Week #71 - Zone Conference with Presidente & Sister Priday!

Palmas Zone Conference 5/28/2021

 Monday, May 31, 2021

Helloooo! Here's your weekly update from Sister Guilott! I love Brazil, but the heat is getting worse and worse here everyday... and it's even worse when you don't have air conditioning, but hey that's the sacrifice you can make for the Lords work! 

This last week was a super fun week! We had lots of exciting things happen this week.

Sisters in Palmas - together in our small apartment!

The other sisters here in Palmas are still living with us, and they had a baptism on Wednesday, and they invited us! But we could only go if we had an investigator there. And the baptism started in like 2 hours, so we asked everyone and they all gave excuses of why they couldn't go. So we asked Jeldes (our friend who is progressing a lot) and he told us that he was in charge of something with his church the same time as the baptism, but that he could ask one of his buddies to do it for him. We waited for a while, and he finally texted us back saying that he would love to go to the baptism. And WOWZA, it was such a cool experience! He looooved it! The members in this ward were so kind to him, and man you can just see his love for our church growing. Now that we are starting to have more things in person with church, it is helping our friends so much to have the desire to learn more!!

This week we also had Zone Conference! Presidente and Sister Priday came down and the assistants! Since we are the Sister training leaders, we got to go to a fancy restaurant with them and the zone leaders on Thursday, the restaurant was by the beach, so we felt some wind and it was a blessed moment to not be drenched in sweat for once. But it was so fun to see all of them!

Palmas Leadership Lunch with Priday's

Then Friday, we had our Zone Conference! And what Zone Conference is, is when all the missionaries in this area meet together and receive trainings from the zone leaders, the sister training leaders (us), and presidente! It was so much fun to get to know more missionaries, and to be all together in person!! 

Zone Conference 5/28/21

We had our friend Kalim come to church this last week! He is super awesome, and super short hahaha! But he loved coming to church. Almost everyone who comes to church, always tells us that they love the reverence of church and the feeling of the spirit there. I always love hearing that. We also gave him a Book of Mormon and will hopefully see him at church next week as well!

We visited our bff Rafaella, and taught her and her mom the plan of Salvation. Rafaella is a little hard to teach, because she is so set on her beliefs. But her mom, was alllll for the plan of Salvation. She accepted it so easily! She will definitely progress! We just don't remember her name though.... awkward hahah! 

This week was awesome, and the miracles are showing from our faith and hard work! Tomorrow marks 17 months of being a missionary, and it's been the hardest and best 17 months of my life! 

♡Sister Guilott♡

Baking - in 100 degree heat and humidity!

At the end of the day!

While I was in Yuma, we found and met this wonderful man and began his teaching. He got baptized this weekend.

My companion I trained is now in that area and helped finish his teaching. AWESOME DAY!

Week #70 - We can go back to Sunday Meetings!!

 Monday, May 24, 2021

OI GENTE!! Another fun week here in Palmas! Not gonna lie, this week was fun and HARD!! We have some pretty awesome people we are teaching who just don't want to progress hahaha! So it's been a little hard, but we saw some miracles this weekend. Let me tell ya about them! 

We have our friend Ederme, who we taught the Restoration and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and he loved both of the lessons. And then... He disappeared! He didn't respond to any of our texts and we were so confused, then this week he finally responded back to us. He was just busy with a project hahaha, but we went over to his home and gave him a Book of Mormon and taught him about faith. He is super cool and has the potential to progress, if he puts in the work! That's the hard thing with being a missionary, seeing people use their agency wrong haha. But we are going to go over this next week and teach him the Plan of Salvation.

Our dear friend Brenda on Monday told us that she didn't want to learn with us anymore, because she was feeling pressured.... It was because we made this calendar for her for 2 weeks worth of scripture readings from the Bible and the Book of Mormon, with a different topic each day. And she told us she would read it everyday, and on te 5th day we asked how she like the reading, and she told us that she wasn't reading... so we of course showed our sadness about this, and that's when she told us she was feeling pressured. So we decided to take a step back these past couple days. And then, Saturday morning we get a text from her saying that she had read the Book of Mormon everyday that week and was a couple days ahead on the calendar that we made... WHAT?? Miracles are real my friends. We are going to have to take more baby steps with Brenda, but I am just happy that she still has the desire to now learn with us again.

Saturday morning we had the chance to meet with our ward at the church building to clean the church building! It was so much fun hahah, pretty hard because the church building had so many bugs and was just super dirty. But after 4 hours of hard work, it was clean! It was our ward (Palmas 3) and the Elders here, their ward (Palmas 4), so we had a good amount of people there to help out. Me and Sister Hernandez have been wanting to find more service opportunities so that we can get out of the house more! So this was the perfect opportunity! 

