Swimming

Well this week I think I heard Kevin the bird from "Up," and I think he lives next door to our investigator.   Also this week my comp was telling Joici (one of the members) how she wanted music and Joici was like, "Oh I can help with that. Give me a flash drive and I'll give you church music." So we did and now I have a few songs in Portuguese and it is really nice to have some new music. ]

I made a friend in the other ward this week or at least a good acquaintance because she speaks English really well.  She came up to me on Sunday and was like, "Hey I heard you got chicken pox. How are you feeling?" (I think the whole stake knows I got chicken pox. It seems to have been the talk of the town.  "An American got chicken pox." "No way! Seriously!?!?!”)  and then she told me all about how she served in Sao Paulo and one of her comps didn’t speak Portuguese well.  She knew a little English, but because her comp didn’t speak well, she learned English through her comp and she in return helped her comp learn Portuguese.  The girl's name is Abea. The rest of her mission she had a lot of American comps so her English improved with each transfer. 

Isabel is progressing really well.  She is praying that her husband has a softened heart and wants to get married.  But on the plus side her daughter Madilani got baptized this week!!  She was really scared of the water and wouldn’t go in so Abea actually came to the  rescue and talked to Madilani and then sacrificed Sunday clothes and got in the water to show madilani there wasn’t anything to be scared of and then Madilani got in but was still scared to go under the water so then Abea showed her there wasn’t anything to be scared of going under and she went under and came back up and so Madilani was ready to go and got baptized.  We thanked Abea a billion times after ad she said the same thing happened on her mission and it wasn’t trouble at all to help us out. 

While walking to church this week we had this old guy come up to us and ask if he could come with us to church and we were like a yeah sure and so we had him and a few other investigators with us at church it was great! 

Zone conference this week and President talked about how we need to counsel with the Lord and then make goals from our heart and that’s when their will be success in the work.  Which is so true if we counsel with the Lord in what we should do, he will guide us and help us move forward in the right direction. 

I love you guys all so much!!! Thanks for the emails!  Have a superb week!!!

-Sister Neuberger

Alma 32:27

No More Chicken Pox

7/17/2017

Happy birthday Shelby!! and I hope you all got a Slurpee for 7/11 day!! 

Well we still spent half the week in our house to make sure the poxs were all gone, but on Thursday we got out and it was sooo nice to get out!!!!

Our investigator Isabel is amazing!!! She is hoping that she can get married to her boyfriend really soon so she can get baptized, but as she waits for that her daughter is getting ready for baptism next week!!  You can see how much the light of the gospel is showing in Isabell's eyes. She wants to change and make sure she's doing all that she can to live with Heavenly father again.  And she understands the importance about marriage and I got to  bear my testimony about how I know that families can be together forever in our latest lesson.

Which I am so happy that I have the opportunity to  live with my family forever because I love them so much!!!!  I know I have to do all that I can in this life, but as I do the Lord will help me with the rest if I fully rely on him.  Or as my mom would say with the acronym: F.R.O.G. Fully Rely On God!

I never thought how strange it is to move away from our family when we are older or at least in other cultures its looked on as strange.  I told my comp how my brothers live in other states and she thought that was the strangest thing. 

Anyway I love you all sooo much!!! Have a fantastic week!!!!

Sister Neuberger

D+C 123:17

Never Have I Ever

7/10/2017

It turns out those 5 mosquito bites on my stomach and my body hurting like crazy for 4 days weren’t just me feeling super stressed out from trying to learn the languag.  It turns out that those 5 bites turned into 15 bites and a party on my back and then the thought occured to me maybe I have chicken pox and maybe I should tell my comp.  Within a few hours there was no hiding that I had chickenpox.  So we were in casa this whole week lots of studying and sleeping and I still kind of have them but oh well.  And now I can't use not having chicken pox when we play "Never Have I Ever."  And anyway, everyone here thinks it's crazy that I've never had chicken pox haha.

I read a lot this week which made me really like Mosiah 1:5-7 which talks about reading/searching/pondering/praying about the scriptures and to understand the mysteries of God.  He also goes on to testify that the scriptures are true and that we need to search them diligently and we will be blessed from it.  I know that the scriptures are true and that we can learn so many things from the stories that they hold and the lessons they teach.  They can answer our questions and calm our fears.  They are such a blessing in our lives!!!

Have a marvelous week and don’t forget to get outside and enjoy that summer heat and think of me!!  Love you all!!

Sister Neuberger

Zoo Friends

Happy birthday America and Gina and happy national cheesecake day!!!! Hope you all see some great fireworks and eat some cheesecake for me.

We walked past the zoo this week on our super long walk to almoço!!  The zoo isn’t quiet the size of STL and the entrance reminds me of Turtle Back  Zoo in NJ, but anyway sadly, it's not open on Mondays. But on the plus side, because of the size of it, just walking by it we basically saw all of it. We just didn’t get to play on the playground.  But man was that a lot of walking from our house to another area for the bank back past our house to the end of our area for almoco.  Probably in total 6 miles of walking which doesn’t seem like a lot but when its hot it does.

We started teaching this amazing family this week and it all started because we were teaching a girl that lives on their street and the mom walked by and was like, "Really, your letting them teach you?" And then she shared her doubts with us. We said we could meet with her and answer all of her question. She said, "Uh, well yeah I guess." And then we had our first lesson with her and the spirit was so strong and she was like, "We'll all come to church on Sunday." Sadly her husband didn’t come, but her kids did and she and her kids loved it.  So now the hard part if she ends up wanting to be baptized she needs to get officially married to her boyfriend/husband.  She reminds me of Millie Black and a little of mom, so basically she's awesome!!!  Then on the walk home she talked to me the whole time and we talked about New York and how my Grandparents live in New Jersey. We also talked about how school works in the US.  It was so nice to talk!! Though it was hard because my Portuguese is still pretty rough, but she took the time to help me understand her questions and helped me make sense of what I was saying, its was awesome!!!

I think the Articles of Faith are so cool. We have 13 small articles that tell in simple form all that we believe.  It shows that the gospel can be so simple a child understands it yet also so grand that people study it forever. 

Have a fantastic week!!! Miss you all and love you all so much!!!

Sister Neuberger

D&C 123:17  I think this might be one of my new favorite scriptures! 

Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.

Come Unto Him and He Will Give You Rest!

June 26, 2017

The kids love me and I really don't know why because I can hardly make a normal sentence, but they love talking to me and that makes me feel good!  This week we ate at a member's house who is learning English and is probably better at speaking English than I am at Portuguese. So he spoke in English and I responded in Portuguese which actually helped so much because he still asks questions like you do in Portuguese which I struggle with. So hearing it in English helps me understand where I'm messing up. 

We have some great investigators progressing this week like Eric and Rosi.  They really want to know for themselves if the Church is true which is amazing!!! Rosi has had a pretty diffucult life, but she really likes the feeling that she gets from reading the pamphlets and praying.  Also Emanuel is this old man who is hilarious and really sarcastic. Andmy comp doesn’t seem to understand sarcasm, so I'm dying of laughter when he says stuff and she thinks he's seriou. It"s hilarious!  She doesn’t like me laughing at her, so then she makes me speak Portugues and then she and Emanuel laugh really hard, but its all good.

I got a cold today and my comp is like, "You NEED medicine!" And I am like, "Noooo!!!" So we'll see if I can hold off on the medicine because the pills here seem to be huge and I don’t think I could swallow that. 

This week I read about the atonement in "Our Search for Happiness." It talked about a couple verses in Matthew 11:28-30 that are great!! We need to come unto Christ, and he will give us rest and make our burdens light.  I know he has helped me so much on my mission as I keep working to learn Portuguese and to have people understand what I'm saying.  He is there to help. 

Love you all so much!! Have a super duper week!!!

