If one more person tells me i look like im 15, im going to flip a brick

Usually the conversation goes like this: "wow how did your mom let you leave home for so long to come to a different country?"

"oh well she knows how important the work im doing is, and supported my decision!"

"but, youre so young"

"i turn 20 in setember"

"oh, your face looks 15"

"OH COOL" "wanna come to church sunday or what?"

brief summary of the week: everyone and their mother was asking us for marriage advice. I was like "bruh I dont know, but read this article that the prophet wrote"

weird fact: I dont really cry anymore. People who know me, know that im a cryer, with everything. But I think having so many people crying to us everyday about their problems, Heavenly Father turned me into a tough nut so I could bear it all and be emotional stable enough to help them.

We have a less active who has SERIOUS financial troubles. Her house is a tiny wood shack, and shes had a month without light or water because she cant work because she's 70 and has alot of back problems. This week she told us she qualified for help from the government and will start getting an income to pay some of her bills!!!!!!!! but then she said "girls, im going to need your guys help with something" and we sais "what is it?" and she said "can you teach me how to fill out the tithing slip when i get my money?" and then i almost did cry because her faith is so strong. UGH I LOVE THE PEOPLE HERE. 

Homework this week: In praise of those who save- Presidente uchtdorf

Its the talk im using to help all these people help their families haha

BOA SEMANA PARA TODO MUNDO!!

Love, Sister Lipps 

Pictures:

one of our activities this week at the church!

We made cute little cards to leave for the members after lunch :)

I love sister carriel so much because our weirdness really clicks 

another family home evening with investigators!!

Sunday morning, going to be annoying and wake people up for church :) 

Things I lost this week: half of my mission, my daily planner, my cool

Everything thats happening in my life right now can be explained by Jacob 7:26

"the time passed away with us, and also ourlives passed away like as it were unto us a dream" 

My mission and my days are passing so fast, as if they were dreams. I have dreams sometimes that Im home and in my dreams all I want to do is come back to Brasil. True story;

This week my newborn arrives! (aka I complete 9 months) Pictures to come next week....

Im the least organized person with the greatest desire to be organized, so I HAVE to write EVERYTHING down in my planner or else i will forget it ALL, and then this week we were in uruguinana on exchanges and I FORGOT MY PLANNER THERE and i almost cried/started questioning my whole life because I cant function without my planner. So that was interesting. This week the sisters are going to send it to me, so until then im kind of coping. 

I LOST MY COOL IN A LESSON SO HARD YESTERDAY. Seriously, usually Im pretty good and trying to be patient and stay calm when people reject everything I believe in, but YESTERDAY we had a lesson with this 20 year old guy we met, and it wasnt going very good just because he kind of wanted to tell us the whole time why the igreja de graça is perfect and whatever. BUT I have ridiculous trust in the power of the scripture Moroni 10:3-5 to bring the spirit and invite them to pray and if they pray I KNOW THEYLL GET AN ANSWER. So the whole time I was just thinking "okay we just need to get to the book of mormon, lets get to moroni and he´ll be humbled and itll all be good" and then we got to the part of the lesson, and I read him this scripture and it was AWESOME until I asked him what he understood and he said "God is god" or something like that that didnt have anything to do with it, and i said "Okay yeah buddy thats true,but ACTUALLY this scripture invites us to pray. do ou want me to read it again?" and he said "no, it didnt even pray attention the first time because I dont believe in anything it says in that book of the mormons" 

OH YOU GUYS, SOMETHING HIT ME IN THAT MOMENT, AND IT WASNT PATIENCE. I literally could FEEL the anger rush through my whole body and heat up my face because I could believe he said that and didnt even listen to the scripture, and I pretty much exploded and said/yelled "OH REALLY? YOU THINK PRAYER IS A LIE? BECAUSE THIS SCRIPTURE SAYS WE NEED TO PRAY, I DIDNT KNOW YOU DIDNT BELIEVE IN THAT" and then he said "oh whoa okay obnviously prayer is important" and i was like "YEAH OBVIOUSLY IT IS AND OBVIOUSLY ITS TRUE AND OBVIOUSLY YOU NEED TO STOP DENYING GOD AND DENYING THIS BOOK YOUVE NEVER EVEN READ" and then i said very loudly some other things I dont remember in the heat (literally) of the moment and at the end looked at sister carriel and said "ok im done, you can finish talking to him now" 

and the funniest part was that we were with a member, a 17 year old girl from our ward, and she kind of burned him too. But hey, it was a learning experience.And I think thats the most angry ive ever gotten with one person in one moment in my entire life. Amen.

The best part of the week was my personal study this morning and I found an article in the Liahona called "being weak is not a sin" and it was WRITTEN EXACTLY FOR ME. Seriously, I had all this confusion because of all my weaknesses and had convinced myself that I was done for because Im not a perfect person, and this article completely calmed my heart and answered all my questions and now I know that we dont have to repent for our imperfections, we rely on gods grace to be humble and faithful and be bette everyday! (so everyone go read it, april 2015 liahona)

I STILL LOVE BEING A SISTER 

SISTER lippsies

pictures:

Family home evening

district meeting 

me and sister gibson!

all the sisters in urugiana

my dinner lol

me and this dog that looks SO MEAN but is the chillest ever

heart lollipops :) 

*raining outside* *wind feels like knives* *got rejected 7 times in a row* *starts singing "i hope they call me on a mission" crying*

yesterday on the phone with our District Leader

Him: Ola sisteres! como foi a semana de vocês?

Hello sisters ! How was your week?
Me: Foi boa! 

Was good!

Him: Foi mesmo?

Really was?

…

Me: Sim! Porque se eu falar que foi ruim, Satanás ganha...........

Yes! Because if I say it was bad, Satan wins ...........

