Blackouttt!!

 

This week we had a blackout, it started Monday night and ended Tuesday night. It wasnt very long, but it was epic, and REALLY hot cause we didn't have a fan or anything. And the whole town shut down, all stores, all everything. We went home early Tuesday night cause there was no lights in the road and it is dangerous! but the power is back on now and we are safe and sound! :) 

Everyday we have lunch in the house of members, the lunch here is like dinner for us in the states, its the big meal that the whole family eats together and then their dinner is small. Normally we have lunch with the elders who are serving in our ward, but one day this week they left for Natal for meetings so it was just sisters so we all had lunch together. We were in the house of this one family and we were all just talking and eating like normal, and then she brought her mom into the room to talk with us. Her mom is really old, like 100, and has altimers, so she doesnt remember anything. But when we were talking she said "those girls are mormons, the missionaries." and then the one Irmã said "mom say a prayer for us" and she did, it was the sweetest prayer i have ever heard. so simple and so beatuiful. The spirit was SO  strong, and when she finished and I looked up, me and the three other sisters were all crying our eyes out. It was so sweet to me that although she doesnt remember much, she remembered the missionaries and how to pray and who her heavenly father is. It just showed me how important prayer is, no matter what age, or how big the prayer is. Keeping a relationship with Heavenly Father makes your life better. Plain and simple :)

This week we had zone meeting! and I got to see one of the elders in my CTM district! (photo attached and i look awkardddddd haha) it was great cause i got to get my letters! HAND WRITTEN LETTERS ARE THE BEST AND MAKES MISSIONARIES HAPPY SO WRITE SOMEONE! I want to say thank you to the preists in my home ward for the letteers, my grandparents, and hayley girl! :) 

We marked 3 baptimos this week!! whooo!! One is a family we are teaching, they were a referance from the elders and they are awesome. There is one daughter shes 24 and she is really insterested, and we were teaching her solo for a little while and her mom came in with some food and told us to eat, and we were talking so we said we would, ten min passed by and we still hadnt eaten and she came back in and said we had to eat NOW and so we did, teaching while eating, was different! :) The other is a man in his 50's ish, we meet him while we were doing contacts and he was interested really fast. but this week he said he would come to church but when we passed by to get him he was at the hospital cause his sister was sick, so hopefully we can get him to come this upcoming week :) the other is a boy whose 11, he is super excited about the church and loves the book of mormon, everytime we visit him he is excited to tell us about what he read and he ALWAYS has qustions! it is so great :):)

Things are good for me, this week I saw so much improvement in my portuguese and i understood so much more, not fluent, but there is progress and thats all that matters to me!! :):) 

I love you all so much! Remeber to read the book of mormon cause it is amazingg!!!

xoxo!

Sister Hernandez! 

 

THE PHOTOS!! 

the picture of us at the birthday party, that little boy is named Marlon, and he is the cutest boy i have ever meet. When we took this picture he said "you guys are my second family!!" SO CUTE!! i love him so much. Him and his mom are recent converts and they are amazing! 

how pretty is our view?!? :)

Don't Trip!

 

Well, this week we were walking down the street like normal, and I was talking and took a step off of a curb and BAM, tripped, now this wasnt the first time I have tripped, but it was the first time it left a mark. (I have photes attached of the fall) It was really funny, and really sad, and is now a huge joke and my comp always is saying "sister.. dont trip!!" I was really sad when i fell, so we ate acai and I was happy again!! :) I LOVE ACAI!

I had my first transfer this week! It was great and really exciting! I stayed here in Caico, but we got a new sister in our house. Sister M. Baker. She's great!!

We had alot of work to do this week, and had to meet with alot of people. But remeber that set of cousins we teaching?? Vinicius and Julio? Well they have an uncle who is a member but isn't active. and normally when we are at their house (cause they live togther) he and his wife avoid us and dont listen. But, this week while we were visiting, they came and sat with us and visited with us, and sat in during the lesson, and IT WAS AWESOME!! They said they want to come to chuch but she is like 8.5 months prego and the church is about 2 miles from their house.. and so it will be hard to get them there. But we will do our best to find a car :) I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT THIS FAMILY! 

