Week #66 - Building Temples, Ups and Downs of Teaching

Monday, April 26, 2021

Okay...????

Oi gente!!! I love being a missionary! This week was a little harder.... mostly because we were stuck inside for most of the week, but we still were able to see some miracles! This is also the last week of the transfer, I know.... it's going by too fast! But here are some updates from the week. 

The "beach" (on the banks of a huge lake)

Last monday, we went to the beach with our neighbor Rafaela, she is ADORABLE! We went over to her home afterwards and she made us dinner! It was so fun. She had been taught by missionaries in the past, but we don't know if she was actually taught anything or they were just friends. She has a lot of knowledge of our beliefs and knows a lot of little things. But she also watched our church service yesterday! 😁 

On Tuesday we had a devotional with the temple president for the Campinas Temple! Man... I just love the temple so much. For those of you that dont know, Brasília is getting a temple! It is being built right now, and we found out that missionaries will be able to give classes to the construction workers so they can understand a basis of our beliefs and the importance of what they are building. HOW COOL? But since I'm 15 hours away from Brasília, we sadly won't be able to participate. But still such a cool opportunity! 

We have 2 new people we are teaching that are super awesome! One of them is Celio, and we taught him the Gospel of Jesus Christ and also the Restoration, and he loved both of them! We also have our friend Isack, who is an adorable 12 year old boy whose mom we are also teaching. But she only wants to use us so we can talk to her daughter who doesn't want to talk to her hahaha. But Isack is awesome! We taught them the Restoration, and he already knew the story of Joseph Smith because he watched the Restoration movie! WHAT?!? Elect!! 

We have our recent convert here who got baptized in December, Robertinho, and we do a video call with him like 3 times a week and read the Book of Mormon with him! And tomorrow we are going to go over to his home and read with him in person outside! Yay! 

This was a sad experience.... we found another person this week, Sharles AND we stopped teaching him all in the same week hahaha! He was super interested in learning more, and we talked about the Book of Mormon with him and were trying to schedule a day to give him a Book of Mormon, but it just wasn't working out. So we sent him the Introduction of the Book of Mormon, and he texted us back the next day saying he heard some stuff about our church, some not so good stuff.... so he looked online and found even worse stuff. The mistake he made was that he looked for answers online before looking for answers with God! This is just a testimony to me that this church is so true, and that we need to he very careful because satan is trying everything he can to turn everyone against the true church! But, with faith and prayers and reading the Book of Mormon, we can know the truth! 

Last week I talked about our friend Brenda, who was on date to get baptized. Sadly, she didn't get baptized this week BUT she will soon! She has some things she has to overcome before she gets baptized, so even extra prayers for Brenda would be amazing!

I am so grateful for all of you and the love and prayers! 

♡Sister Guilott♡

Sometimes a lot of bugs just appear....

Week #65 - Sending out a missionary!

Monday, April 19, 2021

I didn't know I liked McDonald's Fries until I had them in Palmas!!

Wow so many amazing miracles from this last week, don't know how I can write them all!! But one miracle from this past was the WEATHER 🤩 usually I am sweating to death, but this week was soooo nice! And when I say so nice, It was still pretty hot haha, but more overcast. So a miracle indeed. 

We have our friend Amanda who we gave a Book of Mormon to last week and this last week we also went on a walk with her! She really likes to work out, and even talked about running *i hate running* and luckily, another miracle, we didn't go running! Hahaha! But she always leaves for work during the weekend and doesn't message too much... so we are going to meet up with her and her friend tomorrow! 

With missionary work, pretty much everything is online. So we have been contacting all the contacts we have in our phone, which is good practice with Portuguese! But we found a bunch of people though this who wanted to learn more, I think about 5 people! But they all live in different areas.... so we sent out a lot of referrals. But the good thing with referrals is that we get BLESSINGS for helping out other missionaries! At least that's what I like to think haha.

One of the people we called this week... her name.... is Caroline.. can someone say AWKWARD to have to talk to someone with your name? Especially when for the past 15 1/2 months you have been called Sister. It was weird haha, but guess what. Miracle! She wants to learn more! We set up a time to go and give her a Book of Mormon! 

