Feliz Natal!

Feliz Natal!

We finally had the batismo of Daniel!  He is one of our long time investigators who loves coming to church, but he just didn't want to stop drinking café. However, this week we gave him more cevada (a warm drink made from grain) and he liked it and decided that his mom can make him that in the morning instead of coffee and so he was ready to be baptized.  We were all pumped for his baptism, but it was also the same night as the ward party (which by the way was like our normal Christmas sacrament meeting with the readings from the scriptures and singing and it was great).  So we had to wait till the ward party was over to have the baptism which almost didn't happen because of when the party ended.  So it was like the fastest baptism ever because we had to get home and we made it in casa with 30 seconds to spare. 

He was so happy!  And the coolest part was we had one of our returning members baptize him because he's been strong with coming to church and helping with different things.  Anyway he received the priesthood last week and he was able to baptize him.  Such a coool spiritual experience!!  He was so nervous but it all worked out! 

Christmas Eve we went around singing to random families we met on the street and shared a message about Christ with them. It was so fun and by the end we had a few of the youth in the ward join us it was fantastic!!!

Also on Christmas Eve and our presidente let us stay out till 10:00 and we got invited to so many places that we were booking it from one place to another and we ate so much food I thought I was going to explode but all of it was delicious!!!  And we got to be a part of various family traditions which was so fun. But the best was when we were invited to our investigators' house to celebrate with them and what we didn't know until we arrived was that they had prepared a 4 course meal for us, literally just us and their family.  So we let our stomachs rest a little and gave a little Christmas message to them and sang a few Christmas carols and watched the Light the World vídeo and woah the Spirit was so strong!!!  They just wanted to keep watching more of the vídeos about Natal (Christmas). It was fantastic! Then we began the feast and yeah I think I was just one bite away from exploding by the end, but it was all so good!! Turkey and other Brazilian dishes and pineapple sorbet!!  And chocolate cake!!!  It was delicious and a great way to end the night!!!

Anyway I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas!! But also please remembered the true meaning of Christmas that it truly is about the birth of Christ. It is only through him that we have the chance to live with our families for eternity!!  I love reading Luke 2 today because it talks about the birth of Christ the best presente that we can receive. 

Merry Christmas!!! Love you all!!!!

Sister Neuberger

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

With Pres and Sis Leite

This week we had our missionary Christmas Conference.  It was fantastic!  For the first few hours we heard from President and his wife and a few other members and then we had a little break before we came back into the cultural hall and President surprised us by allowing us to watch "A Christmas Carol" which is always a good classic to bring in the Christmas season.  And we got to watch it in English which was slightly weird to hear so much English.  And then we had a great feast and listened to all the classic Christmas music and had some wonderful skits put on by each zone.

Anyway, besides that not much happened this week.  We made cookies with Erica and family which was so fun and her grandma said that my cookie making skills were good enough that I can get married now haha.  Actually, this was a big break through because usually her grandma is super closed off and doesn't talk to us. So I'm glad that cookies could be a good ice breaker!  

In the spirit of Christmas just one week away I wanted to share a scripture I love that really reminds us what the best gift we've been given is.  In 2 Nefi 19:6 he tells us about the prince of peace Jesus Christ.  He is the best gift we could ever receive because only through him can we live again with our families for eternity!!  And I am so thankful for this gift and I'm so glad I have a  chance to share it as all of us do!!  

Have a  Merry little Christmas!!

Sister Neuberger

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

December 11, 2017

We had the baptism of Andria this week and it was fantastic.  Her best friend Marina sang and other members made cake and it all was just a fantastic baptism.  And it was awesome to see the excitement on Marina's face as her best friend got baptized.  They were both so excited and happy!

The rest of the week was a little slower because my comp got sick, but we still had a great week looking for the less active members that we had written in our area book and it turned out to be a great idea.  We found a few members that were still reading and praying everyday, but just didn't know how to come back so it was so awesome to find them and show them they can always come back.  And so they did and they were all there this Sunday.  This Sunday was also the primary sacrament meeting program which was great and always adorable.  

