Progressing In The Gospel

"I feel like a mom because I´m so proud when my recent converts progress in the gospel. He (Carlos Enrique) was baptized in March and this past Sunday blessed the sacrament! He also bore his testimony in front of the entire congregation! This is why I am serving a mission, to help others come unto Christ. He´s so happy with the gospel in his life and I know that the Lord will be able to use his desire to serve. The couple that was baptized (Celia and Tiago) are so excited to be part of the church and this past Sunday Celia was called to be the 2nd counselor in the Relief Society"

Easter Sunday goodies. They don´t do easter baskets, they do chocolate eggs that are hollow on the inside. The branch president´s wife and Pres. and Sis. Tobias sent us these goodies.
The sweetest pants ever...and super flattering (not!) They were 10 reais, so we really couldn´t resist. They are super comfortable, but the lady in the store was dead serious when she asked us "Are you planning on going out somewhere? Let´s find a blouse to go with the pants" HAHAHAHA!!!

Singing in Portuguese

Sister Erika Riggs wishing her brother, Michael, a happy birthday!

Funny story: The other day we were looking for the house of a less active member. I had been given the directions to her house by the relief society president...but no one in the ward knew house number, which make things a little difficult. The directions were "she lives on your street (which is suuuuper long), across from the blue hotel, above the "movéis" store." So we walked down our street, found a blue hotel and across the street was a movie store. The only problem was that the movie store only had one story...no one could live above it. So we told the relief society president what had happened and she was super confused when I said there was only one story. She insisted that she lived ABOVE the store and I insisted that there WAS NO ABOVE the store that sold videos. She paused and asked:

Irmã: "videos?what about videos?"

Me: The "movéis" store? The one that rents and sells videos?"

Ya...it turns out that movéis in Portuguese means a place that builds furniture...who would have thought?




It´s rained like crazy this past few days and as you can see in the picture, my umbrella which was supposedly indestructable, just couldn´t handle it.

CLEANING INSTRUCTIONS: HAND WASH ONLY

"When President Tobias came, he brought a washer with him! Yay! The only problem is that we don´t have a hook up in our house to plug in the water and the electricity...so we can´t use it. Today I did laundry (by hand ) and hung everything up to dry only to have it pour 1 hour later. We don´t have a covering for our laundry area, so everything is now soaked again. O the adventures of Brazil!"

"I attached a picture of our study area where we spend 3 hours every morning. Sister Judd and I are learning the Brazil national anthem, so we thought it would be a good idea to put up a flag. This flag is just a paper one, but it does its job. "

This is Erika with her Great Aunt Yuri, who is serving a mission in Sendai, Japan. They were both in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah at the same time!!

"Charity. . .seeketh not her own"

" One really neat thing that happened this past week was we had a family baptized into the ward! They felt that God had a purpose for them so they left their home and moved to Rio Verde two months ago. Celia (the wife) had a dream that the missionaries came to her house, taught her the lessons and she and her husband (Tiago) accepted it all. When she woke up from the nap where she had this dream, Sister Judd and I had just showed up at their house. Sister Judd and I were teaching them, but the Elders in our ward have been having such a hard time finding investigators. They´ve been fasting and praying to find an investigator who can be baptized this month, but their only baptism for the month fell through. After a tearful prayer, we decided to let the Elders finish the discussions and then let them baptize this special family. So the Elders got to be a part of the miracle and it turns out they were the ones that she saw in the dream!"

". . .this family (husband and wife) were baptized this past Sunday and it was super special! Sis. Judd and I had two baptisms of our own: Antonio and Carlos Henrique"

LATE ENTRY

Erika sent her email last week to a wrong email address. Hence, this late entry. . . .Here is a picture of her first baptism in Rio Verde.

"His name is Lailson and he is one of the 7 men we brought to church on our first Sunday here in Rio Verde. He is 21 years old and is working here in Rio Verde. He lives in a house with a bunch of other guys (apparently that´s really common here in Brazil to live with 9 other people) and we were teaching 5 of them. He decided on his own to be baptized, even when his friends weren´t so sure. But he received an answer to his prayers and knew that he had to be baptized even if his friends backed out."

ERIKA'S MAILING ADDRESS!!!

Here is Erika's mailing address (it may change from time to time, as she transfers location. . . .be sure to always check out this blog site for any updates):

Rua Abel Pereiro de Castro, 819-Centro
75900-000 - Rio Verde, GO - Brazil

(NOTE: It MUST be written exactly like this.)


She wrote: "We had another baptism this week! A woman named Terezíla. She has faith like I´ve never seen before in anyone else. When we taught her, we would always extend a commitment for her to pray to know that our message was true/Joseph Smith was a prophet/ the Book of Mórmon is true. We extend this commitment with an understanding that they will pray once we leave the house or later on that night. But when we asked her to pray, she bowed her head right there in the middle of the lesson and prayed! And she would get an answer! She accepted everything we taught her and was baptized this past Sunday!"

Computer WOES!

I wrote a super long letter with pictures and the computer logged me out. Now my time is up and I can´t say much other than I love you! and You will be hearing from me again in 7 days! muah!