We also are teaching Padro, he has come to church a lot and loves it!! but He is a really hard headed and so we have been teaching him slow. And this week he invtied us to his church too. He is great, and growing out dreds right now haha. But all the men in the ward want him in our ward so they have been working with us non stop to get him baptised. 

we have this mom and daughter we are teaching too, The mom is like 60 something and the daughter in her 40's. they are SO funny. they are always trying to force feed me something and making us cake and stuff. its great! but we gave them the book or mormon and they are really excited about it!! :)

In church yeterday we sang "ill go where you want me to go" and i almost cried, i am so thankful to be here in brazil serving a mission right now! with the people i am teaching and the members and other missionaries, the lord has a plan for us and he knows what we need at every moment. I am thankful to be here and never wanna come home ;) sorry mom and dad ;)

Com Amor,

Sister Hernandez

Here are some pictures of the fall, and the newest baby in our ward!! :)

another week here in brazil!

Hello Friends and Family!!

This week was good, the start of the week was slow becuase we had to go back to Natal. While we were in Natal, I saw rain like I have never seen before. Here in brazil it doesnt just rain, it pours. Also, we went and met with this family who was in the ward Moraes served in. It was so cute cause their little two year old daughter said my name "siter na-na-des" haha it was so cute!!

When we got back to Caico, it was HOT. some of the hottest days that we have had here. and we had to work hard cause we missed 3 days while we were in Natal. We got a referance from the Elders of this boy named Rikson, we went to his house and he was really excited about the church and we taught him about the book of mormon and he said he would read it. His mom was also there and we talked to her for a while too, she was a world travler, she has seriously been everywere. and when she visited the USA she visited vegas, haha! She asked if I would help her learn more english, so we told her when we visit their house I would also teach a little bit of english haha. Wish me luck! :)

Pedro came to church again, he is also reading the book of mormon, and when he is in church he seriously knows everyone, he is having a hard time cause he wants to come to our church but also his. And so we have been teaching him slow, he just recently broke up with his "wife" (they arent married but lived together for like 20 years) and so we have been helping him with that.

Also we are teaching those cousins I told you about last week. This week we taugh about the plan of salvation, and it was cool to teach about familes being together forever. Their grandpa recently died and so when we told them that they would see their grandpa again and that there if life after death they were SO excited. I love them so much! 

Also, this week was fast sunday, so we were fasting and then went to a house to an investogator and it was funny cause they kept trying to feed us, and we would say "no thank you" and then keep talking then she just started serving up ice cream and handed it to us and almost force fed us the ice cream. After we left the house we laughed so hard cause we tried but they would let us. My comp said that is super normal bcuase everyone just wants to feed us. haha.

Things are good here, the portuguese is coming, everyday i understand more and more and i am speaking more and more and feeling more comfortable with the language everyday!

I love you all!! read the bom!! 

xoxox

sister hernandez

 

ps! I GOT MY FIRST PACKAGE WITH HOT CHEETOS!! THANKS MOM! 

CARNIVAL IS OVER!!

 

YAY! carnival is over and we can work and leave our apartment!! (attatched i have a picture of us "drinking" juice, that was our party for carnival!) it is nice to be able to work again and to be out on the streets! 

We had alot of lessons this week. We are teaching this man name Pedro and he is great, and we gave him the book of mormon and when he came to church the bishopbric gave him more book and so when we went to his house he had all the books on the table and he has been studing them and had alot of questions. he has a really strong accent so i feel bad cause i dont understand EVERYTHING he says. but I do understand more then I did the first day so i feel pretty successful! :)

we are also teaching these two teenagers right now, they are really cool. it is the same boys that we stoppend and played baseball with that one day a few weeks back. They are both really intrested and have lots of questions everytime we talk to them, and they always want us to come and talk to them. they read the book of mormon together and pray together. I am glad that we are teaching them together cause they have the support. their parents dont care that we are teaching them but they dont want to hear it, i am hoping that we can get them all to listen one of these days. it is really funny cause this whole family lives on one street. so i feel like i know their whole family, aunts, cousins, second cousins. they are really sweet! :)