Our new skirts

Irma Nici and Irmao Rimundo gave us skirts this week and were so excited that we wore them on Sunday.  They're so cute. They're like our grandparents of this area it's awesome!! Oh and they gave us Biz (which is like a kit kat here) to help my comp get better haha cause chocolate fixes everything, well and ice cream hehe.

This week I just wanted to remember that this is the most wonderful time of the year and with so much going on we always need to stop and remember what this season is really all about.  Christ's birth because it's only through him we can return to our Heavenly Father.  I am so grateful for the gift of the atonement.  It's the best gift that we could ever receive.  Alma 7:10-13 is a great place to read and remember how great this gift is. 

Hope you all have a  marvelous week!!!  Love you all!!!  

Sister Neuberger

Mais Uma Vez

We made cookies, well cookie dough, this week and then we realized that we don’t have a rack in our oven to cook thing. So we just ate the dough instead, which is still always delicious!

We also designed district t-shirts last week!! We’ll hopefully have them this week and then we can take pictures and I'll send them to you all.

This week was a fantastic week!! We had the baptism of Joana, a good friend to some of the youth in the ward which is great because we've been trying to help grow the amount of young women that are in the ward.  We also got a few other young women to start coming back to church and a new girl just moved into the ward. So now the young women went from 3 to 7 which is great!! And Daundara the YW pres is so excited!!

We taught with Marina, a girl in the ward who plans to go on a mission in the next few months.  She's awesome and we started teaching her friend. The lesson went really well, so when we were walking back to Marina’s house we had a dance party in the street and my comp was just like, "Oh my goodness I'm friends with crazy kids." haha.

We also had FHE with the groupo in Rosalina which was so fun!  The family that hosted it this week put together some great getting to know you games and everyone felt so included it was awesome. 

So being this was our final week of the transfer everyone one wanted to give us something so we got a lot of food hehe my favorite!!  Vera made us bolo gelado which is basically homemade ice cream with chocolate soup so it was delicious!! We also ate a watermelon with Irma Nici and we were so stuffed by the end my comp had a food baby that Irma Nici thought was so funny.  My comp was like, "Well it’s a few weeks overdue cause I finished nine months 4 weeks ago."  Haha

Anyway so we got transfer calls at the end of the night last night after the baptism and it turns out me and my comp will be staying here in Jardim Uniao and actually our whole zone will stay the same!  Were all excited for this transfer and our zone was picked to sing at the Christmas breakfast for the mission! 

I like Alma 13:29 it tells us that as we have faith and a love of God that he will help us through anything and everything because he loves us!!

Anyway I hope you all havea  fantastic week!!!  

Love you all!!!

Sister Neuberger

Happiness and Joy

These past two weeks it's mind blowing how much cake I've eaten and the cake just seems to get better and better.  The last slice of cake I ate was chocolate with chocolate sauce on top and creamy coconut filling.  It was amazing!!  Our recent convert Elias and his brother Pedro, who we're teaching, made it for us. 

Creme brulee yogurt

For Thanksgiving I found creme brulee yogurt and green beans. Those seemed kinda thanksgivingy. It was a great Thanksgiving!!

We also had the elders come teach one our four investigators this week as their área closed for a little due to danger in the área.  Anyway Elder Fernades knows a ridiculous amount about the Bible (he's read it 17 times).  Which is great because the guy that we are teaching likes the Bible a lot and with every lesson we've taught him he always wants to know where it is in the Bible and sometimes my comp and I don't exactly know. So it was nice to have back up. However, with this back up it lead to a 3 hour long lesson with our investigator, but it was totally worth it because he accepted the Book of Mormon and was excited to read it and accepted to come to church this Sunday!! 

