Week #22 - Endless Summer! "It's only 106 today!"

Monday, June 22, 2020

"I finally got a picture with a cactus!"

OI GENTE!!!

Wow this week was pretty fun and event filled!! Transfers are next week and I'm a little nervous about that since my companion has been in this area for 6 months, and that's the longest anyone really stays in their area. So I'll be sad if she leaves, but I'm not thinking about that too much.

Love my companion Sister Dangerfield!

So one day this week we had exchanges again, but me and Sister Wilcox were together in my area. I'll tell you this, there are ALWAYS crazy miracles when you have exchanges. And that's what happened with us. So me and Sister Dangerfield have been calling lots of people, and a lot don't answer. So me and Sister Wilcox called all those people who usually don't answer, and they all pretty much answered and we were able to have awesome lessons with people. And then we called Jesse, and he answered!! And then all of a sudden Sister Dangerfield came running in and we switched super fast and I was really confused. After we taught Jesse, we found out that our roommates were getting a new companion. Her name is Sister Sterling and she is super nice! She's been here in the Tempe mission for a while. In fact, next transfer is her last transfer. So that was fun!!

S.Wilcox, S. Sterling, S. Dangerfield, Me and S. Corn

Our goal this week was how many people we can put on date, and we got our friend named David on date for baptism, and this cute little girl named Angel as well. They are so awesome and really love the gospel. David has an awesome testimony of Joseph Smith and wants to follow Christs example of being baptized. Angel is a cute little girl and her grandma that she is living with is a member and they are so kind. She wants to be baptized so bad, and her grandma wanted to wait until we could have more people come (only 10 people can attend). But we put her on date for her grandma's birthday!! They were both very excited!

We had interviews with our mission president this week and also a social media training. Me and Sister Dangerfield hopped right into facebook and tried to find some people to teach there. It's been super fun and awesome to do this!

"They let me drive!"

So one day this week, we dropped off a Book of Mormon to someone we've been trying to get in contact with. After we were driving away from her house, we saw a couple hauling some bricks, so we asked them if they wanted help and then that started a 20 minute conversation with them. Its amazing how much you can get to know someone in-person, which has been to hardest thing for me being quarantined inside. I am a people person and come alive when talking in person, but at least we have the ability with talking to people during these unusual circumstances online. 

This week I feel that I have really strengthened my testimony. I understand my relationship with my Savior more, which then makes me want to talk to people about it more! I'm very thankful for the chance to still serve as a missionary in these crazy times!!

I hope all y'all have a FANTASTIC week! 

♡ Sister Guilott

We always wear masks when out!

Our District-since we are all quarantined with our
companions and roommates, no masks here as we
stay within our "groups"

ICE CREAM! Nice to go to a drive-thru when
it's cooler at night--"It's only 106!"

Week #21 - Singing, Cooking, Testifying and Exchanges "quarantine style"

Monday, June 15, 2020

Look up our video on my FB page! Since I learned to play 

the ukulele during quarantine, it was time to share! 

What a week!! Some pretty awesome stuff happened this week, so I'll get right to it!!

So last week we had a lesson with a couple we're teaching named Geneva and Lupe. Lupe talks a lot more than Geneva, but they both like being taught but just don't want to be tied down to one religion. But last week we taught about the Restoration and about Josep Smith and how he was a prophet of God. In the middle of it, Lupe had to leave, so it was just Geneva being taught. We finished the lesson with her and told her to pray about its truthfulness and of what we taught. We texted her Tuesday and asked her if she prayed, and she said she had and she knows that Joseph Smith is a prophet and that the Book of Mormon is true. Then she told us randomly that SHE WANTS TO BE BAPTIZED. That was pretty awesome. We were excited and told her we'd call her the next day. That next day she texted us saying that Lupe had prayed as well and he wants to be baptized as well. Let me just say how happy we were about that. Miracles happen when we trust in God!! 

We also had exchanges this last week which is when we as companionships trade companions for a day.and I was with my roommate Sister Corn in her "area" meaning I was in the other room in our apartment for the whole day hahaha. But it was fun to see how different, yet similar the work is. It was awesome to be with Sister Corn! We taught a lot of awesome people and even dropped off a Book of Mormon to someone.