I gave a talk in church.. it was the scariest thing i have ever done in my life. noramlly i like speaking in church but.. not in portuguese. I honestly dont think anyone understood a word i said cause of how nervous i was, but a bunch of ladies in the ward were sweet and said they understood me though the spirit. and gave the elders a hard time when they teased me.

every week we have a thing here were the whole ward gets together with members and investogators and we have a little message and play games and have food. its like mutual for everyone in the whole city haha :) I have a picture from it attached. 

I am doing good outhere, the langauge is coming slowly but it is coming so i am not to worried about it :) the gift of tounges is real though!!

I love you all, read the bom cause there is some good stuff in there!!

xoxox

Sister Hernandez! 

ps. it is raining here, and it got to like 70 degrees and i was cold.. cold. i am scared to ever come home haha! 



Carnival!

This past week carnival started. for those of you who dont know what carnival is, it is a week where everyone just gets together and parties. Like new years, halloween, and the fourth of july, combined. but alot worse!

so the teaching has been really hard cause we need to be in our house the whole night, and the people dont want to listen cause they all are partying. but on the upside i have been able to study the language and docturine alot while we were inside, and the bishop of the other ward lent us some church movies to watch. and i got to see the beautiful sunset of my city. 

the langauge is coming alot, i am starting to understand a little bit more and more, everyday i see a little more improvement. 

i am sorry cause i dont have alot to say this week! next week will be better! :) i hope! 

i am sending a picture of the sunset, and also a selfie of me and sister rios, and sister moraes. sister rios mom got baptised yeterday so we all threw a party for her here and were able to skype with her family to watch it. i didnt understand anything cause it was all in spanish, but the spirit was there. and everyone kept calling me the american gringa, haha

i love you guys!

xoxo

Sister Hernandez

OI!

so this week was a little weird beacuse we had to go to Natal, (5 hours from my area) and my comp needed some medical attention. nothing to crazy, but my area just doesnt have as good as medical attention as Natal. Those people who say Natal are hot have NO idea. Cicou is WAY hotter haha. 

Once we got back we went to work. and we were leaving a members house thursday night and we met this man named Padro. he was great! we were talking and invited him to chuch. and then the next day he drove passed us and we talked to him again and he said he would go. then sunday morning guess who was at church PADRO!! i was so happy. my comp spoke in church so i had to sit by him and try and explain different parts of church and help himwith the hymns and i dont think he understood a thing i said, but he is really sweet and tried to undertand and that was really helpful. 

also, we had a huge "family night" with some non members, it was this women who loves the missionaries (her granddaughter is on a mission right now in san paulo, her granddaughter  is the only member) and so we had a bunch of members and non members and inactives all together and we shared a message and played games. i really hope they could feel how much we care about them. the members here are AMAZING. i seriosly am shocked by how much they help with the missionary work here. and how nice they all are to us. they all try to understand me too so it makes me feel like i can communicate a little haha.

we were walking the other day and these kids were playing "baseball" not american but in a werid way similar. and we asked if we could play, they had a blast making fun of us. and asked us to come back next week and play again. i love these pepople!!

i love you guys!!

xoxox

sis h

100 contacts

i am not writing a big group email this week cause i dont have time. BUT, this week was sister Rios birthday, and so her and i went and did 100 contacts in her area together. it wsa so tiring but so much fun, we invited 100 different people to church in 3 hours. we seriously talked to every single person on every street!! 

 

Sis. Moraes and I may or may not have a bap this week. hopefully he actually does commit. hes 17 and his name is jadison. 

 

the funny thing here is that everyone wants me to say their name in english. and most the time it is the same but they think my accent is cool haha. 

 

I love you guys!! stay safe!! 

 

xoxo sis h.