April 30, 2018 6 months down!

Hello family. This week was good! We worked hard, didn´t see a ton of results, but I still feel good about it. Being completely honest, I don't know the reason I am still in Barbosa, but I know there has to be one, so I´ll just keep looking.
We found a really special young woman this week. She lives in Garibaldi which will be a small problem because we don´t go there very often, but we will just for her! She is 15, and was taught be Sisters last year. She told us she doesn´t know why they stopped coming to visit her. But she pulled our her Book of Mormon and asked us to read with her because she didn´t understand when she read it by herself. It was awesome!
We were walking around Garibaldi and had this woman stop us and tell us she has been waiting for us to visit her at her house. We were like, uuhhh?? And then she told us she is part of the Jovah which made both of us smile. Even the Jovah think we´re Jovah. Totally asked her for her contact and are planning on going there and talking to her.
We bought bread for dinner one night because  we were hungry, and S Pompeu said, We are so poor we can only buy bread and eat it like Jesus. I laughed really really hard. But it is sadly true. But fresh bread from the bakery here is only 30 centavels which is like 10 cents or something, so I think it´s okay.
We went and spent a few hours explaining the temple to Francisco. He isn´t married to the woman he is living with because I think she is still legally married to another man, which is really common here. He was really sad when we told him he couldn't be sealed to her. She has no interest in the church though, so that is just another problem. We called him later that night because we wanted to buy xis but didn´t know where he had bought it for us that other time. He told us he was actually on his way there to pick it up for his wife/girlfriend and asked if we wanted him to pick some up for us too and we could pay him back. We were like, uh, yes please. So he ended up buying us these HUGE hamburgers and french fries and when we tried to pay him back, he wouldn't accept the money. But it was delicious, and we love Francisco.
Yesterday morning, we got up early and went and woke up Elaine and Leo for church. He hasn´t come in two weeks because he says his alarm isn´t going off. So we were the alarm pounding on the door. I don´t think he thought we would actually do it. But we did. And we were annoying about it. But he came to church! Which was really good because it was branch conference and there were some really amazing talks. The spirit was really strong and he told us afterwards that he loved it.
Leo also said a really sweet prayer for us the other day. He prayed that he would have the strength to always do what was right and to avoid temptation because he wants to be able to stay on the right path. I was like, HECK YES! Made me really really happy.
We went to talk to Adolino and he asked me what my first name is. Audrey is not a thing here so he had a really hard time pronouncing it, sweet old man. He decided I need a new Brazilian name and named me Luiza Anna. Luiza is the name of his mom and Anna is the name of his daughter that passed away when she was 15. I thought it was really sweet of him that he wanted me to have those two names. He also told me that when I get back to the US, he´ll pay for me to come back here and visit. I kindly thanked him and told him there was no way on this earth that I would be letting him spend that much money on me. He just smiled. Makes me worried that he was serious, haha.
I had kind of a cool experience during personal study this week. I was reading the Infinite Atonement and it was talking about repentance. And I just had all this fear come into my heart that maybe I hadn't really been forgiven of all the things I´ve done. It was talking about how when we truly repent, we feel this peace in our lives. I suddenly had this fear that I had never felt real peace. I spent all day just praying and praying. The next day, during personal study again, I just prayed to feel the peace that was promised after we repent, and instantly, I just felt this calming love enter into my soul. It was the quickest strangest most amazing thing that I have felt in a long time. I started studying and one of the things I read said, The Lord will judge us by what we have become, not by what we were. If we repent, he will judge the new man, not the old man. I was like, ..................... and then I cried, hahaha, but it was a really cool reminder that no matter what we do, we can always have that love in our lives if we repent and that if we repent, our Savior really does forget. I have such a strong testimony of that and it only grew this week. I know that Satan tries to use our sins to make us fearful and that when we start to doubt the feelings that we felt and the answers that we received, we are letting him win. But the Savior will always be on our side to show us that He has more power than Satan and that if we stick with Him, Satan will never have power over us.
Alright, I don´t know how an hour goes by so fast, but I am out of time. I love you guys like crazy!
Sister Heiner

Made mom´s pizza for lunch on Monday
because I wanted to do something nice for my comp.