My sign: No one says it will be easy, but it will be unforgetable

Saturday we helped out again with the weddings of 7 couples and it's always a good time. An awesome miracle happened with one family. The couple getting married both come to church regularly, but only the wife wanted to get baptized. However, the Spirit was so strong during the wedding as our mission president talked about how families can be together forever that after the wedding he asked if he could be baptized as well.  Everyone was so overjoyed and so the elders interviewed him and he was able to get baptized the same day as his wife! SO awesome!!

This made me think a lot about happiness this week and what it means to be truly happy. So often we are worn down with the circumstances of our lives and it's hard to look past the present moment and see that everything will work together in the end and all will be well, but that's something we should always remember. Everything will workout when we chose the right and happiness comes from when we focus on the good in the present and continue to remember everything will be more than okay. It's one moment, second, or day at a time and everything is in the Lord's timing and he will not let us down. We need to always remember to smile like in 2 Nephi 9:39. It's my favorite scripture because it always reminds me to smile because spiritually minded is life eternal and there's no better blessing/goal than that!  And we are here to experience many emotions, but the best emotions come from joy and the love of learning more about the way to live with Heavenly Father and our families for eternity!!

I love you all so much!! And i hope you all have a stupendously spectacular week!!

Sister Neuberger

Christmas is coming!

Thanksgiving

November 20, 2017

So many things I want to say and not enough time to say them.  I've made it 9 months and today my watch band broke and my sandals are close too haha.

Today we went to Mercado Central in Fortaleza!  Foi awesome!!  It's basically a huge mall bargaining place.

Funny things from this week was when we were waiting for our investigator to come out of his house this old lady came up to us and started telling us to come pray on her grandchild. My comp started talking to her husband and she started talking to me.  But more she started dancing right in front of me and then she really started getting into it and started a rain dance of sorts. It all ended with mixing cake batter or something because of the dance. I don’t really remember what she said but then she got really close to my face and was like YOU KNOW!! And I was like wait what do I know??  Luckily at that point João, our super awesome investigator, came out of his house and we excused ourselves and went and talked to him. 

We also had the baptism of Luis this week and we ended up helping Irmão Geraldo and Luis become besties which is awesome because they're both just these happy-go-lucky older people and they make me laugh so hard.  We also invited Geraldo to baptize Luis and he was so excited because it was the first time he was asked. He was so pumped, but sadly the macação didn’t fit him and he was so sad because it was his first time helping with a baptism and it was his new best friend. But we all took pictures together and it cheered him right back up.  Luckily though Futuroso was still in the church building and he got to baptise Luis and it all worked out be cause he's friends with him too! 

Futuroso also gave us the biggest, bestest pieces of watermelon this week that after I ate it I didn’t think I was going to be able to move because it was so much melon and sooo good!!!

We also this week got to help pump people up for “meet up” a new activity for the youth and it was sooo fun!! The elders were crazy excited and some reminded me of Kyle.  Which actually was awesome because after the meet up one of our RC was like I am soo pumped for a mission now. I didn’t want to go, but now that’s all I want to do!! Soo awesome!!!

And two days this week we had cake for a little girl who's 4 and my best friend. She was so excited we came to eat cake with her. Another girl in our ala named Michele, who has the same b-day as Kyle, also had a cake. So it was great to eat cake with the family and think of my family doing the same. 

This week as we eat a bastante amount of food and are gathered with our friends and families I hope we all take the time to give thanks to Heavenly Father for all the wonderful things he has given us and how much love he has for us that he allowed us to come to earth to learn and grow and feel his love in all that we have and have the opurtiunity to live with him and our families again for eternity!  I am soo grateful for the gift of the atonement that makes it all possible for us, for the love Jesus and Heavenly Father have for us, for my family who has given me so much love and for the gospel in my life and the chance to share it with the rest of the world to help them know that they are loved so much more than they can even imagine and I hope everyone knows that that we are all loved more than we can imagine.  Alma 26:37 says it all well. 

I love you all sooo much!! And I hope you all have a wonderful thanksgiving week and take the time to think of all that has been given us and give thanks.  Have a great week!!!

Sister Neuberger

And Like Dragons They Did Fight

The stadium

This week all the members wanted to give us food.  It was awesome!  We got pizza twice this week and lots of soup and bolo (cake)!! We also tried a delicious cucumber-family fruit.  It was so good!!

And we went to the Castalao stadium last week!! It was so cool!!  We ended up walking around all of it to find the entrance, but the walk was worth it! 

Better than sitting in the Cardinals' dugout!

Sadly our help in working towards getting Irlania and Romoli married this month didn’t work out because Romoli couldn’t get to the cartalou in time to sign papers in preparation for the wedding, but hopefully next month because they are awesome.  The have started reading the Book of Mormon and are using the Bible references too, so they can learn more.  Which is so great!!

We had the baptism of Elias this week at 9:30 Saturday morning and we arrived and the other ward was cleaning the building which means the building was flooded with water and soap. They scrub all the floors and then they just brush all the water out of the building. But anyway we had to walk carefully to where the baptismal font is.  It all worked out and it was a great baptism.  And we even got a kind of inactive member to come and he gave the thought about the Holy Ghost and it was great to see his testimony building as he spoke! 

Elias' baptism

I read in Mosias 20:11 this week about how the Lamanites fought like dragons.  Just picture that for a little they fought like dragons to save their families and homes.  I know we don’t on a day to day bases fight in wars for our lives, but we do fight the adversary everyday as it tries to bring us down and make us make bad choices.  But hopefully we can fight like the Lamanites and fight like dragons when the adversary tries to bring us down because we can do hard things with/through the power of Heavenly Father.

Love you all!! Have a great week!!!

Sister Neuberger

PS Here's a link to the event in the photo above with the eighteen couples being married so that they could then be baptized. Check it out:   Weddings and baptisms

Pizza for dinner!

Accidentally squirted Sister Andre with ketchup. Hehe!

Halloween

This week was another fabulous week!!! I don’t even know where to begin!  

Well first off we had zone conference this week talking about exact obedience and the way that with exact obedience we will have more blessings. After we had almoco all together and it was a more “American meal” with cheesy potato French fries, brisket, and veggies wrapped in chicken! 

We also got pumpkin bread from Erica and on Halloween, Vera, another member in the ward, gave me candy for Halloween and I gave her candy too because she always asks about Halloween and how  it can work. “ People are just giving out candy?!?”  (that ones for Travis). 

We also got acai this week!! And ice cream because ice cream is delicious!!! And the bank was closed so we didn’t want to make or trip to the bank unworthwhile. My comp and I also had a water/snowball fight from the ice from our fridge.  It was a good time…I totally won.

Halloween care package from Mom!

But the best moments of the week were when Elder Collacao called and asked if we had any families ready for marriage. My comp told him we didn’t, but after she hung up the phone and we walked a little farther down the street I turned to her and said “Dude, we totally have a family ready for marriage!”  A new family that we started teaching with two little boys and the family is so great. They are so open to hear about the gospel and want to know more. So we ran to their house and luckily they were all home.  We told them about how our mission is helping people get married and they were so excited and they started getting the documents they need to send in.  And then this Sunday they all came to church and loved it.  The dad was suppose to leave 30 minutes into sacrament meeting, but he told us how he could stay till after sacrament meeting which was awesome and then he loved sacrament meeting so much that he called in to work so he could say at least one more hour at church!! It was awesome!!! 

If one can't, toucan!

Also Edimilson a recent convert who is about 83 bore his testimony and it was amazing! And in Sunday school Roberto the husband to Liduina, who all just got married and baptized last week, gave the closing prayer and it was so exciting because it was the first time that we had actually heard him give a prayer. He always usually makes us say the prayer when we teach him so it was amazing to hear his testimony in the prayer! 

