January 28, 2019 Good morning for Torres!

So. My life has really done a 360, hahah. The lovely Elders that were here before us, did absolutely nothing with their lives, except sleep and go to members houses to watch movies. So some of the members here are super nervous about having new missionaries here while other members literally screamed when they heard that it was sisters. The first 2 phone calls we made went like this: "Oi Irma tudo bem?" "Oi, Quem tá falando?" "as sisteres" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" and then you would hear their husbands say "Que foi?!" And then they would yell "Temos Sisteres!!!!!" and then we would laugh. it was pretty entertaining. The first night we were here, after a phone call like that, the family came and picked us up and took us to see the beach, showed us how to get home from the rodoviária, showed us downtown, and then took us to their house and gave us food while telling us how the elders didn't do anything. He´s the elders quórum president, aka our mission leader, so he can say things like that. This couple has ended up helping us a ton this week. Ana Paula and Pedro have an English school so we all talk in English all the time and it is super fun. They have helped us with things around the house, which is awesome seeing as we live in the church (I'll get to that). And they are always super excited when they call and we say that we are teaching somebody because apparently that hasn't happened in almost a year.

There is another couple that has been helping us a ton as well. Their names are Helderson (but in Portuguese, you don't say the H so everybody calls him Elder and it is super confusing at times) and Jennifer. They are the best people I have met so far on my mission. The second night we were here, they called us and we went to their house because he is the councilor to the branch president and he printed out a ton of lists for us and gave us a new map, and helped us figure out where to start. He also has been picking us up every day and driving us to lunch because he knows that we have no idea where to go. And today, Jennifer and Helder are going to take us to the beach to spend pday. Love it.

Our house is the church. But really the church is our house. We are going to get a new house to live in hopefully this week. But for now, we are living in the primary room, haha. The elders before us were living with Pedro and Ana Paula but they caused some really big problems with the kids and with the washing machine, so they set up the primary so that we can have our space. At the start we were like, yyyyaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy................ but after this week of organizing and putting a sink in and cleaning up the mess the elders left.  It is a cute little house and it is pretty handy living above the church because when there are branch things, we can stay until almost ten and then just walk upstairs. And there is never the excuse of forgetting something at home, because it is upstairs. And we joked about kicking people out of our house on Sunday, haha. The only problem is that it is a big old house, so at night it makes weird sounds. And people can walk in whenever they want because they all have Keys to the church. So their are times that we are upstairs and hear people downstairs and are like, "AH! Who is here?" Like Saturday. 9:30 at night, we are getting ready for bed, talking and laughing, and then we hear the piano start playing. So we went to see who was here, and it was Helderson playing hymns singing. And when we started clapping at the end, he got super startled. It was like he forgot that we live upstairs, haha. 

Everybody who lives in Torres is a little weird. I don't know how to explain it super well, but the neighborhood that we worked in this week is like that Psych episode where they go to the small town and then at the end they find out that everybody is marrying their cousins and something has gone wrong in the dna. 

I absolutely love being Sister Ruizes companion. I think it is just because I have known here for like 5 months already, but we sit there laughing and joking with each other all day long. We are in the street giggling, we make the members laugh, we are at home laughing until we are crying. And it is about the most random things. We went and bought a watermelon this week that was like 10kg and walking home we were laughing super hard because we had to carry a huge watermelon home and I was about to trip every three or four seconds. I think this town has a curse on it so that when you start living here, you can't possibly be normal.

I realize that this has nothing to do about missionary work, but our days have consisted of getting super lost and asking people where we are and trying to find the people in the área book only to realize that the elders haven't updated it since 2007, and using the 200 contacts that we have to find people to teach. We would ask other missionaries to come here and help us for the day, but we are in the last part of the mission. Part of our área is in Santa Caterina, and the closest missionaries to us are 3 hours away. We only go to our zone meetings one time every month because its R$35 just to get there and R$35 to get back. So we are pretty much by ourselves here. It's like when Moroni is saying that he is the only one alive after all his people die. It's us here in Torres.