Sunday was the best day ever, because it was the sabbath, and also because we had church in person after not having in person church since march. But, now we are back in person! And it was so awesome! Especially because our friend Jeldes came. And oh my gosh... the members were so kind to him, and just helped him feel so much love and he felt so welcomed. We gave him a tour of the church building afterwards, and we showed him the baptismal font. The funny thing is that the elders had cleaned it the day before, so it still had water haha. I was so tempted to tell Jeldes "Look, it's ready for ya!" But I decided it would be better not to hahaha. But after the tour, a wonder sister in our ward had invited us to her home because her son received his mission call and he was going to open it that night, but we could only go if we had a non-member there. So, we turned to Jeldes and asked him if he wanted to go to this random persons house to watch him open some random calling hahaha, but he was all for it! And he actually came! The guy got his call to Brazil Florianopolis, and it was so cool to participate with that, and even more cool that Jeldes was there. Everyone pray for Jeldes that he can continue to progress. He is soooo close!!

That's all for this week, but remember to always share your testimony with others so they can feel the love of our Savior in their lives!

Love you all!

♡Sister Guilott♡

Week #69 - Exchanges

Monday, May 17, 2021

Wowza, I just loving being a missionary! Talking about my Savior Jesus Christ everyday? Yes please! But this week was a pretty interesting hahaha, we definitely had some fun experiences...

We had exchanges with the Sisters in Miracema, which is a city like 2 hours away from here. We had planned that me and Sister Hernandez would go up together in the afternoon, and that she would stay the night there, then me and one of the sisters from this city would come back to Palmas right after the bus ride. Well... the sisters didn't understand the plans quite all the way... because we got there around 7 pm, and they told us the next bus leaves the next day in the afternoon... uhhh, what? All I had with me was my backpack with a Book of Mormon and my wallet. Nothing else. No pajamas, extra clothes, toothbrush, nada. So that was an adventure hahaha! But it was super fun to get to know those sisters better!

We also have the other sisters here in Palmas living with us right now because their new home doesn't have light or water... hahaha so they've been here almost a week. And our apartment isn't too big lol, but it's been fun to have other people here! 

This week was definitely a little harder on us, we are teaching people and finding people but they just don't want to keep committments. So that has definitely been a little harder. But, we were still able to see some miracles!!

Last monday, on our way to the mall to go SHOPPINGGGG we took an uber, and he was super interested in our church and what we believed, so we called him later in the week and he wants to learn more! Yay! His name is Kalim, pretty cool name eh? 

We have our english class every Thursday night, and we had this one guy that the missionaries here taught a while ago and he is now participating in our English classes. We asked him if he'd be interested in learning more with us, and he said yes! So we taught him the Restoration this week and he LOVED it! He especially loved the experience that Joseph Smith had! Such a cool experience! 

We have our awesome friend Gilcenes, and she has been praying about baptism and if that is something she really wants. We told her about fasting, and how we fast for 2 meals and she couldn't believe that we fasted for 2 meals. She told us she would never be able to, so.... we invited her to fast with us this past weekend, and she did! She also read Mosiah 18 (go read it it's so good) during her fast, which talks all about your desire to be baptized, and she understood all of it! She is definitely getting closer, but she has her best friend who is also her "pastor" and she doesn't want to make her disappointed if she joins our church. So we asked her if she'd rather have her friend be disappointed in her, or God? That made her really think about it hahaha! But we are gonna go over and teach her some more this week.

One thing that has been super hard is that we have not been to church in person for my whole time in Palmas! But, we got the news this week that we are returing to church in person this next Sunday, and I am so excited to finally go back to church in person! Woohoo!

Remember to always share the light of Christ with others this week so they can come to know our Savior better ☆

♡Sister Guilott ♡

We were teaching this lady, and a bird landed on her head1 haha!

Week #68 - It's HOOOOT in Palmas

Monday, May 10, 2021

When you see a huge bug ....

I LOVE BRAZIL!! Except for the heat.... the past couple weeks have been prime, and then this last week I don't know what happened, but now it is soooo hot hahaha! But I am loving it here more and more each day, but it's getting even closer to when I come home! 2 more months, and then I have to leave this beautiful place. But, let me tell ya about the week we had!