The city I am in right now, Palmas, is on a pretty strict lockdown... so we aren't doing any church services in person, but this last week we got invited to a fun activity with the youth! We were able to get permission to go! So we got all dressed up nice, because it would be our first time meeting any members in person in our ward lol. Well, we show up and turns out it was a service activity.... so we did our service in our nice dresses. It was awesome! We were able to get some yummy food afterwards!!

Service Activity and meeting the Youth

So we get a text message from this random girl that we don't know, her name is Ana Carolina. She is a member and is adorable and was explaining how she was getting set apart as a missionary the next day and was wanting to inviting the other sisters who were here to the setting apart! We explained how we were the new sisters, and she asked us we would come and be there with her! So we went! And it was so cool. And then after, she had her name tag ready to put on, and she looks over at me and asks me to help her put on her name tag... TENDER! It was a really cool experience and the spirit was really strong there. So grateful for those willing to serve missions ♡

I always like to save the biggest miracle for last, and this truly is an amazing miracle! Our friend Brenda is on date to get baptized! She is on date for this weekend, the 24th and she is just so adorable. We went over and taught her a lot this week, and she even invited her boyfriend who is also pretty interested in learning more! God is good! Everyone keep Brenda in your prayers that her baptism goes to plan 😁

Morôni 7:29 - " ...meus amados irmãos, cessaram os milagres? Eis que vos digo que não."

Moroni 7:29 - " ...my beloved brethren, have miracles ceased? Behold I say unto you nay."

Miracles are all around us, we just have to make sure we are doing things we need to so the spirit can show these miracles to us! 

Love you all, have an amazing week and pray for Sister Guilott to continue to have the gift of tongues and for Brenda! 

♡Sister Guilott♡ 

Did I tell you it is REALLY hot here?

Our outside neighbor!

Week #64 - Acai Lessons!

 Monday, April 12, 2021

Oi Gente! Another fantastic week in Brazil!! I love it here so much. I know I say that every week, but it's still true!! Lots happened this week, so let's hop right into it...

Things here in Brazil are still pretty shutdown. In fact, in Palmas, the whole city is pretty much on a "lockdown," at least that's what everyone is calling it lol. We are not able to meet with members right now, and we have to wait for our investigators to invite us over for in person lessons. We can't ask if we can just come over. So, me and Sister Hernandez have had to think of different ways to try to find people and to meet with people in person. There is a type of food here called açaí, we have it in the USA too, but its wayyyy better here. So we asked 2 teenage girls we are teaching to meet us at the açaí store! And they did! First was with Bia on Wednesday and she wants to be baptized, but has some stuff she has to overcome in order to he baptized. And then on Saturday we had more açaí with our friend Layane! And we talked about faith with her and how we all need to strengthen our faith. It was a fun way to meet people hahah! 

We have been contacting like everyone in our phone, because as missionaries here move around to different areas, the phone stays here in the area. So we call a bunch of people asking them if they still want to learn more about Christ! Sometimes they say yes. And sometimes they say no hahha... so that's been fun! It is still hard to understand some stuff in portuguese, especially with phone calls haha, but I am learning more! My companion Sister Hernandez, is already fluent in Spanish, so she knows a lot of portuguese and is willing to correct me when I make a mistake!! 

Here's is the biggest miracle from the week: we have someone we are teaching, her name is Brenda. We were supposed to have a phone call lesson with her last Monday but asked if we could do a video call, because it is way easier to understand haha! She explained to us how she has anxiety, and then invited us over to her house in person the next day... well OF COURSE we will come over hahaha! #miracles! So we went over, and taught her the Restoration and she absolutely loved it. As we were talking about the Book of Mormon and we're reading it with her, we invited her to pray to know if the Book of Mormon was true. She looked at us and asked if she still had to pray even if she knew the Book of Mormon was already true... so we asked her if she believed it to be true, and she said YES! Talk about faith! We invited her to still pray, and she texted us throughout the week telling us that she prayed and felt happiness and peace. At first she said she didn't receive an answer, but the thing is when we pray our answers normally won't be big grand miracles, but instead feelings of peace and hope. We explained this to her and she said that she had received her answer that the Book of Mormon is true! So we are going to go over tonight actually and invite her to be baptized. I'll update y'all with that next week ;)

Love you all so much!! 

