"Blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land. Now my bretheren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever."
I think the biggest change from the first week I was here to this past week of being here is that my feet and ankles have finally stepped up to the plate!!!! Pun intended! I got new shoes that are super squishy, comfy, and UGLY. Needless to say, I have been much happier and much less tired because I have good shoes.
The highlight of this past week is teaching one of our investigators, F, who has a baptismal date for this Sunday. F is an amazing person who has made so many drastic changes to embrace the Gospel and truly follow Jesus Christ. They have quit smoking, drinking, and doing illegal drugs. When we met them on the street for the first time, they had been clean from these things for a month. It was God´s timing that we met them when we did, because they were just ready to hear about the healing that the Savior offers. Now that we are teaching them the Gospel, they have visibly gained an inner light of hope. It has been amazing to see. This Sunday will be an amazing day!
The low points of this week have been when we have had to stop teaching two of our investigators. They are C and A. Both of them come from very different circumstances, but neither of them were ready to leave certain things about their old life in the past and take the next step necessary to follow Christ´s example for us. Since there are people who are ready to be baptized, we need to spend our time teaching them. I cried both times when we walked out of their houses for the last times because I knew that I probably wouldn´t ever see them again in this life. I cried because of the happiness that they are keeping themselves from, and I cried because I just grew to love them so much, even though we had only known them for a week. However, I know that not everyone we teach will be ready to accept the Gospel, but I have so much faith that these amazing people will one day choose to follow the Savior and therefore find complete joy. I just have to add them to my list of people to pray for.
Even though I´m still really struggling with the language, I am feeling the Spirit all the time. It is a testimony to me that we do not need to understand everything or have a great knowledge of deep principles in order to feel God´s love. You don´t even have to speak the same language as someone! When we are teaching people about the Savior, I feel the same feeling of peace, love, and hope that the Spirit always brings. Seriously, Heavenly Father is amazing. I know that He loves His children and I know that He wants them to know that. My trainer told me that even if I can´t say something perfectly, say what is on my heart, because the people will be able to tell. They will be able to feel God´s love for them through my sincerity and the Spirit that I have with me. It is not hard to love the people here anyway.
The funniest thing that happened this week was teaching a family with only young kids in the room. Their four year old cousin came into the lesson right when we were asking the kids if they wanted to follow Jesus Christ. All of the kids said yes besides the little four year old girl. To help her a little bit, we asked her if she wanted to live with God and she said yes. We then asked her if she wanted to follow Jesus Christ, but she shook her head again. We found out a couple of days later that she thought that we were KIDNAPPERS and that we were asking her to follow US. It was actually pretty dang funny. She´s our little buddy now though.
Another really funny thing that happened was when we were talking to this 50 year old man on the street. He was going off about all kinds of different religions and I couldn't understand even a tiny bit of what he was talking about. He was shouting about Bible related things, and it didn't help that he was slightly drunk as well. Anyway, he started talking about something really fast, and then he looked at me and said, "explica para ela..." Which means "explain to her," as in, my companion is super white and so people assume that I´m the one who knows what´s going on. HA! It is REALLY amusing for me. I have to tell people, ``No, I have only been here for two weeks!´´ And then they look a little confused but Sister Corbitt quickly gains their trust. :) One time we were talking to twin teenage guys and both of them were giving me these little knowing looks on the side as Sister Corbitt was talking to them. I just gave them the knowing smile back like I had any clue what anyone was saying. It´s really funny. Sister Corbitt thinks it´s pretty funny too because she is obviously way more fluent than I am. Ha ha.
My new favorite food in Brazil is the linguiça. It is an amazing kind of sausage that I think they only have in Brazil. I love it though! I´m hoping that the hills here will help me not gain too much weight! Ai!
I love all of you and I hope that things are well with you in the states. Please let me know what´s new with your families!
Com amor,
Sister Williams
I think the biggest change from the first week I was here to this past week of being here is that my feet and ankles have finally stepped up to the plate!!!! Pun intended! I got new shoes that are super squishy, comfy, and UGLY. Needless to say, I have been much happier and much less tired because I have good shoes.
The highlight of this past week is teaching one of our investigators, F, who has a baptismal date for this Sunday. F is an amazing person who has made so many drastic changes to embrace the Gospel and truly follow Jesus Christ. They have quit smoking, drinking, and doing illegal drugs. When we met them on the street for the first time, they had been clean from these things for a month. It was God´s timing that we met them when we did, because they were just ready to hear about the healing that the Savior offers. Now that we are teaching them the Gospel, they have visibly gained an inner light of hope. It has been amazing to see. This Sunday will be an amazing day!
The low points of this week have been when we have had to stop teaching two of our investigators. They are C and A. Both of them come from very different circumstances, but neither of them were ready to leave certain things about their old life in the past and take the next step necessary to follow Christ´s example for us. Since there are people who are ready to be baptized, we need to spend our time teaching them. I cried both times when we walked out of their houses for the last times because I knew that I probably wouldn´t ever see them again in this life. I cried because of the happiness that they are keeping themselves from, and I cried because I just grew to love them so much, even though we had only known them for a week. However, I know that not everyone we teach will be ready to accept the Gospel, but I have so much faith that these amazing people will one day choose to follow the Savior and therefore find complete joy. I just have to add them to my list of people to pray for.
Even though I´m still really struggling with the language, I am feeling the Spirit all the time. It is a testimony to me that we do not need to understand everything or have a great knowledge of deep principles in order to feel God´s love. You don´t even have to speak the same language as someone! When we are teaching people about the Savior, I feel the same feeling of peace, love, and hope that the Spirit always brings. Seriously, Heavenly Father is amazing. I know that He loves His children and I know that He wants them to know that. My trainer told me that even if I can´t say something perfectly, say what is on my heart, because the people will be able to tell. They will be able to feel God´s love for them through my sincerity and the Spirit that I have with me. It is not hard to love the people here anyway.
The funniest thing that happened this week was teaching a family with only young kids in the room. Their four year old cousin came into the lesson right when we were asking the kids if they wanted to follow Jesus Christ. All of the kids said yes besides the little four year old girl. To help her a little bit, we asked her if she wanted to live with God and she said yes. We then asked her if she wanted to follow Jesus Christ, but she shook her head again. We found out a couple of days later that she thought that we were KIDNAPPERS and that we were asking her to follow US. It was actually pretty dang funny. She´s our little buddy now though.
Another really funny thing that happened was when we were talking to this 50 year old man on the street. He was going off about all kinds of different religions and I couldn't understand even a tiny bit of what he was talking about. He was shouting about Bible related things, and it didn't help that he was slightly drunk as well. Anyway, he started talking about something really fast, and then he looked at me and said, "explica para ela..." Which means "explain to her," as in, my companion is super white and so people assume that I´m the one who knows what´s going on. HA! It is REALLY amusing for me. I have to tell people, ``No, I have only been here for two weeks!´´ And then they look a little confused but Sister Corbitt quickly gains their trust. :) One time we were talking to twin teenage guys and both of them were giving me these little knowing looks on the side as Sister Corbitt was talking to them. I just gave them the knowing smile back like I had any clue what anyone was saying. It´s really funny. Sister Corbitt thinks it´s pretty funny too because she is obviously way more fluent than I am. Ha ha.
My new favorite food in Brazil is the linguiça. It is an amazing kind of sausage that I think they only have in Brazil. I love it though! I´m hoping that the hills here will help me not gain too much weight! Ai!
I love all of you and I hope that things are well with you in the states. Please let me know what´s new with your families!
Com amor,
Sister Williams
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