Mawwiage is what bwings us together 3/10/2014

Hello lovies,

So I forgot to say last week that was transfer week. I am staying in Vila Prudente! WOOOOOOO! I AM SO HAPPY. Sister Falcão got transferred to Taubate though. It makes me sad. We had another mission conference with a Elder Costa of the Seventy, and it just felt so weird seeing her with Sister Detlefsen. I kept wanting to be like SISTERRRRR COME SIT BY ME. Sister Detlefsen is one of my favorite people though and Guaritingeta is the best zone so I am real happy for her. Doesn´t mean I am not missing her heaps though. So now this is what happened to me: I got called Monday night by President to train again! Yahoo! So we got to transfers and President called me first to get my new companion. I skipped up there and was like here! real perky like, and then President Ferrin just laughed and goes, "Your companion isn´t here yet" and then everyone laughed at me. Hahahaha it was realy funny, I love President Ferrin he is great. So I kept waiting and then I turned to Sister Hansen (she is training as well, she is fabulous, I love her) and started to sing "On my own, pretending she´s beside meeeeeeee" #lesmis. So it turns our I am training an American that has been out for 11 months already! The mtc here is doing a new two week program so they can re-learn Portuguese or something so she only gets here March 19th. I am so so so excited! She was in Sister Aledo and Sister Oborn´s MTC district and we all know how I feel about Sister Aledo and Sister Oborn. LOVEEEE. They both have told me she is great and everyone has said she is amazing. I am really excited for SIster Jensen to get here! Meanwhile, I am with Sister Ferreira who is from Ceara. Once my companion gets here she will be in a trio with SIster Corbitt and O´Brien. She is cool, I like her! Very firm and a great missionary!! So that was transfers!

      Vila Prudente is really taking off. We have seen so many miracles lately. Last week, we visited a member in our ward named Cleo (SWEETEST lady) and we met her helper named Adrianna. We proceeded to teach Adrianna and she is a golden investigator. SO ready and so pure. Cleo was like, she was just waiting to meet you guys I guess! I have invited her to church for the past year and she has never come until you two invited her! Our lesson with her went so well. Something that Elder Evans said while he was here was that missionaries teach by the Spirit, the investigators understand by the Spirit, and then both rejoice. That is exactly what it was. Such a simple lesson, but I have also learned that simplicity is best. It is what touched people´s hearts! I love Adrianna. She needs to get married, so we will be having a wedding here in Vila Prudente pretty soon here!! Adrianna can´t read, so we read The Book Of Mormon to her and she just listens so atentively and loves it. The Book Of Mormon has incredible power. I know that The Book of Mormon is the truest book on the face of Earth, and it converts each of us unto our Savior. Everytime I read, I feel closer to my Savior. I will never ever ever forget how Sister Waite taught me to use the scriptures and the importance of them. They contain God´s power!! Adrianna is so excited to be baptized, and is truly one of the most faithful women I have ever met. Her faith is a huge example to me. We taught her the Word of WIsdom real quick because Cleo told her about coffee, and she was like what else is there? I am not drinking coffee anymore. Ah. Solid.
   

       Last night we visited Sonia with Emerson( our LMA) and she has decided to get married as well!! YAYYY! Weddings all over the place. She still says though she hasn´t felt that total certainty. She has searched for the true church for so long, and she just wants to be totally sure. We have told her for the past two weeks: PRAYER. I have such a firm testimony that prayer is the answer to everything. Heavenly Father will always answer, we just need to have spiritual eyes to see and hear. Sonia reads her scriptures and prays, and I know that she sincerely wants to know. We also visited Yuni again, and she was raised Jehovah´s Witness so she has lots of questions! She is way neat!! Gil, a man we met also came to church!! He is way cool, he reminds me lots of Ramon!! The work here is just running like wild fire. I love it!!

