Monte Grande

Monte Grande

This week was awesome! :)  We were in Monte Grande, which is one of my favorite areas, it has these trees that line all the streets that are gigantic!  Super pretty, lots of big parks and plazas and statues.  Love the area!  And the Hermanas we were with were great too!  Hermana Chaffin - who I lived with for 2 months in the same apartment and Hermana Santes from Brazil.  My comp Hermana Menezes was in heaven this week cuz Hermana Santes lives practically next door to her in Brasil and she had a little suitcase FULL of food from Brazil.  (I honestly have no idea if it’s Brazil or Brasil.  I think it is different in English and Spanish but my comp informs me that in Portuguese it is Brasil so yeah :)  so they were happier than 2 peas in a pod.  :)

This week more than anything we worked with the Book of Mormon.  We gave away 70 Book of Mormons this week.  It was super awesome…  But it also kinda killed us lugging that many books and extra weight in our backpacks.  But it was super cool to see the power of the Book of Mormon.  At one point my comp Hermana Menezes was with Hermana Santos in a plaza introducing the BofM to someone and was just about to read a scripture when a guy came up and was like, “Can I listen too??” OF COARSE!!  And then someone else came up within seconds asking for a BofM too!! Super cool!  And we were able to find a SUPER prepared woman.  She had listened to the missionaries before but in another city and had recently moved to Monte Grande.  She accepted the invitation to be baptized and even gave us in the first lesson her box of cigarettes.  She come to church on Sunday, which is the true test of true intent and loved it!  Olga is super awesome and we are excited to see photos of her baptism in a few weeks.

(Abby sent me her journal to type up for you, but I think she forgot to send the middle page.  Maybe we can get this part next week?)

I can actually speak Spanish now and they remembered that I like spicy food.  And to top off the morning we had lunch with a family that was totally inactive when I was first in the ward and I decided to work with them cuz they had already gone to the temple and everything, and now they are super active and it was wonderful.  I felt on top of the world.  It was amazing to see and feel like I brought to pass, or better said, I was the Lord’s instrument in bringing to pass some good.  It was a real blessing from the Lord to allow me to see the fruits of my efforts.  

This week I learned a lot about what a positive attitude and a little faith can do.  Some studies show that we have an average of 60,000 thoughts per day and 80% of them are negative!  When we try to change our outlook on people, circumstances and just life in general it can have a really big impact.  So think positive. 

And hey, what isn’t there to be positive about when General Conference is this weekend? :) WhooHooo! It’s a good life.  :)