9th Week in Brasilia

Wowee wow. Time is flying!

This week was lovely. I´m really beginning to understand what people mean when they say that missionary work is hard.....it´s stinking hard! We had one day this week when everything went wrong. All of our apointments fell and one of investigators told us his family forbid him from talking to us. To top it all off it was SO hot and I wasn´t feeling great. 

After a few hours of this I turned to Sister Ferreyra and said 

"Sister, we need to pray."

We stopped walking, went to the side of the road and said a short prayer. The prayer wasn´t anything new or spectacular but it was so powerful! After the prayer, our day wasn´t perfect and we still had dificulties but I had this incredible sense of peace and direction. It was amazing! 

Later that day we had the baptism of Kariny! It was probably one of the best moments of my mission. Kariny is 26 and the cousin of one of the young Women in our ward. She was SOOO prepared for the gospel. She´d been attending another church where they have really, really strict standards. Eg- they can´t hold hands or kiss someone before marriage. Teaching her was a dream. This week we taught her the law of chastity and it was mostly hilarious. Usually it can be kind of an hard topic to teach but for her it was completely different. The lesson consisted of mostly us teaching her what she CAN do. We have commitments for every lesson and Sister Ferreyra and I were joking around before that our commitment for her would be to kiss someone before our next lesson. She studies and reads and rereads every pamphlet we give her before every lesson. She´s seriously amazing. 

We ended the lesson by telling her that next time we´ll be teaching tithing. Her response...."Oh! I just LOVE tithing!".

 And she was serious. 

Her baptism was so special. She has a spiritual connection to rain and so I sang "I Like to Look for Rainbows" for her as a suprise. It was such a happy day and such an amazing experience to see someone truly starting a new life.

I´ve been studying about The Fall this week. It´s a good story but also has so many important principles. If Eve hadn´t made the bold choice to partake of the fruit she and Adam would have been in a state of innocence forever- never knowing good, happiness, fufillment, passion or joy. They also wouldn´t have know evil, trials, difficulties or hardships. The principle in this story is that our hardships really are a blessing. Without hardtimes we´ll never know the good. Without trials,we´ll never appreciate miracles. It´s so simple but so profound. HFs plan really is so perfect. It´s not easy but it´s not supposed to be. We´re on this earth to learn and grow not to float around in innocence and apathy. This week thank Father in heaven for your difficulties, for your trials and hardships. Without them you´ll never progress and you´ll never recognize your blessings.  

I really am loving life as a missionary. It´s so hard but that´s ok because it´s supposed to be.

I love this gospel and I love being an instrument in the Lord´s hands to change lives. 

I also received very happy news this week from my first area is Colorado that many people are getting baptized that I helped find and teach. Woo! Shout out to Tallyn´s Reach! The ward of Enoch!

Missions are amazing. 

Hugs and love and happiness from Brasil,

Sister Brown