I love you guys and hope your week has been awesome! Hopefully I answered some of your questions and if you have more, let me know for next week. But for now, I'm off to the beach!

Sister Heiner 

A sketchy bridge that we cross to go to Santa Caterina.

My lovely companion.

We walked onto the beach for 

3 minutes to take pictures this week.

We bought milk-shakes after getting 

super lost downtown, haha.

 Turned out to be a good thing I think ;)

We found these ridiculous heels

 in the church cleaning up for Sunday.

our church / our house

There's a street called Carlos Barbosa.

The lake near our house at sunset.

S Ruiz cutting up our huge watermelon 

with a steak knife.  Safetly:100%

January 21, 2019

Hello again. This week was good and busy, which I love but then I was looking at my planner to find things to tell you about and it turns out that it was busy without a whole lot to say, haha.

On Tuesday, I had the chance to go to the temple because Sister Souza is finishing her mission. Which was really cool. I love going there and I love all the changes that the temple makes in my life. Not gonna lie, I will never get used to seeing elders in temple clothes, I think. But it was cool getting to see President and Sister Jones together. It makes me happy to see couples together in the temple because that is my goal in the not too long future. After the session, S Souza wanted to go sit in one of the sealing rooms so we went and sat there for a minute. I just sat there thinking of Ben´s wedding and how I can't believe how much time has passed by since then and how I am still waiting for one of my brothers to have a child. I think its about time, né?

After we went to the temple, we went to the mission office so that Sister Souza could take her English Test. It took three hours. Which is ridiculous. But she just sat there talking and laughing at herself talking so that was good at least. I went and talked to President Jones while she was taking her test. I asked him if I was going to be transferred, I told him what was going on in our area, what happened with Rai and Silvia, ect ect ect. Basically, I had an impromptu interview with him that I started, haha. He told me that I would be staying in São Luis. He lied. I also helped Sister Jones take down all the Christmas decorations in the office.

I was talking to the secretarios waiting for S Souza to finish the freaking long test, and one of them got up and left. So it was just me and an elder sitting there talking, and President Jones walked in, looked back and forth between us, shook his head, and asked us if we had chocolate that he could eat. It was in this moment that I knew that he trusts me.

We have been talking to Dauda every day this week. He seriously is so special. Everything we tell him he believes. We taught the plan of Salvation for 2 hours because he had so many questions about Satan and how we were spirits beforehand and how we can know where we will go afterwards, it was super cool. I've never had to answer any of those questions in English before. I decided that I am really glad that I speak Portuguese and not English, ahah.  His baptismal interview lasted an hour. We had our zone leaders come to do it because one of them is American, and they both came out of the interview crying. E Muraco said that it was the best interview that he has done his whole mission. His baptism was on Sunday afternoon. The elders came back so that E Muraco could baptize him in English. It was super cool. The first councilor of the stake came too and he was dressed in African tribal clothes and gave a super sweet talk. He paused every sentence so that we could translate what he was saying. It was awesome to see the support that our ward is giving this man. We don't even need to stay by his side at church anymore because everybody tries to speak English with him and help him with whatever. I love this ward.

We also accidentally found a cute couple. But in the Lords eyes it wasn't an accident. But we were trying to find another man. Cristiane let us in and started telling us about how her husband drinks and won't want to go to church and how she just wants her family to have peace again because they are together since they were 16, and now they have two darling boys. We went back on Saturday to try and catch Jaderson at home as well so that we could talk to him about going to church and all that jazz. And by a miracle, we showed up 30 seconds before he was leaving, so he came and sat down and listened to what we had to say. When we went to their house on Sunday Morning, they were all ready, super fancy in a dress ( Cris) and a white shirt and dress pants (Jaderson and the boys). They participated in the class, Jaderson saying in front of everybody that he just wants to have peace in their home again. Which I don't think Crist told him that she told us. It was super special. You can see that their marriage isn't too good, but we saw them after church walking and they were walking close to one another and you could see that something had changed. 

