White Christmas in Recife

Did you say WHITE Christmas...? in Recife???

Heck yes!  Because Lucilene was dressed all in white for her special BAPTISM!!  The jumpsuit was a little big for her, bit it was a spiritual morning! :)

I hope you all had a great week!  This week we  painted a house which was fun-and it actually turned out good!  What a blessing! haha.  We also had Christmas conference which was awesome because it was centered on Jesus Christ and His Atonement. Then, on Christmas we talked with our families!! YAY! My aunt, uncle, and cousins were at my family's house and surprised me which was way cool! I was so excited and I got to hear Holly's laugh again and that made my day. 😂

I learned this Christmas that Christ gave us his life and that he broke the bonds of justice and redeemed us from the Fall.  I understood a little bit more of the incredible plan of salvation that our dear Heavenly Father created for us.  I love Him and I love my Savior.  The plan of redemption, happiness, and salvation also has one other name- and it´s the Doctrine of Christ- faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end.  When we live this, we are able to receive Christ´s grace and apply his atoning blood in our lives. May we all make goals to be better disciples of Christ this 2017.

Happy New Year,

Sister Garrick🎉

Christmas morning! Lucilene´s baptism!

Christmas Morning!

Painting a house

Christmas Conference!

Grandma, mom, and daughter- 3 generations

Moms and their daughters

Sister Sanguino!

Sister M. Costa!

Back together again- we all arrived together... and peanut ice cream…

How many horses?

I ate bacalhau espiritual -yes that´s the name

Rio Doce

101 Dalmatians-Brasil Version

From Sister Garrick's mom: A selfie from the Christmas mission conference by 

Recife Mission President Rory Bigelow. 

 "Conference of Christmas with the best missionaries in the world!"

MISSIONARY SPIRIT

This week was Sister Sousa's 20 year old birthday- YAYYY!!  Because I'm poor, her awesome present was my old English dictionary because she wants to learn English and nail polish that I've also had since my first area, but I burned chocolate chip cookies from the heart too.  But it's okay because this was the first birthday she's had that anyone has commemorated, so she loved it!  

This Sunday was Missionary Sunday so we gave talks, and our ward mission leader did too.  Then he gave Liahona magazines to each organization in the church and people wrote down names and addresses of their non-member friends for us to deliver this present to them and reach them.  It was way cool.

Funny things-

Sunday at lunch, Lucas who is 5 years old I think, got home and took of all his clothes except for his underwear, and when I asked him where were his clothes, he said that it was too hot. (estava calor).  Learning while they´re young.

Our 82 year old investigator, Rosa, said the closing prayer in one of our lessons and said,"I hope this doesn´t happen, but if you decide to take me away from the earth tomorrow, keep my special needs daughter in good conditions, but if someone wants to destroy her, that´s not my problem."  WHAT.

I tried to contact someone knocking on doors and asked him what his name was and he said he didn´t have one. NICE.

We passed by a bar called "family bar".... Well, that´s not possible.

When we asked our 82 year old investigator how she felt when she prayed, she responded, "Have you ever seen an ant?  They´re so small!  How do they have eyes and arms and legs and little bodies? I´ve never seen it!" -___-

When we asked someone what they knew about the story of Adam and Eve, they said they lived in God´s presence, but then they didn´t want to, so they had to take showers naked....

WELLLL this is the life of a missionary.

On another note, Artur was baptized, and he and Arianny were confirmed on Sunday!  It was very spiritual and I´m growing to love seeing our investigators after they receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, because they immediately have a different light about them!  This gospel is real and the keys of the Priesthood returned!

Merry Christmassssss,

Sister Garrick 

Artur´s baptism

what are you doing in a tree?

Sister Sousa´s surprise birthday!

more birthday surprises during the day

animals.

