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