We had splits in Porto Alegre on Thursday, nothing super exciting happened. But the area that we were working in, you can see the temple the whole time, which was super cool. Contacts pointing at the temple are awesome.

So. Yesterday, I was super calm about transfers because President said that I would be staying. So I wasn't even a little nervous. He had already told me who my comp was and everything. I helped S Souza pack her bags, Bishop came to pick us up. We were halfway to Porto Alegre to drop her off, and President called and said that I will go to Torres and open the area. And if it doesn't go well this transfer, he is going to take the missionaries out of there for a very long time. I sat there shocked. My companion is S Ruiz, she's from Mexico. This is her last transfer. And I have been in her district for 3 transfers. Can't say that I was too thrilled that I am going to leave but at the same time I am super excited because I have heard that it is a super pretty area and S Ruiz is awesome. Bishop got super quiet and just said, "he's going to take both of you away?" And it broke my heart a little bit because he reminds me so much of dad. 

Anywhos, I need to go catch a bus, so I love you all like crazy, please pray that this isn't a disaster, hahahaha.

Sister Heiner

Our zone.

S Ruiz is the one next to S Souza!!!

In front of the temple doors.

Elder Gonçalves and the sisters.

E Houser and E Barbosa.

Name tags.

In front of the temple.

S Souza convinced me to wear heals.

6 of us crammed in Presidents car.

Waiting for Dauda.

BAPTISM!

E Muraco and Dauda.

January 14, 2019

Hello again. This week was interesting. We started calling it the sandwich week because one day everything was awesome and then the next day it was a disaster and then it was good again and then it was a disaster again and so on and so on. 

So I'm going to start with the novela that is called Raiane and Silvia. Everything was ready for Raiani´s baptism. Like everything. We had what was going to happened planned. The young women were making a cake. We were getting things ready to throw a party after wards which isn't something I have done for other baptisms. The font was full. And then we went to get the elders for her interview. And Rai and Silvia weren't at home. So we waited. We went to the church. We went to the parks they usually go to. And then we went to her house and waited some more. Because they knew we were coming. So we were ready to wait all night. About an hour or so later, they leisurely come walking up to their house like, "oh hey, you guys are still here?" Uh huh Silvia. We are still here. So we go inside. Rai is interviewed, passed because she has already been interviewed before and has been going to church for like 6 months. And then the elders left and Silvia sat down next to us and said, "Olha, gurias" and I already went into defense mode because she has cancelled Rai´s baptism 4 times now. But this time was different because Rai was super excited and ready and helped us plan everything. But then Silvia starts talking about how Rai can't get her hair wet or she'll get sick. Never heard that before but whatever. Respect the mom. So we started talking about how we would dry her hair afterwards and gave all the solutions that we could.  And Silvia said that she would think about it. But you could see the light just go out of Rai´s eyes. She knew as well as we did that her mom was going to say no. Again. Saturday morning, we get a phone call from Renan, (our ward mission leader who is super sweet and brings us chocolate milk when we have meetings :) ) who said that Silvia sent the whole ward a message cancelling the baptism and then left all of the chat groups that the ward has. Which is impressive because there are like 50 of them. For every little thing there is a new ward chat group. Sunday, they don't come to church. We get called into the Bishops office and are told that Silvia broke up with her dumb boyfriend (YAY!!!!!!!) and that she now is not answering her phone when anybody calls and doesn't open the door when people go there (not so yay). So we went to visit her. She did not answer the door or answer the phone. We ended up seeing her like 4 times in the street during the day, and each time, Rai and Belle would run up to say hello but she wouldn't even look us in the eyes. And then the last time we saw her, Rai wouldn't even talk to us. So ya know what? I don't know what to do anymore. Because every time we get to the point of Rai being able to get baptized, Silvia doesn't let it happen and then Rai gets super distant and we go back to where we started. And I don't know that I can do it anymore. I can't keep watching a family that I love so much be so influenced by Satan. And nothing that we do or say helps. Silvia needs to feel Gods love and needs to know that He will help her when things are hard, but she is so strong willed and stubborn that she wont let it happen. And it is effecting her kids. I don't know what to do anymore. I really don't...