Sister Corn and I on "exchanges"

This week as well, we called Jesse again and he actually answered and we had such a good lesson with him. He still wants to be baptized and he is getting closer to that goal!! We also have Jim who is on date and he is SOOO fun. We always have a fun time talking to him because he asks the best questions. 

This week we had a lesson with someone and she is super cool and and also seemed a bit intimidating over the phone hahaha. But we decided to teach her the Restoration, and we got to the point of telling her about Joseph Smith and I recited the First Vision to her of when God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph, and she got super defensive about it and couldn't quite understand it. All we could really do to help her understand it was testify to her. And the spirit spoke to me so strongly during that call telling me that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, and that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father did appear to him. I know that to be true and this lady that we taught told us to pray about it again and we will be told the truth, and I did. And I still know that God and Christ appeared to Joseph.

I love being a missionary here and having the opportunity to serve in 2 awesome missions!! I miss Brazil and keep practicing my Portuguese, but it's been awesome to learn how to share my full testimony in English.

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

♡ Sister Guilott

Making "brigadeiro's" a brazilian chocolate treat

Funny story: 

We decided to make brownies one day and my roommate, Sister Corn, had a good homemade recipe... and accidentally added 1/2 cup of baking powder... we were so excited to eat them and they were not all that good hahaha!! 

Brownies.....maybe??

Waiting for the brownies to cook!

Week #20 - One Month in Tempe, AZ!!!

Monday, June 9, 2020

ONE MONTH HERE IN TEMPE! I have loved it here so much. So many miracles here everyday.

Hiking in the early hours before the HEAT!

This morning we decided to go on a hike. It even had a sign posted that warned if you were not an experienced hiker, you shouldn’t hike it. But I did anyway (since my roommates and companion bribed me with ice cream) and I ended up spraining my thumb because I was running and I fell. In spite of hating my life while I was hiking, it was a pretty view! 

Not for beginners!!

Beautiful Arizona Sunrise--it's nice to go outside before its 110! 

So...remember that one guy Jesse I told you about that was on date and stopped returning our calls? Well, we decided to go put a note on his door to see why he was ignoring us hahaha. Me and Sister Dangerfield got to his house and saw his dad outside. His dad saw us and came running towards us and said, “let me go get Jesse. He is inside!” Next thing you know Jesse is outside and with the quarantine we are to follow, we are not supposed to have face-to-face contacts outside of the church building or a member’s home. So we got pretty nervous. We hand him the note that said,  “We are so excited you are getting baptized this Saturday.” Even though we hadn't heard from him in three weeks. To our surprise, he said he still wants to be baptized. He asked lots of questions, like what do you have to wear to a baptism, and where the church was. We told him we’d call him at 6:00 PM the next day and he said he would answer our call...Yeah, we haven’t heard anything from him since then. BUT we are not giving up hope!

Always wearing our masks when we go out!

Do you also remember our friend Jim who I have talked about a couple times? HE’S ON DATE FOR BAPTISM!!! We are so excited that he has been able to form a strong relationship with his Savior, and make this first promise with Him to be baptized. We couldn’t be more proud of him. He still has a few things he’s working on to be ready, and we are praying for him to get there.

One of our lessons this week was with a lady named Moriah. Her daughter was being taught by the missionaries before, but Moriah answered. We started to teach her about how families can be together forever. She didn’t understand this, and said, “No, its ‘til death do you part!” We then explained to her how families can be together forever and God’s plan of happiness for all of us. Having the knowledge that me and family can be together is so comforting to know, that I know what happens after this life, and I am grateful for the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Hurray for singing hymns! In Portuguese and English!

Bracelet making and embroidering lids help with quarantine!

We are still only allowed to go out for one hour of service, although the members don’t want us to come do service in the extreme heat.  We wish they would have things for us to do, since it gets hard to stay inside 24/7. But we are doing well. We are still doing all our teaching online. We see miracles every day in spite of all these things, because we put our faith in Christ. 