     I absolutley loved Elder Costa´s visit. These past two mission conferences have made a profound impact on me. We as missionaries are truly working on helping others return to their Heavenly home!! Our work is a work of Salvation!! We do this by truly converting others unto Christ. Something that stuck out to me is learning how to really work with the Spirit. We first need to strive to have the Spirit with us by being obdient and seeking our the scriptures for power. Once we do that is learning how to work with the Spirit. The Spirit will teach our brothers and sisters, we need to have faith in that! Faith is what really makes the miracles happen. With faith in the Lord, He will provide his miracles. I really loved that Elder Costa focused on our faith, to have the miracles truly happen. We can do anything, absolutely anything if we have faith! We can feel the Spirit guide, and we can TRULY convert people unto the Lord. What a beautiful work we are involved in. I am so grateful for the things I have learned. I know that this is everything we have learned is the Lord´s way of how HIS work should go forward. As we follow His way and His purposes, we can be the best instruments in His hands. I love the mission. The 9 months will be the best months of my entire life. With all of these techings, I am sure of it!!!

Love love love,

Sister Carvalho

IMPORTANT:

I am thinking of applying to all the BYUs.Or staying at ASU. Also, I don´t know what I really want to major in. Any opinions and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Miracles happen if you believeeeeeeeeee #princessdiaries 3/3/2014

Hello all you cuties!!

This week was the best last week before transfers I have ever had. SO many miracles happened! This week we made it a focus to be obedient with exactness and the blessings came.

We taught one of our golden contacts Katia the Restoration this week, and  as a missionary sometimes you just want people to accept it so badly. You are just like ahhh, I can see just how special you are! That was the feeling we had with her. By the end though, we invited her to read The Book of Moromon and she was just like no, I am Catholic I pay my tithing every month, and I feel like that would just be saying I am denying everything I believe in or saying I doubt it if I read. We were guided by the Spirit so carefully in what we said to her, that by the end when I asked her if I could mark a chapter for her to read, she was just like yes please mark a chapter, I really do want to read it. Sister Falcao and I walked out of there and we were so amazed that she accepted so readily after having such a tense situation and we were like the Spirit guided us so perfectly! It was so so cool!!

We have been continuing to visit Sonia. She is just so sweet. She has the most sincere desire to know of the truth. We had a special moment with her on Saturday when she prayed that everything would go right for her and her husband to be married so she can be baptized. She still feels like she has gotten an answer though. I feel like deep inside of her she alreayd knows though! She knows it! I am postive that the Lord will provide a miracle and she will receive her answer. I see a lot of myself in Sonia. I despise making decisions if I am not 100% sure, and sometimes I receive ansewers I just want to be 100% sure. However, I have learned heaps about faith here. This week we want to focus lots on faith!

On Saturday we fasted and my oh my how the Lord blessed us. We both fasted to find people as usual. We were in the other sister´s area trying to catch a bus to ours and we passed the chapel. Guess who we saw: Irmao Aderaldo, one of the most powerful member missionaries. He started to chat with us, when a woman walked by. It looked like she was crying, but I wasn´t sure so we just said Boa Tarde to her. She stopped, looked at me, and just said please help me. We opened up the chapel and started talking to her. Her name is Karina (AHHH my mom´s name) and she started telling us about her marriage problems and how she just wants to know the purpose of life. We quickly taught her the Plan of Salvation. She just happened to live in the area we are working in. Irmao Aderaldo happened to meet with us out there because he wanted to prepare his lesson at the chapel which he said he never does. Had he not been there, we couldn´t have even gone inside the chapel without a Presithood holder. The Lord´s had was just so present!!!! He placed everything there perfectly at the EXACT perfect time so that could happen. It is crazy to see just how much the Lord loves each and everyone of us. The last miracle: we did a contact two months ago. She had the MOST beautiful baby. We did a contact with her and she was like no dont visit me, someday Ill go to church. How many people say that: Everyone. No one EVER goes to church. Guess who was at church yesterday: Her, her name is Yuni! We are visiting her Wednesday. Super stoked! Fasting brings miracles.

The lan house is closing. Now. Dang it. I have to leave like now. SOrry for not answering ANYONE. Love yall!!

love love love,

Sister Carvalho

Gems of the Week:

We were cleaning the chapel as a service project and here in Brazil everyone just wets the floor and uses a squeegee thing to mop. Well we basically flooded the whole building to clean it and as we were cleaning I was pushing the water out. Sister O´Brien lifted up the hose to make it easier for me and was like: Go Sist-uh go (Brit accent) so I started being spazzy and guess what happens: yep I slipped and fell right on my back. Like I was laying down. And all the members saw. So that was pretty cool. I will never not be awkward. On the plus side, Sister O´Brien did say that it was the most graceful fall she has ever seen and that I should be on Swan Lake.