I really like Alma 29:1-2 for missionary standpoint, but I really like Alma 29:9-10 how we can all be instruments in the Lord's hand to help bring others unto him and we will feel even more joy and those we share it with will also                                                                                                    feel more joy!!

Get it? If one can't, two can! Me and Sister Andre!

I love you all so much!! Have a great week!!!!

Sister Neuberger

Everything is better with ice cream!

Families Are Forever

10/30/2017

This week was probably one of the Best weeks of my mission!  

We had a really busy week with 3 baptisms and a wedding! All went really well!!  We did have to got to the church building a few times yesterday to make sure that the font was ready to go for the baptism which did make me a little more sunburnt than usual, but totally worth it.  (We live about 25 minutes by foot from the closest church building)

In other news, the group started this week in Rosalina and they started out with a great number. 53 people which is awesome. Basically a branch. So hopefully it just keeps growing!! 

We also had our first lunch ever with Edilmilson who is about 84 years old and his bday was last week. Anyway he was so excited  to have us over for lunch. He had his in-house chef make us crème de galinia!! My favorite! And he made black beans with a ton of other food and for dessert he made pudim and chocolate cake!!! SOOO good and I was soo full by the end.  But it was a great time. Edimilson told us all these stories about his life when he worked with the federal police in Brasilia.  It was so fascinating and fun to get to know him more. 

We had the wedding of Liduina and Roberto and then after, they got baptized by their son Davi! Such a satisfying and happy moment!! The happiness on their faces just made me so happy!!  And then they all came to church the next day excited to learn more about being a family forever!  I know that we can truly be families forever. Through the blessings of the atonement and temples we can all live again with Heavenly Father with our families and that brings me so much joy and happiness!!  

We also had the baptism of Maria Fernanda who is 10, but it made it so her mom came to church for the first time and hopefully will want to continue to learn more.

I also ran into a new family in the ward which actually happens to be a family from my first area.  When I was there the kids got baptized, but the parents weren’t married so they couldn’t get baptized.  Well the dad ended up splitting up with the mother and the mother and the children moved here and the mother was so excited because now she could get baptized which is what she's wanted sense the first time she went to church.  I was so excited to see them all.  It's all in the Lord's timing is what she said and it is so true. It is all in his timing! He knows what we need and when we need it. We just have to be willing to be patient and willing to receive the blessings he sends.

Have a marvelous week!!!  Love you all!!

Sister Neuberger

Brócoli!!

And if you read the title of this letter and started singing the veggie tales theme song you're a winner!! (winner take a bow!!(that one's for KL and Marissa)) 10 points for Grifindor! (that one's also for KL) 

Anyway the bishop's family found a great family this week!! The mom works at the restaurant that the bishop's mother-in-law owns and it turns out that she had actually at one point in her life been taught by the missionaries, but moved before she could be baptized and never got in touch with the missionaries after she moved. But now with her husband and two kids they are all excited to learn more and loved church yesterday!  We also had FHE with them last night and the bispo made pizza! But we had FHE about the plan of salvation which is so cool I love it!! And its awesome to teach a whole family about it!!

We also had divisions this week in a tri because the other sister has chickengonia, so we stayed here with Sister Santos.  It was a good time and then it actually lasted a little longer than normal because the elders scheduled a random zone meeting on Saturday morning that was just to tell us about a cleft palet help fair the church is helping host and they gave us pamphlets to hand out.  So she stayed with us till after almoço which made the rest of the day super fast because we dropped her off with her comp (then got ice cream while waiting for the bus at the bus stop ($1 or 3 reies for a big cone with hot fudge and those star things with chocolate inside. Totally worth the dollar!!)). Then we headed back to our area to meet up with the elders for an interview for a baptism in our area, but it ended up not working out sadly. But hopefully in a few weeks! 

We also got cake twice in one night because Irma Nici gave us some of the cake that she had made that day and then Irma Geisa gave us left over cake from the birthday party of Gabriel! I LOVE CAKE!! And sugar!! Hehehe and then on Sunday Geisa gave us even more cake!! BEST DAY EVER!!! 

