7 Outubro 2019 #21
ANOS!!!! (October
7, 2019 - #21 years old!!!)
# conferencia geral (General
Conference) I hope everyone was
able to watch it!
It is unreal how much I love my mission. Oh my gosh guys, THIS WEEK I ATE PIZZA WITH
PLASTIC GLOVES.
#LostMyAmericanPride. SO
something I’ve seriously come to appreciate here on the mission is that
everyone eats EVERYTHING with a knife and a fork (or sometimes spoon). Things like sandwiches or batatas fritas (french fries) they will pick up with their hands, but
like PIZZA or CHICKEN WINGS…..it’s all in the utensils gente!
This week I did splits with a trio (which had a pretty
amazing miracle. I’ll explain below) and
to celebrate said miracle, we went out to pizza night. But this place doesn’t give you plates to eat
on (even though it’s got a pretty chic vibe) but only putting a can of plastic “luvinhas”
(gloves) and a napkin or two on your table. Also it’s been 16 meses (months) here in Brazil and I still have yet to eat a
pizza with tomato sauce (or any molho (sauce)) for
that matter. They just serve it with
cheese and other toppings (they like sausage and this cottage cheese) and they
just put a ton of ketchup on the table to use if you want!
But, I’d like to talk about the miracle of Panatis that
happened this week.
There are some sisters in an area in
Panatis that I take care of that have really been struggling for a
few months now. They’d been getting
pretty disenchanted and stressed about the people they’ve been teaching and
felt that even though they were giving EVERYTHING, nothing was happening. I call them regularly and prayed a lot to
know how to help them, but I woke up one morning and felt really inspired that
God needed/wanted me by their side for a couple of days. So day of, I grabbed a backpack and off I
went – and what a day it was. So we’re
in the house of one of the families they were teaching, whose son had been
baptized over a year ago and their mom was getting pretty interested in the
Church and the Book of Mormon. Only one
problem gente – Ela ainda nao casu com a pai dos dois filhos dela e esta no
processo ainda (She has not yet married the father of
her two children and is not in the process of doing so.) #After20+Years. But, she has been going regularly to church
and loves it. So we get there and start
talking to her and her daughter about KPOP (popular S.
Korean music) (don’t even ask why but literally ALL of the 12 year old
girls are crazy about them #BTS Bangton Boys Band) and then later talked about
the church (naturally J
lol) and came to find out that the daughter had NEVER stayed in the room before
when the sisters arrived because she’s super shy, but that day for some reason
she stayed. We find out that she had
actually had a ton of questions about our purpose here on earth that she had
asked her brother over the span of several months and had learned many things
little by little. Prompted by the
spirit, we taught her about how important our life is here and (once again
encouraged by a spiritual push) I challenged her to be baptized the following
week. She just thinks about it and goes,
“This is what I want. I want to follow
Jesus Christ.” And I look over at the 2
sisters and there is this look of COMPLETE SHOCK – like eyes wide open and boca
aberta (open mouths) and everything (I wish I
had taken a picture). Keep in mind that
it had been MONTHS and MONTHS since they’ve had any success and so really were
not believing it right? THEN her brother
walks in (who’s 21 and has been preparing to leave on a mission soon) and we
are just already dying over how he’s going to react and we are like “Hey you
know what will happen on Saturday?”
“No – Meet Up?” (Which is a huge
church youth conference they do every year in Brazil)
“Nope. Um batismo”
“De quem?”
“Da Luana.”
He goes into shock, looking
everyone in the eyes to see if it’s true.
He sees that it is real, runs over and tackles his sister in a bear hug,
kissing her cheeks and agrees to baptize her.
- Everyone is crying.
- Sister Staheli’s feeling like her heart is about
to explode of pure joy and happiness for them.
- We find out that it was always Luca’s dream that
his sister would be baptized before leaving on a mission.
- The sisters de Panatis are able to feel hopeful
and realize how apt and willing Heavenly Father is to grant them miracles when
they really believe and work for it.
- Heavenly Father manages to blow Sister Staheli’s
mind yet again with His infinite goodness.
- Sisters celebrate by eating chicken and sausage
pizza with stuffed crust, complete with luvinhas (plastic
gloves) and ketchup. And Sister
Staheli realizes that sometimes life is short and you’ve got to stop to enjoy
and celebrate the good times and tender mercies of the Lord.
Believe in miracles folks. They are real.
Personal Revelation is real.
The Spirit is real.
God is real.
AMO VOCES
Sister Staheli
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