Sister Falcao talking to Sister O´Brien: I don´t love you.... FOREVER. NEVER. NEVERRRRRRR. I died laughing.

Sister Falcao: You are the most awkward person I have met in my whole life. You just know how to play it off so nobody notices. Like you do weird stuff all the time but you act so cool about it that one notices.

Me: And that is how I survive living my life. Hahahahahahahaha.

I am full 2/24/2014

Hello everybody!!! This subject line probably threw you off. But I am just full of happiness and hope!! Today has been absolutely AMAZING. On Thursday we found out we would be having an unplanned mission conference, with Elder David F. Evans of the Seventy who is in charge of ALL of the missionaries in the entire world. I am just floored by it. It was so good. I will talk more about that in a little though because first, I want to share all of the miracles and awesome experiences of this week!!! (Oh ps none of the apostrophe marks or question marks etc. are working on this computer so please, dont hate me. I dont write this bad I promise)

 So since the area here in Vila Prudente sort of divided, Sister Falcao and kind of opened an area again because we went to an area within our area that has hardly been worked in. As we have been working here, we have found the COOLEST people. I have already talked about some, but really, Sister Falcao and I were talking and there is just something different about each and everyone of these investigators. You can just tell that they are so prepared and each of them has this hunger to know of Heavenly Father´s plan for them, and to truly follow the Savior. We have been trying to work with the members a lot more, and a recently returned missonary passed this amazing reference. Her name is Aline and she is 19. As we taught her the Restoartion, she got emotional and the Spirit was just so sweet the whole time. Heine had passed her but didn´t really know that she was elect I think. We invited her to be baptized at the end, and she accepted so sincerely. She was like I intend to be baptized, I know everything you guys have taught me is true. I know it is true, I just want to read the scriptures and know more for myself. WHAT!?! Okay, yes, perfect. She even said she is talking to her mom about all of these things and bringing her to church this next week. YAHOO!

  As we were contacting people on the streets this week we also met a guy named Gil. Yesterday after church we went to visit him with our ward mission leader and it was really short, but it was a good visit. I see in him the same type of person as Ramon. I am really excited to actually teach him, he is really busy with work, but I am sure when we teach him it will be a special experience. We also taught Sonia lots this week. She has such an eagerness to read the scriptures and learn. When we got there on Tuesday, she was like I watched a movie about the prophet. I as just thinking, uh oh, and then she goes yeah off that site you showed me! It answered one of her questions of the Book of Mormon and she watched it. So cool. As we were talking to her, she was like I had never heard of this church. But you guys are different, I love what you guys teach. Sonia just wants a sure answer and and as she was saying that Sara (Her daughter) goes I know! Their church and points to us! So cute. PLease pray for Sonia to receive and realize her answer. It may be taking a while, but I know that her answer is coming and that she will be truly converted to the Lord.

And now for the miracles of today. Many things that Elder Evans said today really just made such an impact on me. I kept feeling before the conference and during the conference that whatever he would say would really bring such a change on me as amissionary and it has. I am so excited to go home, and reflect on all my notes. I think something  that really struck me today was the importance of families. I love m family. SO MUCH. The Carvalhos are crazy people, let me just tell ya, but the love I feel for them. Man. I want to live with them for all eternity. I can live with them for all eternity and that just fills me with joy. My sweet mom, my hard working dad, my sweet sweet Laura, my twin Aurora, and my most favorite brother Will. Just thinking about them makes me happy. As a missionary, we are helping other families to have this sweetness in their lives. Families ar the most important thing, and every human being is my family as well. I want this for everyone. I want others to feel the SAviors love for them. To really come to know Him and our Father in Heaven. As a missioary, we need to help others repent. To really have this everlasting happiness, we must change ourselves. We must become more Christ like. Work a lot harder to become more like Him. All this comes from repentance. That is why our Savior came, so that all of us can go back to our Heavenly Home. I have been thinking lots of repentance and how we can really really help others to change and repent in their lives. I as well as all the other missionaries in the world have the most sacred calling.I want to work with all my might and strength, with my whole soul, because I know that I can do a little to help other have true joy. I have so many more thoughts to say, and so many thing to think about it, but for now all I can say is that I want to work my hardest. I want to help others to taste this sweetness, and with the things I learned today I know that I have so much to work on and to work for. The field is white and ready to harvest, and I want to go do this harvesting.