So that was the bad of this week.

The good was that we ended up finding this man that is absolutely awesome. He is from Africa and only speaks English and French. So we have been teaching in English which has been really awesome. And the best thing ever is that I am not the one teaching. I make S Souza teach almost all of it and she is getting to learn how to use the gift of tongues and watching how happy she gets when she sees that he understands her is awesome. It has also given a new meaning to our language studies. When we went to teach him the first lesson, he asked if he could ask some questions and started asking about why if Adam and Eve were white, that there are black people as well. Which of course is talking about Cain but we were both a little hesitant to talk about that with good reason because he ended up saying that we were telling him that he was evil. Which wasn't what we were saying but he started laughing and told us that he understood, hahah, he also asked about where the garden of Eden is and how Mary could be Christ's mom but not God's wife. Interesting questions. But then we taught the first lesson and it was really cool. He came to church, and we sat in the back and did General Conference style where I was translating everything that they were saying. Which was hard seeing as the topics were baptism for the dead and patriarchal blessings. But ya know. Then during Elders Quorum, there were a ton of men who came up to him and started speaking in broken up English. I didn't even know that there were people in our ward who spoke English, hahaha, he said that he loved church. When S Souza invited him to be baptized, he sat forward on his chair and said "Yes" with such conviction. It was a good present from our loving Heavenly Father.

We have been visiting Gabriel a lot this week. He told us that he doesn't have a real testimony and asked us to help him. He said that there are days when he does everything right and that he feels clean and ready to serve a mission and then he wakes up the next day and something bad happens or he gets discouraged and he wonders if God really exists. So we have been going there every few days to read the Book of Mormon with him and just help him with some of the questions that he has. He came to church yesterday and we went there afterwards to talk to him, and he told us that for the first time in a long time, he said a real prayer asking Heavenly Father to help him change and always feel like he can do anything. He said that he felt so calm and happy afterward. We left him a chapter to read and told him that we would call him when we got home to see how it went. When we called him, he told us that one of his childhood friends had passed away. He got the phone call right after we left. Ai... it was like he was finally getting his answers and now he thinks that God is unfair because his friend was 20 and had a new baby boy and died trying to save a kid who was drowning. He just sat there and cried talking to us. My heart hurt so bad for this kid. I want to be able to hug him and tell him how much God loves him. We can't hug him, but we did tell him how much God loves him and explained a little about the plan of salvation but really we just listened to how he was feeling and let him cry knowing that he needed somebody to listen. I know that he is already a member, but I will count Gabriel as my biggest convert when he finally opens his heart and lets God heal him. Which is happening. Slowly, but it is happening. If everybody could say a special prayer for him and just ask Heavenly Father to help Gabriel feel His love and open his heart just a tad more, I would be so thankful.

I love you guys. I want you to know that I love this gospel. I know that Christ lives and that He loves us. He has a plan for us. We can't see the whole picture, but we can always have faith that He is doing what He knows is best for even if we don't understand it at times. I know that He answers our prayers and that He lets us feel His love when we let ourselves feel it. Thank you for all of your prayers and all the help that you send my way.

I love you and am so glad that we are a family forever.

Sister Heiner 

Silly Selfie

Our District

I gave Isebelle the pez dispenser 

from Grandma's package and she loved it.

S Souza trying on glasses.

My little nutella with a little spoon.

January 7, 2019

Hello from the other siiiiiiiiiiiide!!! of 2019. I hope everybody had a good new year and that this week has been good. This week has been an adventure here, full of crazy things.

