On Tuesday, we had the first annual Sister´s conference! It was absolutely amazing and great to see my old companions again- Sister Cummings from the MTC, Sister Mileib and Sister Hodnik. Presidente Castro gave us a training using two of the Mormon Messages videos- Recuperado (Reclaimed-Its the one about the dump that was made into a park and an airport) and the one about the ugly duckling by President Uchtdorf. He assured us of the power of Christ´s atonement and then also told us to never let anyone make us feel like we are the ugly duckling. As I was relating what we learned later in the week to our zone leader, I realized that it was definitely a conference meant for sisters. I imagined Presidente Castro telling all the elders not to feel like ugly ducklings. Sister Castro also gave us little mirrors to carry in our bags and told us to make sure that our countenance always reflects the light of Christ.
So I thought that it was funny that the twin daughter´s of our Ward Mission Leader are named Helen and Helena (still can´t remember which is which. I think I may ask this week if I can call one of them Susan), but this week I heard of another set of twin names that made me smile. The first twin is named Maxwell. The other is named Swellmax. I think I have just found another addition to my list of possible children´s names.
I got to play the violin in church this sunday! It was super fun and the ward got excited and had me play in the primary as well. I had forgotten how much fun primary was. One of the primary boys, Samuca, gave a wonderful talk about Noah´s Ark. He stood up and in a very official tone, spoke of how he would address a very important topic today. Summarizing/translating his talk, it was something like this "This is Noah´s ark (pulled out a plastic ark from under the pulpit). Well, its not literally his ark, it is actually a Fisher Price model. It should also be noted that the model is not of actual size. It was much bigger to fit all those animals. Anyway, Noah warned all the people but only a few listened, eight to be exact. The people included not just his immediate family but a few others as well. Anyway, they got in the ark and then came a super hyper mega flood and destroyed everyone else. I think it would really stink not to have been on the ark. I don´t think I would have been able to make it in that water. Anyway, the lesson we can learn from this story is that it is always better to be obedient." Primary kids know how to make things simple.
So this week was really great as far as good lessons, etc, and we had a bunch of people that said they would be able to come to church, so we were super excited for Sunday...and then Sunday morning we started getting phone calls one by one saying that they wouldn´t be able to come. It was a little dissappointing, but at least they called (optimism)! So we were at the church running through the musical number, when a miracle happened- we looked to the chapel door and saw Geovane standing there in his jazzy windbreaker! We practically ran to him, shook his hand, and introduced him to Olimpio (WML). The ward member who was going to accompany him to church was not able to get ahold of him, so we thought he was going to bail. He had never been to church before and we didn´t even know he knew where it was! Geovane said that he rembered that one time we mentioned it was in front of the Instituto de Coração, so he just got in his car and started driving. He is a bus driver, so he knows the city pretty well, and he said after he got to the IC, it was super easy to find the church. Heavenly Father was truly guiding him and it made our day yesterday that he came.
On Saturday, we met a new investigator- Cleisé -who the elders actually found during distrito amigo. She struggles with depression and various difficulties, and was really receptive to our message. Her house is being reformed so she asked if we could go to the park in front of her house. It was a really nice setting and a highlight of the week because the spirit testified strongly of the truthfulness of the first vision and the Book of Mormon.
Make new friends this week! Visit people and make them feel loved!
Love,
Sister Smith
Pics-
Deborah and baby Alice-This week we had lunch with Deborah and Jefferson, a couple in our ward who just had their first baby!
Sister Cummings and Sister Holden (and me)
Sister Rosario, Sister Hodnik, Sister Biddulph (and me)
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