Love love love,

Sister Carvalho

Gems of the Week:

Sister Falcao and I literally had an argument (Not a real one)if reading or anime was nerdier. She LOVES anime.I love reading,I asked everyone I knew and they sided with me that anime is way nerdier. WIN.

 

Sister Obrien taught SIster Falcao to say tudo freaking bem. It is one of the funniest things I have ever heard.

Some Golden Things 2/17/2014

Hello hello hello darling people,

How are all of you doing? I am doing splendid, thank you! Despite the lan house REEKING because of this one gamer in here I am splendid. I had a good Valentines Day. Had 3 other Valentines besides my mom this year!! Lais &Carol, Sister Corbitt, and Courtney Eyring. It was really fun. I have lots of pictures to send. On that note of loving things, I have loved everything about the latest and greatest in Vila Prudente!!

So I don´t know if I have mentioned Sonia but she is the super awesome contact we did and she just accepted for us to go and teach her. We have been teaching her and she came to church once.She has such a sincere desire to find out what is right and true. She has had a hard life, and now wants to follow Christ. We went over this week and we were like hey, how is your reading? And she goes to be honest I stopped reading because I had some questions about the prophet and looked online and basically saw a lot of anti stuff. So we then showed her mormon.org, lds.org, and the mormon channel on youtube and explained things to her and she was golden. Since having gone back, she has been reading, and really progressing lots. We finally taught the Plan of Salvation to her and she said she believed in it all. She then followed with, but I am a little confused because I study with the Jehovah´s Witness as well and it as all very different. She just wants to do what is right. We then just told her, the only way you can know is if you pray. Sister Falcão and I just both really testified of prayer and we felt the Spirit strongly. My testimony of prayers has increased so much here on the mission. No prayer is too small, or too grand, Heavenly Father will always answer, and I know He will answer Sonia!! I am so happy that she wants to know these things!

While we were walking to an appointment a week ago, this guy was walking by me and we had been walking near each other for a while and I was just really feeling like I needed to talk to him. I didn´t want to be awkward so as I was thinking in my head of how I could approach him, when he asked me if I was part of some school. We got to talking to him and his name is Allysson! My best friend´s name! The week passed and we had marked to visit him Saturday. We went to his house and taught him and his mom. As we shared the Restoration with him, we all felt the Spirit SO strongly. It was one of those shiny moments again where everything just makes sense in missionary work and you just know that your investigators are feeling that same joy and peace that the gospel brings. Unfortunately he couldn´t come to church this week, but he accepted baptism on the spot. YEA ALLYSSON! We have also visited Silvia lots and she is still so firm. It feels so happy when people truly are converted. She is always reading her scriptures and loves church. I love Silvia!

Yesterday was Cesar´s baptism!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHH. What a joyful day. His mom bought him the cutest church outfit and he was so excited the whole day. Right after sacrament meeting he just looked at me and was like is it my baptism now?? Yes!! He is honestly so so sweet.  He has the sweetest spirit. He is just so pure. It was such a sweet baptism. Afterwards we were talking and I was like so, how do ya feel and he just looked up and smiled and said good. And that is what missionary work is all about. Helping others come unto to Christ, and helping them to be converted unto Him. To follow His example, and always do our best to live with Him again someday. It was so amazing. His family are all wanting the same thing as well so they can have an eternal family. YES!!

Love love love,

Sister Carvalho

My companion likes taking creep pictures of me as I pick fruit

 Court sent me a cute Valentine day letter. Love her so I posted it

 8 months with Elvira, Lais, Carol, and Leonor. I LOVE THEM.

On Valentines Day we wear pink. ANd have heart shaped lollis.

I LOVE SISTER FALCÃO!

Carol and Lais sent us cute Valentines day things when we got home

Cesar´s baptism! His cute family. His cute self.

Us with Cesar!

I am melting I am melting, oh what a world!!! 2/10/2014

So last week it hit 40 degrees...which means it was 104! São Paulo hasn´t been this hot since the sixities or something!! It is crazy. BUT São Paulo really is taking fire in the missionary aspect as well so I am okay with it. Also this week is Valentine´s Day. My mom is my valentine again.... she has been my valentine the last I don´t know..... 20 years of my life? So I mean it is fine.