We started our new year off by having going on splits with Esteio area. I thought that going to their area would be a nice little break from the hot weather because they are next to a river, but it turns out that Brazil is just really hot. I was working with S Ruiz and we went to talk to a contact that she had made and it turns out that it is a huge family! And all of them were baptized like 10 years ago. And all of them were drunk. So it made for a really entertaining lesson, the mom and one of the sons crying and telling us that it was the worst decision to leave the church because they all are making bad choices now. Which is true seeing as they were all drunk. I don't know if they are even going to remember that little lesson, but we left a new book of Mormon with them and the address to the church, so hopefully they will at least see that.

I woke up Wednesday and my first thought was that it was that it was Luke´s birthday. Which is insane. I feel like it wasn't that long ago when I was saying happy birthday last year. I can't believe how big he has gotten, I look at the pictures of him next to dad and am a little nervous to see him when I get home because he will probably be bigger than me, hahaha. But I just want him to know that I am super proud of him and am excited to go to the temple with him when I get home!

We had a leadership meeting in Porto Alegre this week. It was good, we talked about maybe doing a time change so that we sleep a little later and stay in the street a little later because the sun is up longer at night and it is so hot that it is easier to work later at night. I don't think it is really going to happen, but it was fun to think about. I spent the day talking with Elder Tate and Elder Southwick. Elder Tate was telling me some funny stories of when he was my zone leader and had an elder try and give him letters to send me. He said that there is an elder that is trying to send me letters through him right now but that he is just reading them and throwing them away. He showed me a picture of said elder and I have never seen him in my life. So that is exciting. It made me laugh pretty hard. How those two tell stories makes me laugh.

We also saw President and Sister Campos! We were leaving lunch in Porto Alegre before our meeting and they were entering to eat so everybody stopped and started taking pictures and hugging them and all that jazz and the security people got really nervous because we were all super excited, haha. 

This week decided to dump rain a few days which was super nice except that before and after the rain, it is super hot and humid that you want to just lay on the ground and die. And then it starts raining and you never want it to stop´. 

We went on splits with Osorio this week as well. Which was good and not so good. One of the sisters decided to open up to me and tell me all the rules that she broke last transfer, including letting her companion start dating her zone leader. She was 100% sure that I would not tell President Jones, which she was wrong about and now she hates me. I don't know if I should be upset about the fact that she thinks I wouldn't tell President Jones or the fact that she hates me. I've decided to just not think about it, haha.

We went to talk to Raiane on Saturday and took her to a ward baptism in the afternoon. She said she really liked it. Which I believe because on Sunday, she told us that she would like to be baptized on Saturday. We got super excited and asked her who she would like to baptize her, she chose Renan. So we went and told him, and he got so excited he gave her this huge hug. It was really cute. And afterwards, she went up to him and gave him another hug. This little girl needs somebody she feels like will protect her. She doesn't have a dad, her mom is all over the place with the boyfriends, and the boyfriends don't treat her like a daughter but like something in the way of dating her mom. So I was extremely happy to see that Renan instantly took her under his wing and you could see that she instantly trusted him. 

Silvia has got some fun drama in her life as well. She broke up with her boyfriend and then he came crying back to her and she took him back. But in this little time, her ex who happens to be a member has started coming back to church and Isabelle absolutely loves him, and she always runs to him and stays with him during all of church so the current boyfriend gets super jealous. And the ex told Silvia that he still loves her and she told him that she is with another man but that if she wasn't, she would like to start over with him. I swear, it is like a reality show, there is so much drama.

Anywhos, I think that's what I've got time for this week. I love you all like crazy, I hope the start of the year is going well. Weird to think that I've been in Brazil for so long, and that it isn't too much longer before I will be back home. They sent me an email asking me which airport is closest to my house, which is scary.

I love youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Sister Heiner 

S Souza "hiding" after seeing one of

 our members trying to hide from us.

I used the nails mom sent me

 for our leadership meeting.

We saw President and Sister Campos!

Elder Tate, Elder Southwick, Sister Souza and I.

Raiane :)