SUD is the same as LDS but also a beer company.

Awesome old building.

When your comp is dying so you take a break at the bus stop.

Hamburgers from Francisco.

Selfies because I might have
chopped more than a foot off of my hair.......

how much hair I cut off... 

Pictures with Adolino.

Plaquetas with the church sign.

April 23, 2018

This week! Was a week, haha, but time is moving way fast so I don´t even really know what to tell you.
Monday, we went to Irma Josi´s to ask her where one of her references lived because we could not for the lives of us find it. She told us and as we were getting ready to leave, Edwardo was like, you can´t leave, I already started making dinner for you guys. We were like, well, we can´t really just stay here for dinner, as much as we would love to. So they asked us to do an impromptu family home evening with them. Which was actually really fun. We talked about hope and how we need to move by faith and not by sight. It was really good, and dinner was delicious.
On Wednesday, we did absolutely no missionary work. We went to Caxias for a doctor appointment because S Pompeu has been having these weird stomach pains. He had no answers for her and gave her a long list of medical exams she has to do in Porto Alegre. Boy am I glad it isn´t me. Because it is blood work and I do not want any part of that. Nope.
While we were in Caxias, we ran into this awesome store called Lojas Americanos. It had a ton of American candy way cheap and I spent a little more than I probably should have but hey, one time. The cashier thought we were really funny. He was like, "everybody here wants to go there and she decided to come here? Is she crazy?" We were both like, yeah, probably a little but whatcha gonna do?
Irma Josi called us and asked us to fast for Edwardo to be baptized. We already do that, I think he is the person we fast for more than anybody else in this world, but it was cool that she wanted to fast with us. Collective faith is a great thing.
Our hot water died this week. So we spent the week heating up water to take showers until our ward mission leader could come look at it for us. Turns our the key had just flipped down so it was turned off. So we probably could have figured that out if either of us knew anything about how water works in the house. But it´s good. The water is way hot again.
Last night we had a Brazil Area Family Home Evening. It was really good! They talked about the importance of the Book of Mormon and how we need to be reading it every day. It was an awesome topic and even better because we had 6 investigators, 2 less active members, and 2 recent converts there. The Spirit was way strong and I don´t even kind of doubt that they all felt it. And there was cake at the end, so ya know, the important things ;)
Adolino told us yesterday after church that he was never coming back. S Pompeu and I were both like WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT and he walked away and we were like NOOOOOOOO, WAIT, HOLD THE PHONE. Turns out his son is saying all sorts of things about the church and how we just have a bunch of rules because we like to tell people they can´t do things. So we had a lovely long conversation with him and he told us all the doubts he had. And then at the end, he told us he loves church and thinks it´s way important and that he´ll never stop coming back. Aiy, my heart almost stopped. But I think he´s okay again. We´ll go talk to him this week, I think he´s really lonely and misses us coming every other day. His sons are never around which is really sad. And when they are around, they always tell him things that makes him think he´s crazy. But it´s good.
I made brownies this week. Everybody loved them. I gave some to Irma Josi´s family, Leo and Elaine, and I was planning on taking some to our district but S Pompeu told me I was crazy as she finished them off. So we will have to make them again in the next few weeks. I love that simple things like this are a novelty here because they are so easy and everybody is happy. S Pompeu asked me to make chocolate chip cookies so she could send them to her boyfriend. I was like, ok...strange but whatever.
We met this woman named Marlise this week and unfortunately we didn´t have a ton of time to talk to her, but in the 5 minutes we did have, she started crying telling us how God has never left her and how much she needs Him in her life. It was way cool, we´re going back tonight.
We had a funny catcall this week. We were walking down the street and this man yelled out his car window, Buenos Tarde! Bonitas! Onde esta igreja?! We laughed really hard.
Last night, Edwardo came up to us at the FHE and told us he brought us a present. We opened the bag and it was a container of rice pudding. He told us he overheard us telling Josi that we both love it and he wanted to make it for us. THIS MAN NEEDS TO BE BAPTIZED GOSH DARN IT! He thinks about us more than the actual members do! Ugh.
I have been studying the Infinite Atonement this week and had two things pop out at me that I want to share. #1... He said, You are as much alone with Him as if you were the only being He had ever created. I love that! Because He is infinite, He doesn´t need to split time between us. He can focus totally on one of us without forgetting about everybody else. I think a lot of time people forget that. They think that He has more important problems to deal with, more important people with bigger issues to focus on. But He loves us more than we can ever imagine and He will never EVER leave us. #2... He said, there comes a time in each man´s life, regardless of his intellectual acumen, when he must rely on faith and faith alone. I think that is really important as well. We do not understand even close to everything. We can´t. But when we have faith and we just trust that faith is enough, we can do anything. We will never have the full understanding we want. But our Heavenly Father isn´t asking us to understand. He is asking us to be faithful.
I hope you guys had a great week, I love you all like crazy!
Sister Heiner