♡Sister Guilott♡

Week #63 - 14 Hour Bus Ride Away, Chasing Dogs & General Conference: Welcome to PALMAS!

 Monday, April 5, 2021

So fun to be back with S. Hernandez - We are so excited for this next transfer!

Well let me just start out by saying that I love being a missionary. I love being able to share the gospel with people. With everyone!! It truly is amazing ☆ 

A large group of us traveled together on the bus.

Well, I got to Palmas! And let me tell you a fact: the state I am serving in (Tocantins) is the second hottest state in all of Brazil. And I can testify that that fact is true. Because I have never sweated more in my entire life than I did this past week. But hey, that's the sacrifice I gotta make for the more important work in the world, bring the gospel to others.

Going to Palmas!!

It took us 14 hours by bus to get here, and I was kinda nervous about this bus ride. Like what the bus would look like hahaha! But it was honestly the fanciest bus I have ever seen. And then we got to... PALMAS! I was able to sit by my companion, Sister Hernandez on the bus ride, blessings. 

Bus Ride to Palmas

We have a bunch of awesome people here that we are teaching. Let me tell you about some of them:

The sisters that were here before were messaging a girl named Eva on Facebook, and we started texting her some more and even had a video call with her. She expressed how she wanted a Book of Mormon, so we went over Saturday night and gave her a Book of Mormon and invited her to read 3 Nephi 11 (such an awesome chapter) and also a pamphlet of the Restoration! Well... she read both of them that night and invited us over to teach her more the next day, on Sunday. We taught her the Restoration and WOWZA she just loved it. She is adorable and wants to continue to learn more! She's also 5 months pregnant, so even more adorable! 

We received a referral from the missionaries at Temple Square of a girl names Arlete. She actually lives 3 and a half hours away from us, but we are the closest missionaries to her. She lives in the middle of nowhere and wants to continue to learn as well! 

We have another girl named Bia (short for Beatris) and she looooves the gospel and our church, and has the desire to be baptized as well! But she has some things she needs to do before she can get baptized, so keep her in your prayers :))

Yummy food - sometimes it is nice to not really know what it is...

Last person I'll talk about is Gil. Gil was taught a while ago, and was almost baptized. But he never got baptized. We had a lesson with him and he explained his doubts and fears about the gospel. We ended up talking a lot about the Atonement of Christ, which went perfectly as we celebrated Easter this past weekend! Gil definitely wants to continue to grow his testimony of our Savior, yay! We actually met him in person as well at his mom's house, who is a recent convert to the church! We had lunch at their home. Here's a funny story about them: so Gil's moms name is Neli, and she is probably about 70 years old. They have 2 dogs, and were getting the leftovers ready to give to the dogs, but the dogs were being impatient and wanting the food and were listening to Neli. So what did cute Neli do? She grabbed a giant butcher knife on the table and started chasing the dogs! I thought for sure she was going to hurt the dog.... but good news! She didn't! Miracles hahaha! 

I love being here in Palmas and know that me and Sister Hernandez will see some pretty sick miracles here. 

It is really hot here....

Did I tell you it is really hot here?

Pray for Sister Guilott and that I won't die in the heat. Also, this weekend was EASTER! And I studied a lot about my Savior Jesus Christ and his Atonement, so I'll share one of my favorite scriptures that I read this week. 

1 Nephi 19:9 "And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it, because of his loving kindness and his long-suffering towards the children of men."

1 Néfi 19:9 "E o mundo, devido à iniquidade, julgá-lo-á como uma coisa sem valor; portanto, o açoitam, e ele suporta-o; e ferem-no, e ele suporta-o. Sim, cospem nele, e ele suporta-o, por causa de sua amorosa bondade e longanimidade para com os filhos dos homens."

Christ really does understand everything we go through, and I am so grateful that I have been able to have the opportunity to talk about His Sacrifice to the people of Arizona and Brasil for the past 15 months. Heres to 3 more!! 🌞🌞

Also, if you haven't already... go watch general conference from this past weekend! You wont regret it! 

♡Sister Guilott♡

Happy!!

I got a package! Probably the only one I will ever get in Brazil!  

(More than one has been sent to Brazil this past year, but it's a bit crazy here!)