HIDDEN TALENTS

This week was great because this Sunday we discovered hidden talents that our worldwide church leaders have!!  Because the church population is ever increasing here in Brasil, our stake conference was broadcast to us and all the stakes in Brasil from São Paulo and Salt Lake City, Utah.  Did you know that Bonnie H. Cardon from the USA and Joaquin E. Costa (70) from Argentina speak Portuguese?  Nobody translated for them- they just spoke in Portuguese!  It was incredible!

Richard J. Maynes (70) spoke on our divine nature as children of God.  (Who´s remembering conference?)  He said that all of us are are lambs of God as Christ is.  He said that Satan wants us to forget who we really are and forget our spiritual potential. 

Bonnie H. Cardon spoke on the family.  She said that we need to maintain an eternal vision and plant daily scripture study, prayer, family home evenings, etc. in our families (especially our children) so that we can nourish these seeds or righteous desires in the future to have a more ideal home (and this is done by small and simple means).

Joaquin E. Costa spoke about reverence in Sacrament Meeting.  He said that we should remember during the Sacrament that the blood of Christ was shed for us.  It should be personal.  When we are reverent, we have the spirit of peace, and this spirit can touch the hearts of those who are visiting and testify to their very souls that this church is true.

Claudio M. R. Costa testified of the prophet and that he is a preacher of righteousness and that it´s not sufficient to just believe in Christ and His Atonement.

AND THEN...

Elder Holland spoke...in... PORTUGUESE!  Then he was like.. okay my Portuguese is horrible, I´ll talk in English now.  And the translator took over.  He said the church has grown so much recently in Brasil that Portuguese has become the 3rd most spoken language in the church, following English and Spanish.  WOW!  He taught us incredible principles.  He said that we need to start to act in our homes how we act in the temple, and that we need to practice in our homes what we learn in the temple.  EXTRAORDINARY.  He said that our homes should be a place of peace and revelation.  

AND THEN... the translator stopped.  

And with tear-filled eyes, Elder Holland bore his powerful, sincere testimony in Portugese which made me get emotional.  He could have easily said it in English and it could´ve been translated, but by doing this, you could feel the love he has for this country and every latter-day saint that makes it up.  More importantly, you could feel the love he has for The Savior, even in broken Portuguese.

I KNOW that Jesus is The Christ.  This IS the work of our God.  His hand is in everything we do as we follow the spirit and as we bear our faith-filled testimonies, He will testify by the power of The Holy Ghost that this is His gospel.

Love,

Sister Garrick

Last District meeting -why do Americans have to be giants here in Brasil 

aka Sister Hoffman and I ;)

A man who jumped onto the bus as it passed instead of entering and paying- 

this happens more than you think (mas o povo nem liga). 

I, on the other hand, felt like I was starring in an action film.

 #TooNordeste

#SEJAaLUZdoMUNDO

Hello!  

This week we made Christmas ornaments with the Young Women organization for one of our investigators that will probably be passing Christmas alone and decorated her tree, made sugar cookies, sang Christmas hymns, and watched the video from the church about service with her (https://www.mormon.org/). She was happy and the Young Women enjoyed participating as well!

This week was also Arianny´s baptism! Her inactive parents were there too and were able to feel the spirit again! I challenge you all to accept the challenge of service in some small way each day this month as the church is promoting to be a light unto the world and to be better disciples of Christ! If you haven´t watched the video yet-it´s 2 minutes.  Go watch it!

Love you all,

Sister Garrick

P.S. We had exchanges in Boa Viagam and I was in heaven.

Arianny´s baptism! :)

Segurando a barra de ferro para comer do fruto da árvore da vida

(from mom: I think this says essentially-

holding the iron rod to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life)

Picolé at our favorite spot in Pina

We always dreamed of eating ice cream at Fri-Sabor

From kneeling in prayer too hard...kidding- I fell hard.

Our investigator giving up coffee

Preparation for our service project with the YW (I love them:)

Light The World!  I felt real American decorating sugar cookies.