S Pompeu with Leo´s rabbit.

Lojas Americanos.

A church that at least knew there was a Restoration.

A crazy man climbing a really tall tree
 with a really sharp knife thingy.

BROWNIES! 

When your district is crazy but you just smile and deal with it.

April 16, 2018

I don´t have any really good missionary moments to share with you so this email will be a little less on the spiritual side and mostly just on the random things we did this week, sorry but it´s all I got...
Pday last week, we decided to go shopping. They have all these stores here that are just full of the most random things so we went into all of them we could find. It was really fun. I ended up not spending a lot of money like I was planning, but I bought this really cute glass elephant. I took a picture, it sits on my desk next to all our family pictures. S Pompeu spent all of her money. Not just the money we had but the money she had saved up, hahaha. I ended up paying for her the rest of the week but luckily I never spend money so I had plenty to help her out.
During one of our lessons with Leo this week, S Pompeu fell asleep. Oh I laughed so hard. With any other person, it wouldn´t have been funny, but we are there so often that he knows we are tired a lot of the time so it was good. We made fun of her a ton and she got annoyed but seriously, we were in the middle of reading, SHE WAS READING and she fell asleep. It was like when Dad would read out loud to us and get tired. Haha, so awesome.
We met this woman who is a lot like Sister Scheiss, I don´t remember if that is how you spell her name, but it was scary how similar they are! Nelsa is way funny and loves to have people around. She doesn´t have any baby goats, but she sent us home with apples. We were having kind of a rough day but talking to her made everything better. I love sweet older women!
We had a lesson with Rodrigo this week at President Fernando´s house. We said maybe three words. President Fernando really taught the whole thing. We were just there as side kicks. Which was actually really cool. I loved seeing how he explained things differently than we would have. Rodrigo told us that he wants to be baptized in a river just like Jesus Christ. We don´t have a river here so that might be a problem. But if that´s the biggest problem we have with him, I´m not overly concerned.
I swear I saw Dave Anderson and Reese Houser this week. What they are doing in a tiny town in Brazil?  I don´t know but it made my head spin a little bit.
S Pompeu spent all week trying to say the word refrigerator. It was really really funny. She can´t even kind of say it. But it gave us something to laugh about all week when we were walking in the rua. It was even funnier when one of the young women in our branch said it on the first try without even stumbling.
We had lunch with one of the Irmas and she was telling us about this show that I think mom would really like. It is about this family in Tennessee that had five baby girls at the same time. I don´t remember what it was called, but it seems like it would be interesting. And then it made me think. How in the world would you take care of five babies at the same time? I don´t know if I can even take care of one for more than 3 hours, imagine 5 24/7. That´s insane.
Irma Josi gave a talk yesterday and at the end said that she was so thankful that I never gave up on her and Edwardo and that she can see the changes in her family as they do what we suggest. I thought that was way sweet! And Edwardo told me this week that he knew I wouldn´t be transferred because he prayed that I would stay if that is really what my heart desired. I was like, what my heart really desires is to be here when you get baptized, so which of the next five Saturdays will it be? He laughed and said he´d think about it, stubborn man. He went to the temple yesterday with his family even though he couldn´t go inside. He said he wanted to be there with them. I was like, isn´t that just more proof that you should get baptized? UGH THIS MAN KILLS ME. Also, Irma Josi has started calling us her kids´aunts and told me that if I don´t come back when they all get sealed she´ll be really ticked.
We helped one of our less active members with Family History yesterday. It was really really fun. He started with nothing and now he has a cute little family tree started and has a list of names he can take to the temple!
I got a funny email from a kid in the MTC, I never met him, at least I don´t think I did, but he told me, that he is serving in Salt Lake City, and that he remembers that I was from Utah. How he remembers? I don´t know. How he got my email? I don´t know. But ya know, stranger things have happened here.
We had this man visit our branch this week named Jesus and one of the young women said, "Jesus isn't baptized!" to us really loudly and I laughed so hard. Because it just feels really wrong to say that sentence.
I love you guys, I´m sorry this was so random but it´s all I got for the week.
Sister Heiner

