Well that's a First…

Hey guess who doesn’t have time again? me. This week was stake conference and President and Sister Bigelow spoke!! Blessings in my life.  They spoke on faith and acting.  Sister Bigelow said that when we exercise faith and act, we receive power. We also had transfers, but Sister Sousa and I are going to stay here in Rio Doce for at least 6 more weeks! YAY!! I literally am always transferred and this time I wont be! I hope ya’ll have a great week and bring your friends to church!

Love,

Sister Garrick :)

I ran into Andrea from Janga at our chapel who I taught and helped set their wedding date to be married and then baptized and was transferred- I ran into Andrea with her daughter and they are super firm in the faith and Andrea is the Young Women's secretary!

 I also ran into Gabriel and Telma from Janga (our ward mission leader and his wife) :)

I don´t have time to write....

This week I won’t write much, but know it was great!  It was a week that I was able to gain an even stronger testimony of Heavenly Father’s love for us and how much that is tied to The Restoration of Christ’s church and His Gospel.  I am thankful for all your prayers and support! Love you all- here’s an old photo of our favorite idosa- Rosa.

Until next week,

Sister Garrick 

(From Sister Garrick's mom: 

 I got a surprise video today of these sweet sister missionaries singing me my favorite hymn)

See it here:  https://youtu.be/JMoFwoYkxTE

The Week of A Million P-Days

This week Wednesday was Pday, then the assistants called 6:30am on Saturday to tell us to go to President´s house to eat lunch with him because we reached the standard of excellence for baptism´s this month and then today it´s already P-Day again like whaaaat...

WOW I don´t have time and have lots to day so I´ll just throw information at you.   Grazielly was baptized and we love her!! She´s so cute and makes sure her grandparents read the scriptures with her every single night. :) She was a miracle.  Everyone should read the definitions of the word "prayer" in the LDS English Bible Dictionary right now because it´s incredible.  UGH I learned so much doctrine and I literally don´t even have another minute to tell ya´ll, but next week I´ll try my best!

Love you thanks for the prayers and the emails sorry I didn´t respond this week- I will next week!

Sister Garrick

Victor´s baptism (I love this little kid) and temple :)

Grazielly´s batismo :) love her!

Pre-mcdonalds, post-mcdonalds

Templo

President´s house

"Come Thou Baptismal Font of Every Convert"

This week I don't have my camera cord, so I won't be able to send ya'll photos.  But his week Victor was baptized!! We love him so much!! Everybody calls him "gordinho" hahaha.  HE comes from a part-member family and he´s 12 years old.  His older brother, Thiago, who´s only been a member for 2 years, was able to baptize him and it was such a spiritual baptism, but he had to be baptized twice because his foot came up the first time.  Sister Sousa and I sang "Come Thou Fount" at the baptism and there were many members and non-members there to support him.  It was a special, special day :)

Until next week,

Sister Garrick

(From Sister Garrick's mom: 

 I got these pictures from Julia, a sweet young woman in Recife 

who was at the Recife Temple today and found Sister Garrick there!)

Happy 2k17!

HAPPY NEW YEAR FOLKS!!!

We had a solid 40 people at church on Sunday- just the elect! ;)

I hope you all had a great 2016 and weekend!  It´s so weird to think that I’ve been serving a mission in Brasil for about 14 months already.. like whaaaat??

This Friday, Sirlene was baptized! She is a 68 year old woman that has smoked since she was 6 years old!!  She normally smokes a good 10-20 cigarettes per day, but she decided to give up smoking completely on Christmas Day as a gift for Jesus Christ and she truly did!  She was confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on the first day of the new year!  How special is that!!  Really having the best fresh start that a person can have! 

I hope you all have a great week!  I love this gospel and I´m so excited to see what miracles will happen in 2017! :)

Love ya’ll,

Sister Garrick

Sirlene’s baptism

New Year?? (look closely)

We had a little photoshoot in Olinda last P-Day.  

Olinda is gorgeous!!

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.