Week 13~Brasil!!!

Oi,
I do'nt even know where to begin with this email. So I will just start from the beginning. Also I am using a portuguese keyboard so please bear with me.

Last Monday we got on a plan headed for Brasil! And a cool experience happened while we were in the Atlanta airport. We met this other missionary who just came from the MTC and was going to the São Paulo Norte Mission. Anyway, he goes over and starts talking to these Brazilians in Portuguese. Turns out they were members of the church and so we just started talking to him. (The only advice he gave us was to never go back to Brazil and marry someone you baptized lol) Anyway, I saw this other Brazilian who was listening to our conversation so I went over there to talk to him. Apparently he was doing an exchange student program in Canada and was just coming home after being there a year. So we talked and he asked a few questions about what we do as missionaries. We asked him if he went to church and he said not really because there are many churches in Brasil and it is very confusing. He said he wants to feel that something is true. Well whatya know. So we gave him a Book of Mormon and I bore my testimony of when I felt it was true and he said he might want to have missionaries over. But get this. It turns out he lives in this very mission! So we are going to try and send the Elders over to that area. Pretty cool.

So yeah, Brasil is very different to say the least. When you greet someone you kiss them on the cheek, except as missionaries we can~t do that to someone of the opposite gender which can be pretty awkward sometimes when you think they are leaning in to tell you something and then your companion freaks out because they know what is up. Hahaha yeah that happened. It´s pretty fun though. My companion is Sister de Oliveira and she is very sweet. We just opened up a new area. That is hard. We haven´t taught very many lessons. And no one really wants to talk to us. Also no one can pronounce my name so I am officially going by Sister Loki because that is how they say my name. Haha.

The members here are so awesome. They are crazy, but fun. It is kind of hard because everybody thinks I am just stupid and so they try to speak english to me, but I have never met a more loud people. I can´t wait for they olympics hahah we work with the bishop a lot and the seminary kids who are just insane, but cool. I was able to convince one of them that I was from Brasil hehe but all in all, great people, hard life.

I will try to write more next week! I forgot to bring my camera so no pictures :( we aren´t supposed to carry it around because we would get jumped, no joke. 

Thank you for everything! Love you all.

Love,

Sister Lockhart

Week 12~She's There...

Week 12~On Her Way...

Last Day in Bountiful Utah

Mom's Note...

Jessica called us yesterday from the Salt Lake airport.  She flew to Atlanta and then on to São Paulo getting there early this morning.  Her phone call was upbeat even though she said "I'm probably not going to understand anything they say to me" can't wait to hear from her.  She's a brave young woman. 

Week 11~My Nickname is Casper...

Oi everyone! 

This week I was told "You have the whitest skin I've ever seen!!!" 

#storyofmylife

Anyway, Sister Fletcher went home on Wednesday so it's kind of weird just the two of us. It's nice though because now I actually get to talk during lessons. That'll probably change again here soon in Brazil. 

Nothing too exciting happened this week. We were supposed to have a baptism this Saturday with Trinity, but she talked to her dad and he agreed that she can be baptized in September. So it looks like I won't be having having any baptisms here in Bountiful, but that's okay. I've helped a lot of people in other ways. We did have a little miracle though. We were returning late for a lesson and we weren't going to be able to make it home on time. So Sister Ursaga said a prayer out loud and after I said that no one is probably going to stop because it's dark and no one will see us. But what do you know not 5 minutes later a sister pulls up next to us and gives us a ride home. We made it home 2 minutes before we were supposed to be inside. The Lord takes care of his missionaries. I haven't learned much from my trainer about teaching, but she has taught me a lot about being grateful. When we're walking on really hot days she will say something like "Thank you Heavenly Father for this wind on a very hot day." Stuff I don't even think about. She's very good like that. 

Since I probably won't be able to email next week (because I'll be on a plane to Brazil!!) I'll just tell you everything that will happen this week. On Wednesday we have a mission tour with a few members of the seventy which should be way cool. Then on Thursday, Elder Evans is coming and we are going with him and the stake presidency to visit less active people. I'll try to get a picture with him. Then on Friday we get to go to the temple! It's going to be awesome. Then on Sunday I'll go to the departing devotional and Monday I'll leave. I would go into more detail, but the people next to me are quoting SpongeBob episodes very loudly and I can't concentrate. But I'll have plenty to talk about next week.

