He is risen! Ele ressuscitou!

Hey everybody,

i just wanted to send a quick email to let you all know that first, I'm doing great:) second, our little investigator Francimara (the younger sister of some members in our ward) was baptized yesterday, third and most important that this is the week of Easter. The week of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. I always loved Easter because we were always with family and I love tulips and there's a special peace that comes this time of year. But really above all, this peace comes from our Savior. This is the time of year that we really remember not only that He died for us, but that He Lives again for us.

This is a link to a video that explains why the Atonement of Jesus Christ that happened so long ago is still just as important yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever for all of us. 

http://www.mormon.org/easter 

and here it is in Portuguese too;)

http://www.mormon.org/por/pascoa

com muito amor

sister pace

p.s. general conference is this week! everybody go watch!

milagres são reais!

Here's the lowdown on my life recently...

So the past week we've started to teach the mom of a member in our ward. Her name is Edna. She really didn't like the church for a really long time because her son, Dino, wants to serve a mission and she doesn't want him to leave. I remember visiting her one time when I first got here and seeing that she wasn’t interested, but last week we invited her to read 3 Nephi 11 anyway. We were doing a service project for her with electricity, and when I asked her if she had read and she said no, we decided to read with her. Sister Ochoa was working in the other room and I started to read with Edna. The Spirit is a powerful being I'm telling you because as we started to read and stop every couple of verses you could see the understanding she was receiving on her face:) She said that she was feeling goose bumps as we read about how Christ came to the people. But my favorite thing she said is that she feels like she understands only a little piece of how Christ feels for us because like when a mother sees her child hurting, she wants to do anything to comfort them, even take the pain upon herself. And this is how Christ felt for us. How he FEELS for us. That He came to the Americas and showed the marks on His hands and feet so that the people here could know that He died for them too. 

I almost cried. Edna too. We continued reading and the next thing Christ did was give the people the authority to baptize, in His name, in the way that he was baptized.

 33 And whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall be saved; and they are they who shall inherit the kingdom of God.

Edna stopped reading and said to me, now I understand why your church talks so much about baptism. I want to be baptized.

I can't even describe the joy I felt in that moment. And now since then she's been making amazing progress. What's even greater is how happy Dino is:) He's helping her a lot too:)

And so that's the result of many many missionaries passing by her house, her son sharing the gospel when she at times didn't care, and people never giving up on her. Not only am I gaining a huge testimony of the power of the Book of Mormon, but I've seen firsthand that you never know who has been prepared to hear the gospel.

I love you all! 

Read your Scriptures because there's power there!

Get ready for G Conference!

Eat peanut butter in my honor;)

i'm still alive

Sorry I haven't written in so long, but everything's all good!

We had transfers a couple weeks ago and I had to say goodbye to sister Cunha which was sad, but Sister Ochoa (Sister Ochoa is from Argentina) is really sweet and I'm happy to be working with her.

Know that I'm doing great and I'll write more to y'all next week!!

Read your scriptures!!

-sister pace

In an email Terra wrote to me (her mother), she said the following:

"I was talking with Sister Ochoa that the members that go out of their way to take care of us are really angels from heaven. Also, if you can ever give them a ride somewhere, do it. Don’t let them tell you that you don't have to, they're just being modest. We missionaries do enough walking, I've almost cried a couple times of joy when members offer us a ride."

semana beleza

While you were all celebrating Valentine's day in the US we are here celebrating Carnaval. Haha and by that I mean all the stores are closed and everyone went to the beach this week. Normally we have about 90 people in our ward, but yesterday at church we had 24. lol. That's okay because Francisco was baptized yesterday!! I love him! He's the sweetest and most humble man I've met here and he was finally baptized! whoo hoo! He has such a sweet spirit about him and I don't know how to describe it, but I can feel my love for my family growing when I see the love he and his family have for each other. How amazing it is that with any circumstance, and the people here live in all different types of circumstances, the gospel of Jesus Christ will always bring peace, comfort and joy. :)

Also this week we helped plan a birthday party with a member family in our ward for their 6 year old son. We picked guava - I think that's what they're called in English - and then made like a thousand brigadeiros. Look them up if you don't know what they are:) 

And at this very moment there are about 10 guys in the street with drums and then 2-3 guys in big costumes made of tons of pieces of fabric that are parading through the neighborhood for Carnaval:) Haha I can't help but laugh sometimes at how odd this sounds to write, but how normal it is for me now...

I love you and don't ever forget it.

-sis pace

Fun facts:

• Sister Cunha made it to her 1 year mark so we celebrated with açai and forró!
• I herded more frogs out of our house this week.
• Cashews are actually in the stem of the fruit. Not inside.
• The talk "Approaching the Throne of God with Confidence" from the most recent General Conference is really, really good and you ought to go and read it.

famílias eternas & frogs

Okay, first I’m going to apologize if my last emails haven't been making a lot of sense. I get really nervous with the one hour of email time and then I tend to write some nonsense...and it probably will continue...oops.

 Anyway, this week was a little odd for us because 1) sister Cunha wasn't feeling good 2) it rained like craaaazy on Wednesday! Like we are talking Second Coming kind of rain in Mossoró of all places! So our work was a little bit hindered this week, but our faith wasn't!!!! We have been teaching Francisco who is the grandfather of our recent convert Myllenna and he is amazing. We had a little worry with him this week because he said he didn't like church on Sunday because it was hard to understand what was going on, but when we went to talk with him with Myllenna she bore the sweetest testimony of how even though going to church for her was scary at first, she knew it was right and she kept going. I'm still amazed every day at how quickly the people we teach gain testimonies. Myllenna, who when we first were teaching her DID NOT want to offer the prayer because she was always so nervous, but now after bearing her testimony for her grandfather she offered one of the sweetest prayers to end our lesson. I'll admit, I did start to tear up a little bit, Francisco and Myllenna definitely did tear up a little too. And he's ready to keep going:) He wasn't baptised yesterday because he was feeling sick, but definitely next week. And our other investigator Acasiano, who we haven't been able to contact all week, came to church by himself!! Ahh MILAGRES! 

 Like always, I love you all so much and I want you all to know that this is the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Nothing in this world will ever bring more happiness and joy to our lives than the knowledge that He Lives and is always there for each one of us. I'm eternally grateful for this. 

 -sister pace 

 p.s. rain means frogs EVERYWHERE. so. many. frogs. Also, in response to your questions the sideways thumbs up is our hand sign for baptism!! BATISMO!!

tem que trabalhar

heyyyy,

So, these past couple weeks have been great:) we had the baptism of Larissa last week and the baptism of Marina, her younger sister, and Vandrique yesterday, who is Max's younger brother. Families in the gospel whoohoo!! Also, we are helping Max and Vandrique's parents become legally married so they can be living the law of chastity and be baptized too!! yaya!

This week we had interviews with our mission president. We talked about how I’m doing and then we were talking about the Attributes of Christ chapter in Preach my Gospel and I’ve really been thinking this week about how to be a better missionary. So who better to learn how to be a better missionary than from Christ who was the greatest? 

te amo e sou muito grata por todos de vocês!

-sister pace

Larissa

Larissa was baptized yesterday (January 25, 2015)