My elephant.

A mailbox here.

French fries that remind me of Luke.

A break in the park.

You can see lots of color in my hair from the sun.

A selfie, because why not?

A note.

Our feet tan lines.

April 9, 2018

So this week was a rollercoster of emotions. Mostly good.
To start, I didn´t answer any of your questions about conference, so I will do that right now. Brazil went absolutely crazy when Elder Soares was called to be an apostle. I mean, how awesome is that? We watched it on real time. The sessions were 1-3 and 5-7. The elders weren´t allowed to watch the priesthood session live because it was 9-11. Yes, I was watching for the lady I know in the choir, yes I saw her, and yes, S Pompeu gave me this look 😑 and was like, of course you know somebody there. It made me laugh. I understood all of it! Gift of Tongues was on fire. I remember the Solemn assembly when President Monson was sustained. At least I think I do, haha. I can´t imitate the locals yet, but I look more Brazilian than my Brazilian companion so until I speak, everybody assumes I´m from here. But I understand absolutely everything now, except when they talk really fast. But that usually isn´t a problem. Okay, I think that was all the questions I didn´t answer last week.
So we started this week by going to Porto Alegre for a training for S Pompeu´s first 6 weeks ending. My favorite part about going there is never the training, or the food we eat, or getting lost in the middle of a big city trying to find the chapel, but GETTING MAIL!!!!!! WOOHOO!! I got 8 letters and a package! I was so excited, haha. That package you sent while in the CTM finally got here, 5 months later! I will never understand the mail system because I also got mail from February. But, I got 3 letters from Grandma, two from mom, one from the Redmond's, one from Jake in Latvia and another from Ben MacArthur. I spent the whole bus ride home reading them. Love it!
Mom made a comment in one of her letters about she was reading the Book of Mormon and the phrase, His hand is stretched out still stuck out to her. It made me smile, because in my planner every morning, I write part of a Book of Mormon verse that I like during my study to think about all day and that phrase has made it into my planner more than once. I love thinking about that. After all the mistakes we make, after all the pain and heartache we cause Him, his hand is always stretched out waiting for us to come back.
We went to talk to Leo about his baptism, and he told us he had changed his mind and wanted to wait for his mom to be ready. I about cried, haha, but then the next day, we went back to talk to his mom, and he was there which was strange because he has class at night. But he told us he skipped class because he needed to tell us he couldn´t be baptized the next week. I was like, nooooo... why??? and he started laughing and told us that he had gotten work off for this Saturday and didn´t want to wait. If  we were allowed to hug guys I totally would have hugged him, I was so excited. His baptism was awesome. His mom came and you could tell it made her think about what she really wanted. She cried, his uncle cried, his aunt cried, his cousins cried, S Pompeu cried. I was like, what is this? I was really happy too, but I guess my happy tears had run out or something because I just couldn´t stop smiling. We had chocolate chip cookies at the end, because that´s what he asked me to make. I cannot get over how big of a novelty those are here. I think they´re delicious too, but I don´t think I have ever been as excited as this group of people were when I pulled them out.
One of our other investigators came to Leo´s baptism which was really cool. At the end, we asked him how he felt, and he told us that he thinks the next one will be his. Another totally "would have hugged him if we could have" moments. We have only taught Rodrigo one lesson, because he went out of town after we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon. He came to church yesterday and it was fast and testimony meeting. He sat in front of us and close to the end, turned around and asked if you have to be a member to talk up front. We were like, no you can if you want to. So he got up and bore the most simple, sincere, beautiful testimony I have heard in a long time. The closing hymn was I Know That My Redeemer Lives, and he just sat there and cried and cried and cried. AH I LOVE THE SPIRIT! I´m really excited to get to talk to him this week!
Something I love about being a missionary is how people automatically trust you. We had this man come to church yesterday, he´s probably mid 20s, and he told us that he was baptized a year ago and has been inactive for 6 months and wants to be active again. He stayed with us all of church. It was really awesome. He even asked me to help him with his tie which I thought was funny because, let´s be real, I don´t know how to tie a tie, but it turned out better than expected.
In one of Grandma´s letters she sent me this quote from a kid in her ward. It said, We cannot avoid the storms on the sea of life, but we can bring Jesus on the boat with us. That has been on my mind a ton this week! We have problems every day, everybody does. That´s not something we can avoid. But we can have Christ with us constantly. He wants to be in our boat. He wants to be there helping us along the way. I will probably never meet this kid, but if I do, I´ll have to say thank you because that changed my whole perspective this week. It made things a lot easier to deal with when they weren´t going how I wanted them to.
Transfers were last night. At church, everybody was saying goodbye and giving us cake and lasagna and all that good stuff. I was so sure I would stay in Barbosa but when the whole world is asking for my email and my chocolate chip cookie recipe, I started to doubt it. So when the call came at 10:07PM (why so late?!) that I was staying here for another transfer, I got so happy, I started dancing around our house, haha. I love this place and I´m not ready to leave it yet.
I hope you guys had a good week!
I love you!
Sister Heiner