This last week walked like none other, which is a blessing because that means in person lessons!! We had a bunch of in person lessons this last week. Something that has been hard is that none of our friends have been progressing too much... we have Jeldes, and we taught him the gospel of Jesus Christ and we invites him to pray about baptism because he had the question of why he had to be baptized again, but now he won't respond back to us. Then we have Brenda, and she wasn't responding back to us either, and she told us how she didn't want to read the Book of Mormon, and only focus on the Bible. So with all of this, I was pretty down... so I prayed, and I prayed with all my heart asking for a miracle and then..... we met our friend Gilcenes. Her mom is a recent convert and we had lunch with them on thursday, and Gilcenes is super kind. She is originally living in São Paulo, but is here in Palmas ro help with some paper work since her dad just recently passed. And she asked us, "what is your churches thoughts on life after death?" Well Gilcenes... have we got something SPECIAL for ya! We told her all about the Plan of Salvation, and she loved it! We read a bit of Alma 40, and she told us that she felt so much peace that she was gonna read this book ever single day! Heck yeah! We went over on Saturday and taught her the rest of the Plan of Salvation, and she loved it even more! At the end she was telling me how much she loves our church and how happy she feels, I explained that she feels that way because the things she's hearing are true. We asked her about her thoughts on baptism in our church, and she said shes never put any thought into it before, so we invited her to pray about baptism!! Yay!! Miracles are realllll!! 

We have our friend Perques who was taught by some other sisters in a different state, and he just moved here. He has the desire to be baptized, but has been super busy moving here and finding a home. But this week we will start to teach him! He is looking for a home to live in still, and he has 2 options... one of them is in our area, and the other is in the elders area hahaha. So everyone pray that he lives in our area!! 

It was an awesome week, my faith was definitely tested, but I was able to use prayer to have hope and more faith!

Love you all so much!! 

♡Sister Guilott♡

Week #67 - Book of Mormons, Transfers: We are staying, and English Classes

Monday, May 3, 2021

How can it already be May? It doesn't make any sense! Time is honestly flying by here. This last week, I hit my 16 months as a missionary... WHAT?! That means I only have 2 months left as a missionary! Ahhhh! Anyways, enough about that, let me tell y'all about the week I had! It was the week that felt like 5 years and also like it was only 2 days! 

Our district!

This last week was the last week of this transfer, and we got transfer news and me and Sister Hernandez are staying together for this next transfer! This is technically both of our last transfer, but we both decided to extend our missions. So I'll be staying an extra 3 weeks hahaha! But I am so happy we are staying together, we are going to see so many miracles together! 

Celebrate another transfer together with FLAN!

Tuesday we had our district council, and we bought yummy food and just had a fun party! It's nice because we all live decently close to each other. And I love being with other missionaries! And speaking of being with different missionaries, me and Sister Hernandez did exchanges with the other sisters. And exchanges is where we switch companions for the day and see how they are doing, how their area is doing and just help them out and get to know them better! So I got to be with Sister Mota all day on Wednesday in her area, and it was super fun! She helped me with my português, and we just got to know each other better. And then around 5pm we switched back to our normal areas hahaha! 

Exchanges with Sister Mota

This last week we started up english classes here! But because covid is so bad here, we are doing it online! But it was super fun. And the cool thing is that we have already sent some referrals to other missionaries of people interested in learning more from having our one class! Miracles are out there!!

Here are some updates on some of our friends! :)

Brenda is doing good, she is starting to have a lot of questions and even some doubts which isn't good :( she has received all of our lessons but still isn't reading the Book of Mormon. I know that once she starts to read the Book of Mormon, she'll know what sacrifices she'll have to make! But she is doing good! 

We have a new friend named Jeldes, and he is super awesome! He was taught by missionaries before and was almost baptized, but then he never did get baptized *yet hehe*. But he was actually taught by Sister Cunha, my mission mom!! How cool is that? He remembers everything about the Restoration, and most of his questions/doubts are about things in the temple, like eternal marriage and how that works. We explained to him that he needs more FAITH! So we went over to his home yesterday and talked about faith with him! 

We have our best friend, Rafaella, and she is literally our bff hahaha! We ate hamburgers with her this last week, she made us a cake for our 16 months, she helps us out with driving us places (like for our exchange we did) and she is just the best. So we finally decided that it was time to teach her the first lesson, the Restoration! She knows a lot of stuff about our church, because she has always been so kind to the missionaries that lived here, but never officially received any of the lessons. So we went over and taught her the Restoration yesterday and she LOVED IT! The best part was that we wrote our testimonies in a Book of Mormon for her, and when we were talking about the Book of Mormon I asked her if she ever received a copy, and she said the other Sisters just showed her the Book of Mormon and never gave her one. So we gave her the Book of Mormon and she almost started crying! She is so kind and I can tell that she has that desire to learn more :)

It's been an awesome week and I am doing suuuuper good with the language, just some rules I have to understand a little better hahaha! 

I love you all!!

♡Sister Guilott♡