March 7...The End...of the Beginning!

Well. I have arrived at this day. What a weird mixture of feelings. I certainly didn´t think it would come so fast. 

Yesterday as I bore my testimony in sacrament meeting I remembered the first time I bore my testimony in portuguese, when I had 5 days in Brazil, and I had the opportunity to look back and see how far I have come.

I don´t know how to tell you all this but.....I am not the same person that I was. hahahaha At least I speak portuguese now! But really, I have changed a lot. It will be good to catch up with all of you.

We had a pretty amazing week. Claudemir got baptized! We have been working with him for a while and it was really a miracle that he got baptized. He lives really far away and we were calling him the whole week trying to help him with doubts and questions but tudo bem it all went good. WOOOOO! 

Also, we had another proud mom moment seeing Aloisio pass the sacrament this week! minha nossa he´s come soooo far! Marcos bore his testimony for the first time yesterday and he was shaking soo much! But really I don´t even think I can explain to you the amount of growth I have seen here in Sao Miguel.

The miracles just came flooding in when we saw a family we have been teaching for a loooonngg time that finally came to church! And also when one of our less active´s husband that said he didn´t want anything with the church walked into sacrament meeting! 

And we can´t forget the amazing and beautiful wonderful incredible Amanda. What an elect! She is seriously SUPER prepared to get baptized on Saturday. She got her answer about baptism from the Book of Mormon! 

And so. It hasn´t stopped yet. To top it all off, the ward is throwing a party for me on Friday

! I really am blessed to be in such a great area. Everyone wants to have FHE with us this week and everyone is volunteering themselves to do visits! haha it will be a super crazy last week! 

So many things to tell you all but.....it can wait. I hope you all have been practicing your portuguese! 

I can say without a shadow of doubt that this church is true. I KNOW this. I have learned for myself. My mission was the best. The best mesmo. I know that I needed to be here in northeast Brazil. I am so grateful for this opportunity. I know that Jesus Christ is my Savior. He loves me, and you, and everyone else. I know that if we do the things he taught we will live with Him and Heavenly Father again.

I love you all so much.

Sister Helm

February 29...Woohoo!

It´s really coming to a close. We had a super awesome time running around doing missionary stuff and all that. 

We went to Coruripe! Ahhh literally the most beautiful place I have ever seen in my whole life. Save up your money because I am definitely going back there and I want to take you all with me!

Since it is far away we stayed in the Bishop´s house. His house is super cool and like 100 feet from the beach. temptation! But we went to see the beach and it was sooo beautiful. We also ate mango and homemade ice cream and I ATE FISH AND I LIKED IT. i know, super weird. 

We had a FHE there at night and we had a super cool lesson about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we found new people to teach. It was great!

The rest of the week was pretty normal. 

We had a super spiritual experience teaching Aloisio about the priesthood and then we were there when he got it. What a good feeling! 

We are teaching Amanda, she is a young woman super excited about the church. She loves the BoM and I had the cool opportunity to give her my hardback BoM that i brought with me. I had been saving it all this time to give to someone special. 

I love you all so much!

Sister Helm

February 22...Crazy Week

It certainly was a crazy week. We ran around teaching everyone that we could!

We had Mission Tour on Friday. It was good but the room was super cold. hahaha We learned a lot of things to get put in practice and I will be working hard so that my mish finishes well.

Aloisio´s baptism was great! His parents were there and everyone was happy, especially Aloisio! The next day he was there in a white shirt and tie to get confirmed and he went to do visits with us after lunch! He even helped us teach about the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

I am so blessed to be here. Every day I have this feeling that I really needed to be here in Sao Miguel. I know that God is guiding our paths. I love to help people get to know their Savior better.

I love you all! Loves and kisses from Brazil!

Sister Helm

February 15...WooWoo

So the weeks are flying. The days are full of hundreds of things to do and the time is running out!

We had a great week. I had a hard time when I got transferred on my last transfer but I really felt this week, with certainty, that I need to be here right now, in this moment. I am so blessed to be here!

We are teaching some pretty awesome people here. One of our investigators got baptized on Saturday, Liliane. She just had this huge smile on her face the whole night. Another on of our investigators, Aloisio, was at the baptism and his baptism is this Saturday!

We had a bit of a hard time Tuesday and Wednesday because Carnaval was still going. We had to dodge the blocos and men dressed like women to get to our appointments. Luckily we are all here in one piece.

Yesterday was AWESOME. Usually Sundays are a bit hard because everyone is traveling or drinking but yesterday was great because we went to visit our investigators with Marcos, Antonio, and Aloisio. Marcos is a recent convert, Antonio is a less active that is coming back, and Aloisio is....our investigator. I had never seen anything like I saw yesterday, but all of us just felt like proud moms as our ´´Elders´´ (as they call themselves) were doing contacts and teaching with us. They have made soooo much progress!

Well. That´s about it. We have about 3.2 billion things to do, Mission Tour, and not to mention Aloisio´s baptism!

Have a week that is not as stressful as mine will be!

Sister Helm

SAO MIGUEL: THE MOST BEAUTIFUL OF ALL

Well guys, I have officially found the most beautiful area of my mission.
It is amazing here! I am loving my companions, my area, our investigators,
and especially the members!!!