 

Edwardo and Irma Josi.

Funny sign.

Huge spider.

Amanda's moon.

I know you all know what I started singing
 when I saw this apartment building, haha. 

Picture with Pres Campos and his wife.

BAPTISM!!! Leo and Elaine.

Package and letters!

Cute little bench.

S Pompeu was taking pictures of her and her fiances name tags.
I felt left out so I took a picture with their nametags too ;) 

April 2, 2018

First off, I absolutely loved conference. It was so dang short though! I wish we could have had three or four more sessions! We watched it in the capela, which was pretty cool. It was dumping rain so everybody was saying the signal would be really bad, but I prayed with all my might and it only stopped working for like 30 seconds one time! I loved how they seemed to focus on repentance, forgiveness, and the Atonement. It was exactly what I needed to hear this week.
Update on me and my comp. I don´t know what happened this week, but she became one of my best friends. We seriously spent the whole week laughing our heads off and talking about everything under the sun. It was really awesome especially because you could see the happiness we had affecting the people we were teaching. They were laughing and more receptive as we were more united and happy.
Finished my second journal this week. At this rate, I think I should have 6 or 7 by the time I get home.
I have to experiences I want to share with you guys today that made me cry. Happy tears, don´t worry. The first is with Edwardo...
We decided to go visit one of his neighbors, and we really had not planned on visiting him or his family that day. We didn´t have time, to tell you the truth. But Josi opened the door and asked us to come in, so we decided we would just leave a 3 minute lesson and book it out of there. Nope. She was so calm and happy it was eery. She asked us if we would sing the hymn Brilha, Meiga Luz (I don't remember the name in English, sorry), so we did. Super confused but we did. After we finished, Edwardo just sat there staring at us, and we were like, what? Were we that bad? And then he told us he HAD A DREAM. And in this dream, he was in a really fancy place. He went on to describe this place, and how he moved from room to room doing different things. In one room, they watched a video, in another it had mirrors that went on forever, everybody was wearing different clothes. He PERFECTLY described the temple. He said that he went into a room that had 2 paths, one was dark and the other was light with a stair. A woman told him to follow the stairs because he needs to stop following the darkness. So he went down the stairs, entered the water, and was baptized. He said he went into another room and there was an Americana singing in English. He asked what hymn it was and she said it was Brilha Meiga Luz; He had this dream 3 times in the same night. When he woke up, he grabbed the hymn book and read the words to the hymn. Josi said he just sat there and cried. Because it talks about how there was a time that we were following darkness but decided to follow the light (didn´t translate perfectly but ya get the idea). They also told us that they have started saying family prayers every night and that has helped the Spirit fill their home and the fighting to stop. Josi said