesome is that Sister Marquina speaks enough English that she could understand and communicate with him também! It was an awesomley different experience! And thanks to the CTM in Provo, I had all the pamphlets in English so we gave him one of the Restoration and are going back next Sunday to teach him! Ah! I'm excited!

Well I hope you all have a fantastic first full week of 2016! I love you all so very much! Thanks for all your support!

Love, Sister Hilchie :)