 Thank you for all your prayers and support. Love you all!

Love, 

Sister Lockhart

Sister Hall and I at Sister Fletcher's Farewell Party

Marylou & I... 

Her grandfather was Abraham Smoot
 who has a building and a statue named after him at BYU

Week 10~I'm Famous...

Morgan, Me & Trinity

who will be baptized on August 22

Hey everyone!

This week was rather uneventful, but 3 people said I look like Taylor Swift, 1 person said I look like Analeigh Tipton, and another said I look like one of the chicks off of Orange is the New Black. I find it funny because none of them even look alike. But hey, I'll take it. 

The baptism we were supposed to have on Saturday ended up falling through. He said he didn't feel ready and that he might be ready in September. Except, he's been saying that for the past twelve years, so we'll see. Our other baptism for August 22 is still on, but now her parents are making it harder for that to happen. This girl is an awesome 12 year old girl, who prayed about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and knows that it is true. She doesn't know a whole lot about the church, except that she knows what she felt and really wants to be baptized. She's awesome. 

In other news, a new Brazilian family moved into one of our wards and they're super cool. They said they would feed us Brazilian food before I leave, which better be soon because I leave in exactly two weeks!! Whoop! Let's see, what else? We got one of our returning members on the stop smoking program! He's really into it and really wants to quit. He's awesome to teach because he's so humble. And so is his brother. His brother just sat in for one of our lessons a bout reading the scriptures and he said he wanted a Book of Mormon so he could start reading it! Unfortunately he's not in our area, so we handed him off to the stinky Elders (kidding duh, Elders are great too). But they're great people. 

Alright prepare for kind of a nerd tangent. So we were in a lesson and the investigator we were with has a hard time with certain doctrines of the church, and the member said it was because of his perspective of the doctrine. He said each mathematical system in the world is based on the root of ten, which makes sense because everyone in the world has ten fingers. But if an alien race with only 8 fingers came to earth, they wouldn't understand our system of 10 because their system would be based on a root of 8. That doesn't mean either system is wrong, it just has to do with your perspective. And if you truly want to understand the system (or in this case, the doctrine), you have to go back to the root. Our investigator really liked that. And I really, really liked that. Okay nerd tangent over. 

Ok since I didn't send pictures last week, here they are. 

Have a great week!! Miss you all!

Love,

Sister Lockhart

My Zone

If you have enough faith

 you can see my eyebrows...hee, hee

Weèk 9~Bingo!

Dearest family and friends,

This week went by so fast! I can hardly remember what happened. 

This week I was able to do exchanges. I was able to go to another area and spend the day with another Sister Missionary. It was fun. We were able to go to the Care Center which is basically an old folk's home and we got to teach the gospel principals class. I was able to meet this little old man named Albert who was baptized a few months ago at age 92. He told the class that he prayed to God to help him win Bingo and he won six times. The Branch President didn't know how to respond to that hahah

We have 2 investigators with a baptismal date this month! One of them just kind of fell out of the sky. A 12 year old girl announced in church she was going to be baptized of the 8th, but didn't tell anyone about it till then. We found out about this on Saturday morning. Also she's going to girl's camp this week which means we would've only been able to teach her all 5 lessons in 3 days. Thankfully she moved the date to the 22nd so her grandpa can baptize her. 

The other baptismal date is with a man who has been investigating the church for 12 years. He's an intellectual who overthinks everything, but one of the nicest people I've met here. We were able to share a tender moment this past week. He was being stubborn as usual, so I asked him why he thought missionaries were different (he had mentioned it in a previous lesson) and he said they seem just so pure and good. I was able to explain that that pureness and light comes from Jesus Christ. And it's true. That "Mormon glow" comes from Jesus Christ. He said "I am the light of the world." (John 8:12, Mosiah 16:9). Anyway, at our next lesson he said life could really be like he Matrix and really this is all a dream and we might be hooked up to tubes and stuff. Oy vey. 

We also had a very awesome zone conference this week. It was about consecrating ourselves. There is a really good talk on it called "Consecrate thy Performance" by Neal A. Maxwell if you want to read it. It applies to everyone, not just missionaries. But one thing that was said at the conference I really liked is that we should always be happy and never content. Meaning we should always be happy, but always improving and progressing. 

Until next week,

Sister Lockhart