We hit the ground running this last week trying to follow up with everyone.
Our trio will cover two areas and so we have a lot of people to teach! We
have some great people that we found this last week too. Liliane has her
baptism marked for this Saturday and we are preparing Aluiso for his
baptism in two weeks. WOOOOOO.

I am loving being so close to Maceio. We are already planning a pday to go
to see some of the beaches here (we can´t touch but we can look!) so that I
can say that I actually saw some of the famous Maceio beaches. It is going
to be a great transfer.

Carnival has arrived here but for the most part is has been pretty quiet.
We are avoiding certain streets although because if you enter in these said
streets you will get a face full of rotten eggs and flour. (don´t ask me
what they are celebrating because I don´t know).... (actually no one knows)

I love you all sooo much! Stay tuned because these last 5 weeks are going
to be THE BEST.

Sister HELM BOO YAHH

Week that lasted forever

Yup. It was a long week. One of the longest I have seen here on the mish.

We actually had a pretty awesome week with our lessons and such. We taught
a lot of lessons and we also taught a lot with a recent convert here. It
was so cool to take him to visit our investigators and then they ask him,
how long have you been a member? and he´s like.....2 weeks.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Anyways, it helped a lot of our investigators see that they don´t have to
learn everything before getting baptized. The other great part is that this
recent convert got baptized 3 weeks after going to church for the first
time!

It really made me see how our testimonies can help others. This recent
convert also was SUPER happy to help us and loved going to visit everyone.
He talks A LOT.

We had a great Family Home Evening on Saturday with a family in the branch.
We invited family that we are teaching. We watched The Restoration and had
a great time playing games and eating popcorn. Also our investigator family
LOVED IT and their son asked us like 30 times when we were going to do it
again.

Yesterday (Sunday) was a bit hard because our investigator that had his
baptism marked for this Saturday didn´t come :( BUT we had several other
investigators there that are progressing really quickly.

And here we are. I got the news about Wyatt and it´s a bit strange. I also
got my travel plans. I will leave on March 15th and I will get home on the
16th! (Wayyy too much time on the plane)

I hope everyone has an awesome week! Don´t forget to read the scriptures,
they will help you in every situation.

Loves,

Sister Helm

When it rains, it pours!

So the fun topic this week is rain! When it rains, it pours. THIS IS TRUE PEOPLE.

We had a crazy start of the week traveling to Itabaiana to do divisions with the sisters there. We left our other companion with a member for two days while we were there. So the fun thing is that there is no bus that goes from Estancia to Itabaiana. So we had to go to Aracaju and get a bus to Itabaiana from there. LOTS OF TRAVELING. 

We were so incredibly blessed this week. It is interesting to see how blessings come in all sorts of ways. In the smallest things we can see God´s hand in this work. 

We had a great time in Itabaiana! They had a ward activity when we were there and it was super fun to get to know a few of the members there. I did divisions with Sister Monteiro from Cape Verde and Sister Davis from Corning, California. It was so good to be with them and help them a bit. 

Then we got back Friday morning, worked in our area for that day and the next day we were traveling to Lagarto for a meeting with our zone and Presidente Gomes! The meeting was good and we got mail! I got an awesome letter from some of the Primary kids from my home ward (MELBA 1ST) that made me laugh. 

We rushed back to Estancia after the meeting to work in our area for a bit, trying to follow up with all our investigators so that they would go to church on Sunday. It was a super long day made short because we had a TON of stuff to do. 

SUNDAY. You are all wondering where the rain was in this week right? I am getting there don´t worry. On Sunday we ran around trying to get people to go to church and MIRACLE OF ALL MIRACLES.....Cleonancio finally went to church. Yup. Hold the applause people. We were so excited! Also Eliziane went to church and she and her mom are seriously like the coolest ever. 

And now for the rain:

We were teaching Cleonancio when the rain started. So a bit of rain. And then the sky opened and a literally ocean dropped on Estancia. Minha nossa tanta chuva. We got absolutely soaked (to the bone) and when we were going home we had to wade through the rivers, I mean streets, to get home. 

Woo and so that was my week.

But really it rained a lot and I won´t dry out for a week.

Have a great week everyone!

Sister Helm

Normal Craziness

Our week was a bit tight. We ended up getting another one of those great calls from Presidente. It went like this:

´Hello, good afternoon Presidente!`

´Good afternoon Sister Helm, it sure has been a while since we talked´

´It sure has Presidente!´

`Yeah I think it was last year ne´

´hahahaha Presidente that was a good one´

´Sister, I need you help´

´(inside my head: ah crap, not again)´

 But it wasn´t that bad. So that I have another companion! I am in trio with Sister Guedes! Haha she came back to me!

It was crazy running around trying to get everything worked out and we had to go to Aracaju to get her but now she is here and it´s all good.

We had a great p day last week making pudim! It is super good and easy to make and I am glad I finally learned how. I think it will become a p day tradition because it is Sister Walker´s favorite dessert.

I had a great time doing division with Sister Oliveira! We taught a bunch of lessons with members and had a great time partying it up on the street! It was great to be with her for at least one day.

We will be going to Itabaiana this week! Woo wooo more partying haha

I am sooo grateful for being here in Brazil. It´s the best. Quão abençoada que eu sou!

Have an awesome week!

Sister Helm