Week 17~"Com Esperanca Vamos Batizar"

"Hey... Look who I found :)"

Dear Friends and Family,

This week I returned to my area and things have been going pretty swell. This transfer is almost coming to a close which is nice because that means I´m halfway done with training which very redunant at the moment since it´s the same training I had in Utah. All well, only 7 more weeks of it...

This week we received a reference from a member in the ward about a boy who wants to be baptized. His mom is a less active member and gave permission for him to be baptized! He turns 8 the 1st of october and he will be baptized sometime this month! Yay!

We´ve also been working with a brother and a sister who both have been baptized, but the brother is a less active member. They are probably my favorite people here because they actually talk to me and I can talk to them easier than anyone else for some reason. But that´s usually how it goes. The children are the best people to talk to and it´s fun.

A little miracle that happened this week: my companion and I had finished contacting one day and we were about to turn around and go home for some reason, but I said let´s just do 5 more. And by the third contact we talked to this college student who asked if we were Mormons and what we believed and she wanted a Book of Mormon to read so we gave her one and I don´t think I´ve ever met anyone so excited during contacting. It turns out she lives in the Elder´s area so they´ll be the ones teaching her, but it´s the small things that count right? 

Don´t really have anything else to report on this week. I still haven´t taught the Restoration or actually any of the lessons for that matter, which can get discouraging, but I am definitely learning a lot of patience here, which I need. Thank you for all your support and prayers, they are appreciated!

Love, 

Sister Lockhart

Week 16~Making it BIG in Brazil...

Oi gente!

Where do I even begin? This week has been crazy, but it has been my best week in Brasil! I´ve been in a new area, Perdizes, for a week with a different Sister because her companion went home, but I will be going back to my area today. This area is very different because it´s where all the rich people live so it´s hard to find new investigators because everyone lives in apartments an won´t let us in. But it´s very chique. 

First of all, we had a baptism here! Her name is Ana Laura and even though I didn´t teach her, it was still a special experience, since I still haven´t had a baptism, let alone a new investigator to teach. Anyway, she stayed in Salt Lake for a month to learn English and she met somene in her group that was LDS and they are dating now and that´s how she found the church. Now their next stop is to be married in the temple! Yay! We also interviewed another Sister for baptism and she will be baptized on Saturday! Hurrah for Israel!

Also this week we had a Multi-Zone conference which was fun. Let me tell you, Brasilians are loud and crazy and I love it. But it´s also weird because these people feel the Spirit differently and so you have to teach them differently. I am still getting used to it. 

Yesterday a few zones, including the one I´m staying in now, got to go sing for some political event for São Paulo. We sang some primary songs and the Americans sang the American National Anthem and then everyone sang the Hymn of Brasil. It was pretty big. Also I got to be on TV, again. (The other time was when we went to the CTM devotional and they asked a few Elders and Sisters to preten to walk into the room. So basically you got to see my back). Anyway, I guess you could say I´m famous in Brasil haha But really, at least every other day I get told ´´Você parece Taylor Swift!!!´´(You look like Taylor Swift). I also get told that I´m white and need to wear sunscreen.

I also forgot to mention a spiritual experience that happened a few weeks ago when I was on exchanges with the Sister Training Leader. We went and visisted a less active member and I was sitting on the other side of the room because there was nowhere to sit and I couldn´t hear (or understand) anything that they were saying so I just kind of sat there trying to figure outh what they were talking about. Anyway, Sister Granados asked me to share a scripture and I chose one and we prayed, but I kept getting the impression to change it so I turned to a different scripture and shared Moroni 7:41 in the Book of Mormon which talks about hope in Jesus Christ and the Ressurrection. Then they both just stared at me and Bruna said something and later I found out that her friend had passed away and she asked Sister Granados how I knew that scripture was exactly what she needed to hear. And she said it was the Spirit. This experience just testifies to me the power of the Holy Ghost in this work, especially when trying to learn a new language.

Thank you again, as always for your prayers. Love you all!

Love,

Sister Lockhart

Ana Laura´s baptism

At some political thingy

Week 15~"Oh My Darling Clementine..."