she was praying for Earthly angels to come help Edwardo recognize this dream as an answer to his prayers when she opened the door and saw us walking down the street. WE HADN´T EVEN PLANNED ON GOING TO THIS BAIRRO THAT DAY. IT WAS A LAST MINUTE DECISION. They are in Uraguia for General Conference this weekend and part of me is nervous he won´t wait to get baptized and we won´t be there to see it! He said such a sincere prayer when we were getting ready to leave. Seriously, I have NEVER felt the Spirit like that in their home before.
Second experience that brought me to tears this week was with Leo...
He had asked us to make American cookies because he wanted to try them. And because I love making cookies, I had no problem saying yes to this request. We had a plan to take them to him and talk about tithing because he had some doubts about that. But it did not go as planned. We got there and Lynie, his mom, was getting ready to take a shower, so we sat on the couch and talked to him while we waited for her. Not a big deal, not super unusual. Gave him the cookies, he loved them, which is awesome because he´s a weirdo and doesn´t eat sugar. And then Irmã Andreia showed up, it turned out to be a blessing from the Lord. Natalia took Lynie´s granddaughter outside to play and Andreia talked to Lynie, so we had a chance to just talk to Leo and focus on the doubts he has. Out of nowhere he goes, I want to be baptized next weekend. I was like, uh what? Because he had told us he wanted to wait until his mom was ready to be baptized. S Pompeu asked when, and he told us he just had one little problem he had to work out first. My heart dropped so fast. And then he smiled and said he needs to get a haircut first. I laughed so hard. At this point, Lynie pipes up from the other side of the room and says she wants to be baptized this day too. Leo pointed to where her boyfriend who lives with them was outside and said, but ya gotta deal with that little problem first. She told us that she would talk to him tonight, we told her she needed to be living the law of chastity 5 days before her baptism, she promised she would be. Leo was then worried that he didn´t have a white shirt, and Lynie told him that she would buy him one. He asked when his interview would be, so I called E Fatori right then and there. He told me he would be in Barbosa Friday because he heard I would be making cookies again. I laughed so hard. Apparently, I can still make good cookies because everybody loves them ;) He asked to talk to Leo and asked him if he was sure he didn´t want to wait until there were better Sisters there to teach him. We all laughed really hard. It was really awesome.
Duke, their dog, always walks home with us, which is really cute. I have a picture of him at our apartment building (not inside because we have rules...) that I will send you guys.
I hope everybody had a fantastic week! I love you guys like crazy!
Sister Heiner

We woke up to this every day this week.

Duke at our house.

S Pompeu gave me this flower and said that she didn´t
 forget me for Easter, thought it was funny

Adolino gave us Easter eggs and said mine was 

the white one because I´m American, haha.

Study selfie.

The irmas thought we wouldn´t eat on 

Easter so they sent us a ton of sugar.