Sister Neuberger

Matthew 11:28-30

We Are Nothing Without the Lord

June 19, 2017

We are nothing with out the Lord and he has given me companions that actually speak the language.  I had two people this week tell me I should just stop trying to learn Portuguese, but on the plus side, only one of them told me to go back to the States.  So this week we had divisions and my comp for the day was sister Santos who is from Sao Paulo and is super nice and is learning English and it's probably better than my Portuguese. She's been out a year and I learned so much from her as we taught Emanuel about the Word of Wisdom. Somehow in the middle of the lesson it kind of changed to the restoration, but that’s when the spirit really was so strong and everyone could feel it and Emanuel stood up and was like, "Well I believe all of that, so if not drinking coffee is what God asks of me then I will do it." And then he went into his house and proceeded to throw all of his coffee out. AMAZING!!! Such a cool experience to be a part of!!!  Sister Santos also is a lot more calm than my comp now who's a little dramatic about everything.  

Anyway, so we had a stake missionary meeting at the stake center and we were told the wrong time and got there an hour early, so we couldn’t go back because by the time we got back we would have to leave. So we did the only thing we could; we went to the ice cream place next to the church!! BEST DAY EVER!!! She was like, "I know this is probably stressing you out a little, so I'm going to buy to ice cream." And I was like, "Oh, okay. Well thank you sooooooooo much!!!"  And she somehow just knew I love Oreo and that’s what she bought me!!  And then at the meeting well after the meeting the president bought us all pizza!!! So it was a great day!!! And so much spiritual growth that we are nothing without the Lord, but with the Lord we can do all things!!!  Moroni 7:33

I'm a little sad that I don’t get to go back to my old area this transfer because all those people are amazing and I didn’t even get to say goodbye to them and they are also going to the temple this week and I would ABSOULUTLY LOVE TO GO!!!!!  But its all good. I'll just keep working on my Portuguese so I can at least teach people about the temple.

In other news, one of the elders in my district got chicken pox and with one day left on his mission. Rough way to end the mission but hes working through it.

We also had 12 youth come running up to us in the street this week because they love us. And they love talking to me and asking me about English. So we were like, "Hi! Can we teach you this amazing message we have and then answer all your English questions." And they were like, "Okay!!!"  So that was also another awesome experience for the week!

Emanuel and Bruno both got baptized this week!!! So great and they are both so excited about it!!!

Ohh and I alsoigot to feed a monkey a banana and I didn’t have my camera sadly, but I did have it when we placed out bread for them. Not as cool, but still exciting none the less. 

Anyway have a fantastically fabulous week!!

Sister Neuberger

Moroni 7:33

Beans, Bean, and More Beans

June 12, 2017

So this week at Antonio’s he really wanted us to try his black beans so he came out with a huge plate of beans for both me and my comp.  We were like "ah okay" and graciously ate them and they were delicious. Just a lot of them!  The next day we went back and he was like, "Here try my brown beans." Another huge plate and we were like, "Ahh yea, more beans!" And then we continued to joke about it the rest of the day until the next day when we went back and he had us try his feijoada (Brazilian black bean stew) and then told us he was going to make some more beans for us the next day.  Luckily he had his baptism interview the next day so we could allow the elders to eat all the beans instead.  Basically if I never eat beans again I'd be okay, but that’s not really all possible right now hahaha. 

Prayer is so important. I know I talked about it last week, but I just wanted to reiterate it because just like communication is so important between people and we sometimes take it for granted, we shouldn’t because it's so important as I have learned very well here in Brazil because I cant say everything I want or understand everything. But I'm so grateful for the communication I do have and even more so the communication that I can have with my Heavenly Father who is always there, listening and ready to help us as we call on his name for that help.  Just like in Alma 37:36-37 we need to counsel with the Lord everyday and then we will find safety and peace. 

Not too much happened this week. We did help Antonio also get water from his well which was fun and really used that upper body strength.   And we got some amazingly delicious cake from some members after divisions! And we got Immanuel to come to church who we just casually ran into on the street the night before and he loved it.  He didn’t love the walk, but he loved church!! 

Have a great week and don’t forget to pray!  

Love you all!!!

Sister Neuberger

Alma 37:36-37