Hello all, 

I don´t have a lot of time to email today because I will be changing areas in about an hour for the week! 

This week was very rainy and very cold! We got to go to the devotional at the Brasil MTC and it was great! We have both the MTC and the São Paulo temple in our mission so we are very lucky. That also means we have a lot of general authorities come here! Sweet.

Alright, time for some funny stories. This week I got to work at the temple which means we just stand outside the temple and contact as many people as possible and try to get addresses for people in the mission. Anyway, I´m not very good at contacts. Or at the time I wasn´t, I still don´t understand everything people tell me. So I gave this guy one of the Because He Lives cards and he told me something like he had already found Jesus or something and I didn´t know how to respond so we just kind of stared at each other awkwardly until he started asking me if I was okay and I told him I don´t speak Portuguese very well and he kept talking and I was just nodding my head because what else am I supposed to do, my companion is not even helping me. So finally he leaves and then he comes back about 10 minutes later and hands me his cellphone to talk to his son in english and he is asking me if I need any money or whatever and I´m just like..No, no I´m a missionary blah blah and afterwards the guy just tells me that he is concerned for me and the moral of this story is it is very different here hahah but at least I got an adress out of it so that´s something right?

Ok another story about contacting, we were contacting last night (which by the way isn´t very fun on Sunday night because everyone is going to church and is mean) and this really really old guy comes up to us and starts talking about how Sister Tesser (another Sister in this mission who was in this area) came to his house today and invited him to church, which didn´t actually happen because Sister Tesser was transferred 3 weeks ago. So we get his address and he leaves. Then he comes back about 15 minutes later and comes up to me and starts singing ´´Oh my Darling Clementine´´ in english and goes on this long rant about how he can read in English or something. It was pretty funny.

So those are the highlights of this week. Today we had a P-day with the president because our zone and a couple of others won some contest for something. I don´t really know all that goes on here yet. But I will eventually. Hopefully. We had 2 investigators come to church this week! And that´s about it for this week. 

Love you all!

Love,

Sister Lockhart

Week 14~The Week I Biffed It...

Oi gente!

All I can say about this week is that I hope things get better! Last Sunday we were walking home from eating lunch at a member´s home and I stepped in a pothole or something and rolled my foot which hurt a lot. So I wobbled home and wasn´t able to walk until Tuesday when it started to finally feel better. But Sister del Guerso, the mission president´s wife, wanted to take me to the hospital anyway and they x-rayed my foot to make sure it wasn´t broken. Thankfully it wasn´t broken, but for some reason they wanted to put a cast on it anyway, and I had to wear the cast until yesterday. As if I didn´t already feel useless enough. All in all, I can´t exactly say I´ve had a very productive week.

So instead I guess I can tell you a little bit about Brazil.

For one, we are serving in the interior which I think is like the outskirts of the central city. I´m not sure. Anyway, everybody lives in a gated garage? I don´t really know how to explain it. And everyone and their dog has a dog. hah. Lots of dogs. I´m pretty sure I´ve stepped in some dog crap at night, but don´t really know because it´s too dark to tell. Oh, and when you use the bathroom, you don´t flush the toilet paper, you throw it away in the trash can. I guess you could say we´re not in Utah anymore. Hahaha.

Thankfully the ward here is very awesome. There are lots of returned sister missionaries who are just so awesome. And the bishop is great too. But it is hard being the little white girl who doesn´t understand anything. Actually, I can understand a lot, I just can´t speak it, which is frustrating. But everyone keeps saying it will come. I hope so!

While I was bed-ridden this week I read a talk by Elder Holland called ´´Cast Away Not Therefore Your Confidence´´ which talks about how right beore we make a big decision in our lives or encounter miracles we are more often than not faced with adversity. Like what happened to Joseph Smith right before he saw God the Father and Jesus Christ.. But it´s good to remember that we are never alone where ever we are and when bad things happen, we are still loved.

Thank you for all your prayers. Love you all!

Love,

Sister Lockhart

Outside My Bedroom

My Companion Sister De Oliviera