WHY I PRAY FOR PATIENCE AND NOT FOR STRENGTH

"Sister, let's pray for patience, because if we pray for strength, I'm going to hit someone"- a one sentence summary of our week. 

YEAH THIS WEEK WAS KIND OF SUCKY BUT ITS OKAY BECAUSE I HAVE 40+ MORE TO IMPROVE.

Here's the thing: everyone in this city has depression. EVERYONE. I personally believe its because of the cold and because they dont have a movie theater, but thats just my opinion. But really, we just deal with alot of sad people and sometimes I feel it rubbing off on me and have to think "STOP AND BE HAPPY SO THESE PEOPLE CAN BE HAPPY TOO"

okay Im just going to summarize some of the good points this week:

Sister Neves and i had A REALLY GOOD IDEA to make the members not be so lazy and get them PUMPED about missionary work!! We basically made up our own visiting teaching program but with our investigators and the members but were making it an "ADOPT AND INVESTIGATOR" and basically we ran around church on sunday giving all the members pieces of paper with one of our investigators or less actives and yelling "CONGRATS YOU HAVE A KID! ITS A GIRL! SHE'S 30 AND LIVES ON SUCH AND SUCH STREET! TAKE CARE OF HER!" and it was pretty awesome so we'll see if these people actually take care of the kids we gave them haha. 

On Sunday morning we were running around trying to bring our investigators to church (no one came btw............................) but we ran into a 17 year old girl in our ward and she was also running around trying to bring her friends and some of our investigators that she knows and it was super funny and we were so proud of her.

AT church I also gave a talk in sacrament meeting about missionary work and rescuing lost sheep and all that, and the WHOLE TIME sister neves was sitting in the back row making hearts with her hands and making kissy faces at me HAHAHA i couldnt even look at her, I love my companion. 

We have a family of a mom and her two daughters that we are working ALOT with and they'll probably be baptized sometime to July, because they're not ready yet so we dont want to throw them in the font just for fun ya know. We had an awesome lesson/FHE with them yesterday and they had other non member friends there so we talked about the book of mormon, and I asked the 8 year old girl Raqueley "what is the book of mormon?" and she yelled "TRUE!" hahahahahaha it was so perfect. i love her.

We also talked with the mom, Kelly, about how she can really receive a solid answer that the BOM is true, and it strengthened my testimony of prayer, but not just prya but SEARCH, PONDER, PRAY, AND LISTEN. We invited them all to find a quiet moment in their day to really read, and really pray, and after just listen, find some time to search for peace and invite the Spirit to enter into your mind and your heart. SO in summary, it was super great and totally what they were needing.

We had a movie night this week in the church building, and we were sitting in their with our investigators when the 6 year old daughter of out ward mission leader ran in and said "SISTERS! COME HERE! DAD'S TALKING WITH SOME GUY THAT BELIEVES IN THE GOSPEL!" so obviously we were like "NOBODY MOVE!!!!!!!!!!!" lol and then we went and started talking with this guy that isnt active in the church and has alot o problems and we had a really spiritual lesson with him talking about repentance and we all cried.

Yesterday we had another lesson with him and I started talking about the difference between testimony and conversion, and i read alma 23:6-8, when the lamanites were baptized, and it says that those of them that layed down ALL their weapons of rebellion, as to not fight anymore against God, were the ones who were truly converted. After I explained that, this guy were teaching looked me straight in the eye, and said "So, what are your weapons of rebellion?" BOOM. SPIRITUAL PRICECHECK. 

We all have things that are holding us back from being truly converted to the Lord, be in pride, stubborness, laziness, selfishness (all of which are some of my weapons). But step by step, we can really overcome these weakness and give our whole soul unto Him! And the first step is recognzing it!

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY, even on the pretty sucky weeks lol.

Love,

SIster Lipps 

also i just remembered that one night this week sister neves woke up at 1 am and said "sister, SISTER!! do you think im robbing god because im not paying enough with my fast offering?" 

just a good glimpse into life as a missionary....................

Pictures:

When you let a 9 year old do your makeup and she makes you straight up barbie

Mini waterfall! the only up side to all this stupid rain

COOKIE DOUGH! i teach everyone here how to make cookies lol. also they thought I was crazy because i was eating the raw dough, and then Raqueley took a piece of the dough to eat and said "LOOK IM AMERICAN!" hahaha #VERDADE 

I'm such a lazy person

im such a lazy person.

my problem is that I really like to READ emails instead of write them. but we'll see what cool things I can make up to tell you guys lol.

