14 Meses....

OI FAMÍLIA!!!!!  How's it goin?! I hope you all are super duper fantastic because we sure are!! This week was a little bit slow to start off with but we ended up flying high this final de semana.(weekend)  Desde thursday (two weeks ago) until this Friday, Sister Lima was not good at all--in a lot of pain--and still not able to sit nor walk. And since everyone in our ward works during the week, we both ended up staying home. Sister Lima slept a lot while I studied, tried new recipes, and took care of missionary business. To be honest, it was kind of hard to stay in home (especially towards the end of the week) but now we are doing just wonderfully great and ready to work a lot this week!  So this week wasn't too interesting but this weekend was! We had the baptism of Juliana (Ju)!!! Ju is a very special person! She was introduced to the church by a member (side note: this member's name is Andressa who is the same age as Ju and goes to our ward here in Parque Bristol) when she has 13 years but didn't really have any interest in learning more. It wasn't until Andressa invited her to a church dance (which she went to and loved) that she decided she wanted to learn more. She starting going to church with Andressa desde Fevereiro(last February) and finally was baptized this past Saturday. Ever since the missionaries started teaching her, she wanted to be baptized but since she only had 17 years, her parents had to sign the baptismal record but decided not to, we had to wait for her to turn 18 so that she could sign it herself. Her parents are the traditional Catholic family are didn't support her a lot when she started to frequentar the church. But after muito tempo, they started to relax and participated in her baptism!!! We were super excited to see them walk in the room to watch their daughter make her first covenant with the Lord. After Ju came out of the waters of batismo, she gave her mom a hug and the tears started to fall. It was super sweet to see her mom feel the Spirit and realize that this was the right thing for Ju to do. And now her mom is asking her if she will be serving a mission because she thinks it would be good for Ju haha! Ah it was a great day full of love and happiness and muito muito support of the members! (Almost the whole ala was there for her baptism since she has been coming for almost seven months) We watched General Woman's Conference was this Sunday and it was awesome!! I remember one year ago when I watched General Conferência for the first time in Portuguese and hardly understood a thing and here we are again but this time, understanding a whole lot more! Once talk that I really liked was by Sister Carole Stephens. She talked a lot about the Atonement and how everyone needs it in their lives. It is through the Atonement that we can be cured completely. Christ doesn't like to see us suffer here on earth and would do anything to help us or relieve us from these pains and sufferings but He already has. During the Atonement, He suffered tanto for each and everyone of us. Each one of us came to His mind as He suffered and bled from every pore. He loves us so much that He took on our sicknesses, our sins, our weaknesses so that He could help us during these momentos. He knows what we are feeling. He understands completely. So when we are down and discouraged and don't know where we can tirar hope or comfort, look towards the Savior and He will help you.  I hope you all are super excited for General Conferência this weekend!!! Have a super fantastic week and don't forget to smile!!!! Love you all!!! Love,  Sister Hilchie

Helping Hands, service day