We met so many awesome people this week! Since Sister Corbitt and O´Brien are here, we decided to work in an area we had hardly touched. Vila Alpina and Vila California. I always like to think that I am actually going to California, it is funny to me. Anyways, we are working with the area book to find people, lots and lots of contacts, and a few references. Cesar is the younger brother of two recent-converts and we have worked with him and visited him lots. He is such a sweet boy. That entire family is just sweet. They have the sincere desire to follow Christ and do what is right. Cesar even reads the scriptures on his own. Children have such tender spirits. They just are so much simpler than all of us. Things that are so difficult for us are just easy for them. He is such a special kid, him and his sisters already even talk abou serving missions. We had an FHE with them last night, and each person there wrote down things that would help the family. Cesar´s was to sa family prayers each night and Geovana´s was to help start family scripture study. They are just really really awesome.

   While exploring these new areas we also found some solid new people. I felt  like I should talk to this random lady on an empty street and before  I could even voice my opinion, Sister Falcão was like let´s go talk to her! She seemed a little flaky and then we asked for water. In doing this, one of her neighbors all of a sudden just pullled us inside her house and she and her husband told us their entire life story. They have so much faith and we are really excited to go back. We also visted this reference that we got forever ago, but the husband kept having medical problems so we never got to go because they kept having to cancel. Sister Falcão and I wrapped up a Book of Mormon, Family Proclamtion, and ways to help families pamphlet just to drop off and let them know we are t hinking of them. Leandro (the husband) was already asleep because he was in pain, but we talked to his wife Adriana. ELECT FAMILY. Elect with a capital E. She just wants to raise her daughter in a good enviornment and help her to have good Christian principles. I felt really impressed to share with her something my mom wrote me about when she was being converted to the church and how she felt about me and my kid brother.  I just know that this family has been prepared by the Lord so much! Keep them in your prayers!!!

That is all for this week, but have an incredible week all you cutie people.

Love love love,

Sister Carvalho

Gems Of the Week:

Sister Falcão on taking too long in the shower:

I don´t know sister, I am sorry. I just like massaging my feet and singing. I just feel like I am in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sometimes.

Sister Corbitt after we sang Part of Your World(The Little Mermaid):

I could totally be a Disney princess.

Sister O´Brien hit her head SO hard at lunch on a cupboard. It was SOOOOOOOO funny. She then says : Oh no I just lost my only brain cell. It is the only one I brought from England!

Everyone!!

 Look at this legit wall! Of course I had to take a picture.

Sunday morning bus rides. SEMPRE!

 One of the CTM instructors came to our ward!

Okay so we did the COOLEST contact the other day. The director of a escola
de samba for the carnaval!!! He was like yeah this is where we keep all the
float stuff, want to see inside??? YES. He doesn´t live in our area
though....bummer.

We had a fhe with Cesar´s family this Sunday and a mission call opening!!!
He is going to Goiania! COOL!

Well Hello There People 2/3/2014

This week was fantastic!! I have learned so much about repentance this week. How we can truly repent. We had interviews with President and at one of the trainings this week we learned about how we need to testify more about repentance. It was incredible how we had such awesome oppurtunities to tesitfy about repentance and knowing that each of us can repent.

Something else that was really neat was that the next day I was studying to see what we could share with her. I read Jesus the Christ and the first thing I opened up too was talking about how Christ will forgive each and every one of us. The passage it referred to was Luke 7. It referred to a woman who everyone looked at and scorned, and were amazed that Christ forgave her even though she was one of the biggest sinners. It continued and said Christ told a parable of How there was two debtors and they both were frankly forgiven. To Christ it didn´t matter who had sinned more, but he simply forgave them. I know that Christ will forgive each of us, despite WHATEVER we have done. It doesn´t matter to Him, but He will forgive. He sees us with our true eternal potential, and not for the weaknesses and frailities that each of us have. Heavenly Father knows His children much better than I do, and it was the perfect thing for our investigator. He jsut happened to show me. Ah it was so neat.

I hope ya´ll are doing swell, I love Brazil. (even though I melt into a puddle every single day)

Love love love, 

Sister Carvalho

Gems of the Week:

Sister Corbit: You want to know something? I like you more than I like myself and that is saying something.