We also had rice with broccoli in it this week and I had pasta with broccoli this week too!!! It reminded me of home and how mom puts broccoli in almost everything!! Oh and we had Japanese food ish this week which was amazing!!

And we met a great new investigator who has a dog named Chocolate!! How cool is that we actually met them because of the dog because I was like ohhh your dog is so cute can I pet it (are you friendly can I pet you) and then we started talking to them!! It was great!

I love the verse in Matthew 7:7 about praying and asking and if we truly ask and seek we will be give all that we ask for maybe not in the time or the way we want but in the way we truly need it. Heavenly Father truly knows what's best for us even when we don’t understand right then why it was answered in that way. We will understand with time that everything will work together for good and is for our good!

Oh and I didn’t get transferred! Im staying here for the next transfer!

Love you all!! Have a super blast and a half week!

Sister Neuberger

Faith Is Safe

10/9/2017

Hey so not much time today. but woah I just want to say that when your doing what you're supposes to be doing Heavenly Father will for sure protect you!

This week we helped Liduina and Roberto get closer to marriage and they are excited and their kids are even more excited!!  And we got Breno the oldest to come to conference which was so awesome because now he's more open to talk about religion and God which is such a difference than a few weeks ago. We also talked to someone who knows a lot about the bible and he likes to answer his own questions so we were there for 2 hours, but its all good. We invited him to pray in faith because that’s the only way you can know for sure.  And that's my thought for this week that its only through faith that we can know of these things to be true we cant just take someone else's words. We have to be willing to seek and find and pray and have faith in him to know the gospel is true. 

Super exciting news this week. We found out that we will be starting a group in our area at the end of the month and I'm just so excited.  I'm hoping I get to stay here one more transfer so I can help with it. Because we have this group and the elders have another and they are opening a new town that’s never had missionaries in my mission this next transfer and it's super on the down low that they are thinking of splitting my mission next year sometime.  The work is moving forward and it's awesome!!!!

We also had ward almoco this week and it was like memorial day picnic Brasil style because it was byon 2 chicken and vinigrette veggies and juice!!  Great stuff!!!

Had a baptism too and Wanderson is so excited to serve a mission next year!!!

10/16/2017

Happy birthday Ryan and Erin!! Hope you guys have a great week!!!
Rollerblading in this area has now bcome the new thing, in the evening all the kids are rollerblading or playing soccer; it's awesome!!  Though I don't know how long it will last with the rainy season trying to start.  We keep getting sprinkles of rain, but it doesn't stay long. It just stays long enough to make it hot and humid with the sun which is awesome.  

This week we worked on finding inactive members to tell them about the group that is starting in order to get them excited about it and how close it will be to them to walk. Most of the people in Rosalina stopped coming to church just because they didn't want to walk an hour to get there in the sun.  But this week we got to talk to a lot of them and we found some really great families and we also found a new family that is excited to know more.  We hope with the new closeness of the group they will be even more excited to come to church.  Oh and we got a few of the inactive members to come to church this week and then the group should be starting either this week or next!!

We also talked to Kauan and Pedro this week who are hilarious. They are some of the youth in this ward and they love Beverly Hills so every time we come to talk to them when we leave they always say tchau BEVELIHILLS! haha I die of laughter every time.

The family of the bishop owns a pizza place an one of the workers there they have been talking to about the church and it turns out that she actually was close to baptism at one point but then she moved and it didn't workout, but we talked to her at the end of church yesterday and the spirit was so strong and she is already starting to read the Book of Mormon which is awesome!!

Which leads me to my spiritual thought that sharing your light or your testimony is so important like it says in Matthew 5:16 let your light shine forth to others to help them feel of the love the lord has for them.  

Showing my support to the family back home by wearing the family team shirt for their Ragnar. Good Luck Fam!

Always be an example of the believers!
Lov you all!! Havea  fantabulous week!!!

Sister Neuberger