Sister Neves and I this week are having a problem and the problem is that THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE HERE THAT PREACH BLASPHEMEY. hahahaha our weekly goal is "dont argue with people that teach apostasy". as my testimony has gotten stronger, and my portuguese better, its just getting harder to not call people out when they try to tell us false doctrines and all that crap. highlight of this week was someone telling us "jesus christ doesnt have a body"???????????? brb praying for patience because if i pray for strength ill end up hitting someone (jk) (kind of)

We are getting alot of new investigators and teaching more than ever before, but still our baptismal propsects are looking so so small. BUT we make goals to show our faith and and the end of the day we look at what we did to count our blessings :) weve started the good habit of talking with EVERYONE on the street! even when were late for something (which we always are) we try to use 30 seconds to invite someone to learn more about the gospel! 

Ive come to appreciate SO much our living prophet and apostles. THE LIAHONA (MAGAZINE) IS MY FAVORITE THING IN THE UNIVERSE!

i was studying an article about fathers, and how God is our perfect father. At times we open the box of life and get so confused and frustrated because we see so many little parts and big parts and dont know how it all fits together. But God loves us, he wants us to be successful, and he gave us the INSTRUCTIONS! Prayer, the scriptures, the words of the living prophets, they are all that "random" little white packet of directions that no one really reads as they should. He didnt send us here alone! He doesnt want us to be frustrated! Im grateful for a loving Heavenly Father (and an awesome earthly father, shout out to my pops) who gives us so many tools for success and happiness. 

I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY! 

Sista Lipps 

pictures:

us being super housewifey and making pizza and wearing turtlenecks

Noite familiar and i taught them how to make cookies!

it was the birthday of our little investigator yesterday so we gave her chocolate and took a pic outside of the church building! 

impromptu photoshoot in the street lol 

GETTING PROPOSED TO ON BRAZILIAN VALENTINES DAY

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

story of my life. drunk brazilian men.

So we had a pretty pretty solid week but I already ran out of email time to tell all y'all about it, but just know that Im good and its all good despite the fact that im freezing my toosh off here because saturday night I saw A SHOOTING STAR. THE FIRST ONE IN MY LIFE. It was magical.

Here are some photos from this week: We had divisões with our sister training leaders so it was basically a missionary sleepover! And i got to see my dear Sister Macedo again!

And also me and Sister Neves bought xis at this (literal) hole in the wall place and it was also magical.

Im SO tired but that doesnt even matter because mini miracles are happening here!!

SO ANYBUHJEW, I love you all, I love this gospel and the happiness it brings, and I love being a missionary!!!

SISTA EM DAWG

hey hey heyyyyyyyy

So this week was pretty cray cray because of transfers and everything but IM SO HAPPY I REALLY LIKE BEING A MISSIONARY ITS KINDA RIDICULOUS.

Estou na santa terra de ALEGRETE! Im just this week getting to know the area, getting to know everyone here, including my companion lol. Sister Neves is from MANAUS so thatsd pretty legit because its straight amazon all up in there. She has 4 1/2 months on the mission, but shes a POWERFUL missionary, she's so awesome!! She's kind of a big dork but she's hilarious and sometimes tells me what to do because her personality is like that but I just let her always get her opinion out and then we decide together what we're going to do and it works out just grande! We live by ourselves because were the only sisters in our zone, so that's kind of lame but we make the best of it by being weirdos and jumping up and down in the morning to get eachother pumped! Lol yesterday we accidentally flooded the apartment (well it wasnt us, it was the toilet) SO THAT WAS FUN But we got it all sorted out so yeah thats life.

The people here are REALLY COLD. (literally, its cold here), but yeah theyre a harsher group of people here, not every opens their door for us and it takes everything I have sometimes to not call people out on their blatant lies when we try to do contacts and they make up something, or reject us straight up. BUT IM BUILDING CHARACTER AMIRIGHT. Lol but were working REALLY HARD and managing to teach and yesterday we had a miracle sunday because we had SIX INVESTIGATORS at church!!! (for those who dont know, thats a lot for me. most sundays in São Gabriel we had zero lol life is rough) SO were already super duper blessed.

We had our mission conference this week and it was the last conference of Presidente and SIster Parrela because theyre leaving this month to go home! So it was pretty sentimental but SUPER spiritual. Presidente talked to us alot of happiness, and the difference between being happy in every moment, and being a happy person. Its not possible for us to be happy ALL the time, because thats just life and emotions and its hard. But, we can CHOOSE to live happily every day! It was super awesome, everyone read 2 Nephi 5:27, everyone CHOOSE to be happy.

I love you all, sorry its kind of short this week, my email time was interrupted by a phone call from PRESIDENTE PARRELA, which is heart attack in a box but im alive, he didnt yell at me, were all good!!

AMOR PARA TODOS VOCÊS!

sister lipps

pictures:

MINHA COMPANHERIA SISTER NEVES

Pictures from our mission conference, and i got to see me beloved Sister Barbosa, my bff from the CTM.

IM TURNED 7 MONTHS OLD THIS WEEK! feeling old 

 Pictures from last week: