What a wonderful week!

Hello family and friends!  It´s another day here in the Brazil Porto Alegre North Mission.  Today is a super cloudy day, and we´re just hoping that the downpour doesn´t start until we get home!9/15/14

Last week was super long and crazy without a normal p-day.  We went to the temple on Tuesday and didn´t even get back to our area until 9:45 pm.  It was pretty crazy.

We were dying from lack of sleep.  I think that I had to wake up before 6:30 almost every day last week!  All I wanna do is sleep in.  aka- all I want to do is sleep until 6:30!  

It was a great week though.  We worked and sweated a lot.  The heat is starting to set in, but we have a lot of great people that we´re helping.  I can´t believe that it´s already the 4th week of the transfer.  It´s going by way too fast.  

Yesterday the other Sisters had a baptism!  They baptized an amazing family!  It was a crazy adventure helping them get to baptism, including helping them get married on Friday morning.  It was the first time I had ever seen a courthouse wedding.  Sister Loner and I are hoping to help one of our families do the same thing this transfer. They´re really awesome, but we need a lot of help and prayers to get them there.  

Something really cool happened yesterday.  We were walking down the street and a woman working at a pharmacy stopped us and asked us if we were Mormons.  We said yes, and she told us that she had had a dream recently that she was inside of a huge, beautiful mormon church... She told us that her friend recently got baptized in Bahia(it´s a city in another state in Brazil), and that she wanted to visit this 'huge, beautiful Mormon church"  when she goes to visit him.  We marked a visit with her today.  It´s just really cool how the Lord works, and how so many times, out of the middle of nowhere people show up and ask you about the church.  We´re hoping and praying that she´s our golden investigator this transfer!   

But anyway, I hope that everyone is doing well.  I´m so excited for General Conference that´s coming up.  It´s gonna be great.  I´m so happy to be here in Brazil, working and sweating and helping all of my brothers and sisters.  Have a wonderful week, and don´t forget to help the missionaries!  

Have a perfect week!  

Sister Stevens

I'm going to the Temple!

9/09/14

Hello Family! How are you all doing today?! I didn´t write yesterday because today is my p-day. We're going to the temple! Woohoo!

This was a good week! I did my first split as sister leader. So, a sister leader trainer is different from a regular trainer. I´m not actually training the new sisters or anything, but I watch over the sisters on the mission. We make splits with them, we help them if they´re not doing well. We visit, call, etc... Then we talk about what´s going on with them for President if there are any serious problems going on.

My first division was good. Sister Lourenço, my second companion, came to my area to work with me for the day. It was weird doing a split with my "step mom" that´s for sure. Me and Sister Martinez take care of 10 sisters and then our companions (who we´re training). It´s really interesting to be a sister leader, but its stressful too, because you´re always leaving your area and your investigators. But I think I'm starting to get the routine down.

Everything´s going great here. This ward is awesome!

Anyway, have a great week! I love you!

Sister Stevens

My hair dryer doesn't work here because the voltage is different...

so I have to use the mini heater to dry my hair

GIANT CHIMARRAO!

Video

9/01/14

Wow, I loved this video! The beginning is in Portuguese, but you get the idea.

It really puts into perspective how important the gospel of Jesus Christ is, and how grateful we should be to have this restored gospel in our lives.

I´m so grateful to be here on the mission, teaching the world about this wonderful truth, That God loves us so much that he has called his holy prophets to lead and guide us on our journey through this life. I am so grateful for the true gospel of Jesus Christ.


Sister Stevens

Sapiranga

9/01/14

Wow, what a week it has been. I´m in a new area, with a new companion, with new responsibilities. My new companion is Sister Loner from São Paulo! She´s amazing! She´s on her second transfer, so we´re finishing up her training together. We´re serving in the Sapiranga ward with 2 other sisters. One is from Ecuador and the other is from Argentina. They´re a hoot!

Our apartment is full of a lot of crazy and hilarious moments, that´s for sure!

This week was full of getting to know a new area. The area is pretty big, and it´s full of my favorite, HILLS! Lots and lots of hills! haha Nah, it´s really not that bad. The members here are amazing. They love missionaries! They love to fatten us up that is. They give us cake, and pizza and soda... Wow, it´s a lot of stuff. Let´s just hope that the giant hills make up for the side effects of the food...

I´m doing really great here in Sapiranga. This week starts all the fun. We have our first leader meeting this week in Porto Alegre, then we have interviews with President Wright, and then Sister Martinez (the other Sister Leader) and I are going to do our first divisions with the sisters in Novo Hamburgo. They´re about an hour away from us.