…

Hey, everyone has rough weeks. Lol last night EVERYTHING fell through, and we walked around in the cold at 8 at night looking for houses with the smell of "love, compassion, and tea and crackers"

AAAAAAAAAAAAND i already ran out of time. but here are some pictures:

last moments with Sister Neves! We had a family night and it was AWESOME and we made pizza and I drank coca cola for the first time in 9 months.

MY NEW COMP SISTER CARRIEL! She is AWESOME! We get along so so so well. its a hoot. I love it

We had a baptism!! Actually it was in the ward of our Zone leaders, but the guy used to be in our ward and moved 2 weeks ago so it was kind of our baptism too.

LOVE YOU GUYS,

SISTER LIPPS

im sitting in this lan house thinking about how hungry i am

this internet is being super sucky right now, so forward apologies for the brevity of this email

Okay so transfers came out this week and I survived but Sister Neves didnt :( we are currently mourning. My new comp gets here tomorrow! And itll be kind of weird I think because she has 6 more months than me, but Im going to be the Senior still. talk about an awkward turtle amiright.

So lots of things happened this week and I already ran out of time to tell them all, but we had the visit of our new mission presidente and his wife! Presidente and Sister Louza! They are super sweet and already seem SO different from Presidente and Sister Parrela. For example:

Sister Parrela: "milk and bread are from the devil and will give you bacteria. Just eat lime and itll solve all your problems"

Sister Louza: "Eat whatever you ate at home, just try not to eat pizza and xis every day" #LIBERDADE

Hahaha all jokes aside, I think theyre going to be super awesome and very loved here!

I had a REALLY awesome personal study today about Faith, and how we can really build a foundation of faith in our lives. Its like it says in ether 12:6, we arent going to have this UNBREAKABLE, UNSHAKABLE  testimony, if we dont have a TRIAL of our faith. Everyone read the talks "mountains to climb" and "faith is not by chance, but by choice" :)

LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY AND LVOE YOU ALL!

Sista Em Lippsies

pictures:

a one foto summary of why Im going to miss sister neves so much. HAHA shes a crack up. I love foot rubs.

a bunch of pictures from our conference! I love my zone. Its cool being the only sisters because it automatically makes you the favorite sisters of the zone. true life 

"ADOPT AN INVESTIGATOR" -> BIG SUCCESS YOU GUYS

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! I woke up and started singing the star-spangled banner for sister neves and she said "please stop" #AMERICA. im wearing red white and blue and ate a hamburger for lunch so im about american as you can get in Alegrete, Rio grande do sul, Brasil.

ALSO today im 8 months old. I DONT BELIEVE HOW FAST THIS IS GOING. also i dont believe that after 8 months in this freaking country, i still have moments with portuguese when im like "wait what the heck is going on? what are you saying? sister neves please fill me in" lol @ this life. 

OKAY SO OUR ADOPT AN INVESTIGATOR THING WAS A BIG HIT. and my that i mean we have low expectations due to past failures and we thought no one would do anything, but like half the people actually visiting their "children" we gave them!!!! WOOHOO. Actually it was really awesome having the members telling us about the visits they did and how they were so courageous to go out and find this person theyd never met to read the Book of Mormon with them and invite them to church and I was so proud of them because everyone was like "have you visited your kid yet? My kid is coming to church this week!" #proudmomma.

So the crappiness of last week got made up for because we were BLESSED with 8 investigators at church on sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And i bore my testimony and in summary said, "im happy the church is true amen" and it was a GOOD day! ALSO my prayers were answered literally because we had 4 days this week that it was actually warm and not raining!!! i didnt even have to use tights!! I was so blessed. For reals.

Fun fact: we have a less active that we found and he's 70 and he came to church this sunday and he is so precious, and every time he prays he starts out with "Good afternoon my heavenly father" AND ITS SO PRECIOUS. I love it.

 OKAY SO we have this family that we are working with, Isaac and Glaucia and their two sons, and it is going AWESOME! We found her knocking doors, and she was super stressed and said basically "my kid is sick, i dont have time for this" and we said "PLEASE LET US HELP!" and after some persuasion she let us in and we went at it and cleaned her entire house for an hour and talked her her about her life; We found out that she had moved here 5 months ago because her husband is in the army, and they dont know anyone and dont go to any church but shes always relied on God in her life. So  its kind of a long story, but in summary we left that day just saying a prayer, and we came back the next day with a member, and a few days later she TOTALLY had a spiritual experience and knew that the Book of Mormon was true, and they husband was super shut off, but we introduced them to people and took them to activities and THEY CAME TO CHURCH THIS SUNDAY and they are saying prayers as a family and her husband is gaining a testimony and she told us she never felt this desire to get to know a church un til she met us and basically IT IS PERFECT (except the fact that they are not legally married yet....................)

And yesterday after the fast and testimony meeting she said "if i went up there to bear my testimony, i would talk about this...." and bore her testimony to us about all the changes happe ning in her life, for the better, since she started meeting with us. SO basically they are so prepared and a blessing from on high.

My message for y'all this week is about bearing your testimony, because we all gotta do it and if not were going to lose it!!!! 

I LOVE THIS CHURCH. I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY.

SISTER LIPPS

pics: The son of our ward mission leader is going on a mission this week to argentina!! We gave him a present and went yesterday to say a prayer with their family and it was super special and reminded me of my departure and we all cried. 

Family home evening with investigators!

Our district!! love those guys

Me and sister neves were super legit and made lunch one day when ours fell through.

(lol another day our lunch fell through and we went to a members house and read them Alma 8:19 and they let us eat with us hahahahaha every missionary has to use that scripture) 

 

going to find people sunday morning!

happy 8 months to me!

my american lunch hehe

 

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