Brazil

I’m sorry to Chelsea’s readers… I’ve been such a slacker on updating her blog!!
So here it goes… I have a couple months to update… starting with Thanksgiving :)

Aloha e Happy Thanksgiving! 
Tis my first Thanksgiving outside of the USA and should be quite eventful! Woo hoo! Okay, probably won’t be too icredibly eventful, but I’ll do what I can. And we’ll have lunch with some of our most favorite people in Vila Velha! Almoçooo! 

This week was nice and full of miracles. Miracles happen all day everyday. The people we meet… they’re so life changing. 

We were doing some visits with one of our dear members, Val, and we didn’t have many people to teach. We’re searching for good peeps to teach, but all of the elect are hiding from us. We need more referrals from the members. They know lots of peeps here in Vila velha. Anyways, we were doing some fun little door knocking, and no one wanted to listen. Fantastic. Not really.
But then there was this funny little old man walking down the street and Val looked at him and told us to tlak to him so we talked to him and he basically changed the entire day. His name is Angelo.
He said he was Catholic, and that he goes to church once a year. Then he said he was Pentecostal. Then we asked him which church he goes to and he just started laughing. :) And he was laughing so hard he was knee slapping. I don’t ever want to forget him so I asked if we could take a picture with him. He said no because it’d so be ugly we’d throw the picture in the jungle. :) 

We also met a police officer and he talked to us and told us his life story for a couple hours. Twas grand. He has 46 years, aka he’s 46 years old. He talked a lot about family and when we saw him he was just sitting at his desk reading the Bible. Peeps are very good Bible readers here. Tis gooood. I learn a lot from them.

We may or may not have 3 batismos this weekend. We hope and pray so! But we’ll need a miracle. Good thing miracles happen all day everyday! 

We had stake conference this weekend. It was sooooooo good. I loooove conferências! They talked a lot about FAMÍLIA! THat’s what it’s all about eh? Sim. And that the most important things are family prayer, family home evening, and family scripture study. Families can be together forever! 

Happy Thanksgiving and be thankful alwaysssss! 
Be not weary in well doing. Galatas 6:9-10

Twas a rainy week, hallelujah that it’s not too incredible hot. 
Sunday morning we got up nice and early to go fetch some souls to go to church with us. We got up extra early too because the time changed. And we left nice and tired, trekking in the rain, and no one went to church with us. Poo. I don’t like walking to church in the rain when nobody comes with us. But them when we finally arrived at church nice and late, our lovely Maria Teresa was there! 
I love when people live the gospel on their own and do the right things because they want too. Que alegria!
And then my dear Gabi showed up at church too! Alegria de novo! 

We have interviews with our dear Presidente this week and zone conference too. Shall be marvelous and much needed. 

And good news! I just saved a bundle on car insurance by switching to geico! Okay, not really, the closest I get to driving a car down here is just getting run over by one, which has not happened yet because of some little angels I think. hehehe :)
Oh but the real good news… we helped save a broken pigeon yesterday from drowning in the sewer river. Always oppurtunities to do good deeds! You just have to look for them! 
Com amor, Sister Owens

P.S. I making lots of snow flakes these days. I could really go for a snow storm.

Here’s some lovely pictures from a funny week. We’ve been having some heaven sent rain and it’s not too hot. Hallelujah. But the mosquitos surely are out and about. 

October 6th, I woke up, with one year as Sister Owens!! I also woke up with what appeared to be chicken pox. My goodness the mosquitos attacked me. But all is well. I have now started to use my mosquito net.

We’re finding some lovely souls here in Itaparica. We talked with a girl on the street yesterday who was just sitting on the sidewalk cryign, with a guitar and a backpack. She basically has a horrible life and it’s amazing how the Lord works through others to meet our needs.

I’m sooo grateful to be here. We’re lucky peeps we are.

Here are my pictures from last week and from this week too.
The rodoviara like always was a lovely festa. So good when everybody is together! 
This week we had sisters conference and it was soooo very lovely. I just love these missionaries and learning so many wonderful things! And I got mail too! Yay! Obrigada lovely Cottams and Hayley and Connie and Shara!!! I love mail. 
We had general conference too and it was so lovely and famílias eternas and o livro de mormon and marvelous and true. :D
We are lucky blessed peeps. 
Love you all. Have a splendid week! 

Monday: was a lovely P-day! I ate a cute little fish and had a wonderful FHE with wonderful wonderful people. We talked about eternal life. Yay!

Tuesday: Dad’s birthday, my 11 month mark too. Had a very lovely morning study time and then we headed to lunch. I left the house kind of sad. Then as my companion was sharing a message with the family where we ate lunch, I started to cry. Couldn’t really stop. The lovely sisters gave me hugs, but I just wanted to hug my family. So we went home, I laid on my bed, read letters from my family, and cried, feeling more homesick than ever before. Took a little nap and woke up two hours later feeling better. The sisters brought açaí to our house and we had a little açaí feast and then a bit later we taught a lovely family.