I am so grateful for everyone. Remember God is there and if you put your faith in Him, you can get through anything. Let the missionaries serve you! We are here to help in any way we can. It’s nice to get out and serve, being stuck inside all day!! So let the missionaries help--even if its 108! 

♡ Sister Guilott

The promised ice cream!!

Week #19 - A Baby, A Bird, and 115 Contacts!

Monday, June 1, 2020

Sister Dangerfield and I getting reading for our Online Contacting!

HELLO!! 

Wow this week was amazing. So many wonderful things! We started the week and taught a good amount of lessons during the week, but this weekend is what made my week amazing. On Thursday our mission came up with a new challenge for the next couple weeks to focus more on the key indicators, which are: new people interested in learning more, people who attend a sacrament meeting, people who are on date for baptism, and baptisms. So to start it off we focused on contacts. A contact is when you share a principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ with someone and that person responds to it. This can be done either on the phone, texting, or video calls. And we did this on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Sister Dangerfield and I were thinking of a goal we could accomplish for contacting over these three days and we decided on 45. Then we realized  that we could definitely do more than that so we changed our goal to 115 contacts over three days and... WE DID IT!! It was definitely hard, but we had faith. One scripture we actually shared with a lot of people this weekend was Moroni 7:33 which talks about faith. It says, "And Christ hath said: If ye will have faith in me ye shall have power to do whatsoever thing is expedient in me." I LOVE THIS SCRIPTURE!! I love how much it helped me and my companion reach our goal and I love how important faith is for all of us. 

So Friday was definitely an eventful day... Nicole had her baby!! And this was the day we were gonna start our mission challenge. So I was able to video chat Nicole and my family that morning and meet my nephew Dawson, and he is definitely the cutest baby ever. 

My mom was wearing a shirt like mine on Monday, and so the "side-by-side"
picture lookslike I am holding him...sort of! HE'S SO CUTE!!!

Another crazy story: After that we were going to get started on our contacts and then my roommate went outside to our little patio to work out and then a BIRD FLEW INTO OUR HOUSE and got stuck in our cupboard in a tiny whole none of could get into and we could only see the bird by sticking our phones up the weird cupboard thing. So obviously Satan didn't like our goals of contacting over 100 people, but we got the bird out (and got some pretty fun videos and pictures) AND we accomplished our contacting goal!

The bird--we tried to catch it in a box...then it went down into
the crevice between the cupboards!

This is when we stuck a phone camera under the
cupboard to see the bird--it was stuck!!

We were able to have amazing conversations with so many people. We talked to so many new people who are interested in learning more and that is super exciting. Our friend Jim was able to come with us to an amazing family in our ward's house and partake of the sacrament and learn the importance of sacrament. It was awesome.

One funny story besides the bird story haha: So all of a sudden we were getting a random call from somebody and we answered telling the caller that it was the sister missionaries and she responded saying "Who?" and then we repeated saying we are missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She then said she had the wrong number, so I quickly asked, "Do you want to hear more about how we can find peace through Jesus Christ?" AND SHE SAID YES!! I'm telling ya, this never happens. So we start to share a scripture with her while we also look up her number... and it is someone the sisters been teaching for 2 weeks and we totally had no idea who it was when she called. hahaha! We had been all excited to have someone new be interesting in actually learning more about Christ, but we ended up having such an amazing conversation with this woman and we could all feel of the Spirit. 

This week was amazing. My dad asked me in an email how my testimony is, and my testimony has grown SO MUCH from being here for the past 4 weeks. I have been able to learn more about the gospel in my own language, which wouldn't of had happened in Brazil. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to be here in Tempe to learn how to grow my testimony, so one day hopefully I can go back and I will be able to testify in Portuguese "JESUS CRISTO É MEU SALVADOR" (Jesus Christ is my Savior). I am thankful for the opportunities the church has provided us to continue studying our language of our original mission assignment. Portuguese or English--it is true!

I am so grateful for this gospel and the opportunity to share it!! I know that when we have faith in Christ, we can do all things. I challenge all of you to continue to grow your Faith in Him!! Love you all! 

♡ Sister Guilott 

Sharing a message!