I´m excited to see how this week goes. It´s gonna be interesting!

I hope that you´re all doing well and that you´re happy. Time is flying by here on the mission. I have so little time, and so much left to do!

But anyway, until next week!

Sister Stevens

A photo from last week's baptism!

Shock

8/25/14

Wow, I just have to say that I am writing this email completely in shock. Let´s see if I manage to write in a way that makes sense... I just received a call from President Wright. It was pretty strange, especially because the first thing he said was, "Sister Stevens, sabe que eu tenho muito confiança em você..." (I have a lot of trust in you)... First off, you KNOW that something hard is about to happen when Pres. Wright says that to you. And let me just say, the next thing he told me was, Sister, you are going to be the new Sister Leader Trainer... WHAT?! I´m dying inside!

Tomorrow is transfer day, and I've been feeling for days that I would be transferred. So, when I saw my name on the transfer list, I was completely calm. But then came the shocker, the call from President. So, Sister Leader Trainer is a little bit (or a lot a bit) different from just being a normal trainer. A Sister Leader is almost like an assistant to the president. We have so many sisters serving missions now in the world, that we need to have leaders that watch over and make divisions with the sisters. So, I guess for some reason the Lord wants me to do this for the next little while.

I´m in shock, and I´m freaking out a little bit!

But anyway, other than that, Sister Sallum and I had a really great last week together. We had another miracle! A baptism! His name is Luã and he´s 14 years old! He´s amazing. Sister Sallum made a contact with him on the street 2 weeks ago, he went to church with us on Sunday, and last Sunday night he went to Evandro's baptism saying that he would like to be baptized too. He´s so cool! We visited him every day this week, talked to him mom, and "taught" him everything he needed to know before baptism. What I mean by "taught" is that he already knew everything, and he didn't have a problem with anything! He came prepared. He´s a really sweet kid.

His baptism was yesterday afternoon. A hot "winter" day here in Rio Grande do Sul... Everything went as well as possible for a baptism day (nothing ever goes smoothly), and he had a great experience. I´m so happy for Luã, and that we were blessed to know him this last week here. It was a miracle baptism!

I´m excited and scared for this next transfer, but I honestly know that I´m heading where I need to be. I know that President Wright receives revelation, and if he felt that I needed to be challenged with this new responsibility, vou la! Just send a lot of prayers my way! I´ll be needing them!

I love you all, and I love the mission. I know that Christ lives. I know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true. I know that Thomas S. Monson is a prophet of God, and that when we listen to his voice, and follow his councils, we´ll be blessed.

I hope you all have a perfect week! I love you all


Sister Stevens

Adventure Time!

8/18/14

Wow, what an adventure this week has been. It was full of deathly illnesses, almost broken bones, and trying to break into apartments. Oh, and not to forget, pajama parties and robbery too. Oh, let´s just say, it was a pretty exciting week here in Brazil...

It all started off with the thing that all missionaries LOVE. Our investigator, Evandro, was sick. Sicker than a dog, sick. And we were trying to visit him for DAYS. Starting on Monday, we went to his house trying to see how he was doing, we tried to visit him, invite him to Family Home Evening, etc, and we heard nothing. It´s the worst when your golden investigator disappears for days, especially on the week that you planned a baptism. It was a rough one. Sister Sallum and I felt like maybe he was avoiding us... Which was super sad, because he´s such a cool guy. So anyway, Sister Sallum and I just continued on. Trying and trying to visit, but by the time that Wednesday came around we just about gave up on the idea of a baptism.

On Thursday we had a miracle division. 2 young women from the other ward said they wanted to help us out. It was an intervention from God. Sister Sallum made contacts on the street with a million different people, and I had a chance to go and visit Evandro. Wow, let´s just say, the adversary really didn't want us to get to his house, especially because I sprained my ankle really bad when we were turning the corner to get to his street. But it´s a good thing that we didn't give up, because when we got there, Evandro was feeling a lot better. And even more miraculously, he had prayed while he was cooped up inside his house... he told us that when he was praying about if he should be baptized, he felt a really great feeling deep down to his core, and that he knew it was an answer from God... It was so amazing to be there at that moment. I just asked him if that means that he would be baptized, and he said yes. He was telling us more about his sickness, and how it was to be stuck at home, and I just marveled at how Heavenly Father works. Because of his sickness, he was stuck inside his house alone, and he finally prayed. Because of his sickness, he couldn't smoke for days. I had been so worried because we hadn't talked to him since Saturday, but Heavenly Father was taking care of him for us! Heavenly intervention is so interesting at times, isn´t it? Evandro is amazing! We visited him every day for the rest of the week and on Sunday night at 6:30 he was baptized. He cried, he was so happy. I couldn´t stop smiling. I knew that I returned to Fernandes for a reason. And if I´m transferred from here next week, I know that this was it. To help Evandro prepare for baptism. He was my investigator the last time I was here.

Everything was going perfectly, right? Our baptism ended, we were heading out the church doors and down the street, when all of a sudden we realized that we didn't have our keys with us... Oh no! We ended up calling the Bishop, returning to the church, removing everything from our bags, and nothing. We didn't have a single key! There was no way for us to return home. But there was a little girl that we've been teaching for a long time that was at the baptism. She´s about 10 years old, and she had been playing in our things. I knew she had taken them, because she has a really bad habit of lying and stealing... So we ran to her house, and she told us she had given them to one of the brothers of the church. So we ran to that brother´s house, just to find out she was lying. Then we ran to someone elses house and they didn´t have the keys either. Then we ran back to the girls house and she said that one of the other brothers from the church had them. Then we called, and they didn't have them... So all in all, she was lying! And we were stuck without keys... This is where the pajama party comes into play. Sister Sallum and I ended up sleeping at a members house! Woohoo! It was actually kind of fun and exciting really. We were on such a high from our amazingly amazing baptism that it almost didn't bother us that we would probably have to spend hundreds of dollars (or actually reais) to replace all 10 of our stolen keys.

Let´s just say, this p-day was full of a lot of fun and interesting key searching parties, and activities and wild goose chases! But all in all, the mom of this little girl picked her up from school, and we brought her to the church to "find" the stolen keys. But even though she stole and lied about the keys, we were just relieved to finally have them back. And now, I´m super tired, and I hope that my email makes sense!

But anyway, I feel so blessed that my amazing friend Evandro was finally baptized! It was an amazing experience that I will never forget. I know that the Lord really does watch over us and bless us. Everything always works out for our good if we just put our trust in the Lord. Even when things are going crazy! Just have faith.

I love you all! Have an amazing week!

Love, 

Sister Stevens

Ps - Best. Baptism. Ever. I´m still smiling!

6 More Months to Live

8/11/14

Hellllooooooo!

How is everyone doing this fine Monday afternoon? I just realized that as of today I have exactly 6 months left of the mission. I will be returning home and stepping my feet back in the good ol' USA on the 11th of February 2015. It´s so crazy to think that i`ll be coming home so soon. But anyway, This week was a great one. We had the privilege of going to Porto Alegre for a mission tour. Elder and Sister Leal of the seventy came and gave a conference for all of the missionaries. It´s always amazing to spend time with the other Elders and Sisters and learn new things. I love being on a mission, because I feel like I've learned and grown so much spiritually and mentally.

This week was full of the same old same old. But Sister Sallum and I are really doing our best to apply the amazing things that we've been learning and start some miracles up in this sad little town!

We learned a lot about faith and obedience this week. When we really trust in the Lord and do all that we possibly can to be righteous, the Lord will then bless us with miracles. But if we feel like we´re asking the Lord something with faith and it doesn't come to pass, many times it´s because we´re not really in accordance with the teachings of God. Because like the scriptures say, "I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say, but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise." But the only way that blessings (and miracles) are predicated in our lives is upon our obedience to the laws of God.

So many people ask and complain and wonder and say, "Why hasn't God blessed me? I´m a good person, I do this, I do that..." But since we believe in a perfect God, he literally can´t bless us completely without our obedience. We have to obey all the commandments, not just some if we want miracles to happen in our lives.

I´m grateful for my new perspective this week. I feel like I´m getting to a new level of spirituality that I didn't really know was possible for me, but is! It´s so cool how much you learn and change and grow on a mission.

I´m so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life. I know that this is the only true church on the face of the Earth, because we only have one God, we only have one Christ and they only have one path. This is the same path that leads us to Eternal life and happiness, and we can only find that true path in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I know these things are true, and I know that you can know through prayer, scripture study and going to church. These three fundamental things bless us with the spirit of the Lord, and lead us to his true path.

I hope that you can all learn this for yourselves, and that you can gain a testimony of these things. There only exists one church that is true, because Jesus Christ only established one church that was true.

I love you all, and I hope you have an amazing week!

Love,


Sister Emily Stevens