Wednesday: Our dear Presidente e Sister Araújo came here to Aracruz and I talked with Presidente and he gave me a blessing and he asked if I wanted to call home. Crying I replied yes. Yay yay! Then we went to lunch with the Araújos and came home and Presidente handed me his phone and I called my dearest família and felt much much much better and now I’m doing great and am normal and happy again.

Thursday: Went to Ibiraçu and did lots of visits with dear Luana. 

Friday: Had a lovely visit with the wonderful family we’re teaching. We had juice and cake and talked about the Plan of Salvation. :) They’re getting married, but first he has to get divorced. They should be getting baptized in a month. :)

Saturday: Lovely times with lovely members. And lots and lots of lessons. And a very wonderful activity where Shrek 4 was on and lots of yummy food. Yay! I love these peeps of Aracruz. A lot.

Sunday: Wonderful church. Had 11 investigators there! Yay! But 4 of them left early. :( We are teaching some fantastic souls, they just have to choose to follow what they’re learning.

Twas a grand week. My love and gratidude for everything that happens grows everyday. And it just amazes how minutely Heavenly Father works in every aspect of our lives. As a wise soul once told me, “Not even a falling leaf goes unnoticed by God.” :) He knows us all and what is best for us! 

I do believe this is my last week here in Aracruz. More than 5 months I’ve been here. It is most likely time for change.

Boa semana para vocês! 

Boa tarde!

A lovely quote that my dear sister sent me…
“what if you woke up today, with only the things, that you thanked God for yesterday?”
Amém. :)

Another week goes by. Weird how time is. I’ve got 11 months on the mission tomorrow. Estranho.
Well no time to say much, but just look at the pictures and see what I’m up to. Oh hallelujah for fotos.

Had some very lovely festas this week with some very lovely people. Transfers are in 2 weeks and seeing as how I already have 5 months here in Aracruz, it might be my last two weeks with these blessed souls.

Had some marvelous FHEs this week. I made brownies and cookies and it was pretty heavenly. 
My toe is doing great. :) The nail will soon be growing back I hope.
I ate some little fishies this week! They were delicious! It had been so long without fishies! Yum.
It’s getting hotter here. Eca. I’m not a very big fan of heat. I miss snow. But I make a sufficient amount of paper snowflakes so it’s all good.

Have a lovely week full of inspirations!

-Sister Owens

Boa tarde!

A lovely quote that my dear sister sent me…
“what if you woke up today, with only the things, that you thanked God for yesterday?”
Amém. :)

Another week goes by. Weird how time is. I’ve got 11 months on the mission tomorrow. Estranho.
Well no time to say much, but just look at the pictures and see what I’m up to. Oh hallelujah for fotos.

Had some very lovely festas this week with some very lovely people. Transfers are in 2 weeks and seeing as how I already have 5 months here in Aracruz, it might be my last two weeks with these blessed souls.

Had some marvelous FHEs this week. I made brownies and cookies and it was pretty heavenly. 
My toe is doing great. :) The nail will soon be growing back I hope.
I ate some little fishies this week! They were delicious! It had been so long without fishies! Yum.
It’s getting hotter here. Eca. I’m not a very big fan of heat. I miss snow. But I make a sufficient amount of paper snowflakes so it’s all good.

Have a lovely week full of inspirations!

-Sister Owens

August! I believe it is now getting much hotter here in Espírito Santo. Everyday I’m reminded of how I am not a big fan of the heat. :) It’s not too wicked hot, but my goodness how I miss making a good snow angel now and again. :)

This is the last week of the transfer. I’m excited for transfers. I’m needing some sort of change. I’ve been here for 4 months and I seem to be talking with all the same people on the street. I don’t really want to leave Aracruz because I really love these members and recent converts so so much, but I think I need a little change. We’ll see what happens in a week.

Had a lovely week. Had a wonderful Helping Hands service project in Colatina. “Mãos que Ajudam.” And I got to wear tie dye and jeans! Twas fantastic! And there was a reporter there and she interviewed me (just because I’m from the USA) and it was funnnny. It might be on youtube if you look up “Mãos qu ajudam Colatina 2011” but I don’t know for sure.

Then we had FESTA JUNINA at the church on Saturday night. Basically the typical costume is like ugly, hence the pictures with us with unibrows and blacked out teeth. :) You just go kind of redneckish style and there’s fun little dresses too, and dances and yummy food and everything. Twas a lovely festa and it was so funny when us 4 got to the church dressed up nice and lovely with our braids and blacked out teeth. I love Brasil.

Tis marvelous to be a missionary. I’m just learning oodles everyday. I love these people a lot a lot and things are going pretty well. We’re just searching all the streets to find our elect family to baptize, but we haven’t found them yet. You’ve just got to endure to the end. Enduuuuuuure memso. 

I’ll send lots of sunshine your way. There’s too much here. :) 
PS We discvovered a store that sells brownies! Yahoo! And I made cookies this week for a birthday party with one of the elders in our district. Hallelujah for cookies. Oh the joys in life.

Tchau!


Chelsea’s at the end of this video:
http://murilovisck.blogspot.com/2011/07/colatina-es-reportagem-da-globo-sobre.html