HEY HEY HEYYYY

lols didnt have time to plan an email, but im alive, and imma just attach some pictures, aight?

1. We ordered zone t-shirts! an elder in my district drew them! hehehe guess which one is me (hint: everyone calls me barbie

2. I made sister condeña celebrate her 8 month mission mark even though she thought it was ridiculous WOOHOO for being an annoying companion!!

3. A pretty solid picture-description of my area in São Gabriel. It has to be the most CHILL place in all of brazil. Its just surrounded by miles of fields and trees and horses and cows and its super beautiful

4. ME AND MY BEST FRIENDS. Ugh I love these little girls

5. Us and our rapaz that were making him to vists with us because were going to turn him into a little missionary hehe 

And these next pictures are all going to be an activity and our branch president, who works in a bakery, taught us how to make "sonhos" which are basically just donuts and I ate 9 of them I think...........

ANYWAYS, nothing really happened this week except for ridiculous thunderstorms that keep people from coming to church on sunday..............but hey, life is good, at this point 3/4 of my dreams at night are in portuguese so thats a success!

AAAAAAND my reading assingment for y'all is the family, proclamation to the world! Because I love my family at home and I love my family here and we could all use a little reminder of what this life is all about. Preparing for our eternal life WITH our families!

AMO VOCÊS MUITO MUITO!

BEIJOS,

Sister Lippsie 

(thats what my 4 year old best friend Manuela calls me and its the cutest thing in the whole world)

 

 

EVERY THING WAS ALL WORTH IT

I want to start my little email off this week by thanking all of you lovely people who write me all these weeks and remember me in your prayers every once in a while. Seriously I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH. It makes me so happy to see an inbox full of names of people I love. I SO wish I had the time to respond to every single one, but trust me I read them and love them and pray for you all too! 

We survived transfers this week! Both me and Sister Condena will be staying in Sao Gabriel and workin' our bootys off too!

BAPTISM OF OUR PRECIOUS VICTOR! Hes so cute guys. Go look at the pictures. He turned 12 this week so we already have interviews set up to get him ordained to the priesthood and serve a mission in 6 years (just kidding about the mission part) (kind of)

Friday was the baptism, but saturday was the best day ever because we freaking killed it, worked so hard even though it was 100 degrees and we were melted, managed to teach a ton and really good lessons too, and THEN I GOT A NOTICE THAT MY BFFS FROM PARQUE PINHEIRO WERE VISITING FOR THIS GIRLS MISSION FAREWELL! SO we ran to the church building before our hour to be at home, and I GOT TO SEE FELIPE AND BRUNO, Ugh it was the best day, our two future elders!  

AND IF THAT WASNT GOOD ENOUGH, they told me that SATURDAY MY TWO INVESTGATORS FROM THE FAMILY I TAUGHT FOR 2 MONTHS WERE BAPTZED!!! AH i cried literal tears of joy. 2 months ago I had marked the 16th of April with them for their baptism, and it was ALL worth it. I feel so content, everything real is worth it, even if we cant see the blessings or fruits immediately!!

Happy happy happy, 

Sister Lipps

Pics:

Victor's baptism!!

District pics

MY LITTLE SISTER, ANALY. Actually shes victors little sister, but everyone calls her mine haha shes so cute

PARQUE PINHEIRO FAMILY REUNION WOOHOOOO

Bitten by the Beast

insert creative way to say "hey family and friends"

IM 5 MONTHS OLD TODAY. Whoever said 18 months is a long time lied straight up because this is going so fast. too fast. Ill be home in a year and a few weeks, HOLY COW

Insert here a funny transition to tell y'all about my week

I heard myself speaking Portuguese in a video this week and realized "wait i kind of sounf competent??" so I dont know when that happened but i aint complaining. This man yesterday thought I was from Brazil too, so VICTORY! Also funfact theres alot of germans that immigrated here so a large amount of these "brazilians" actually just look like tanner americans haha.

I got news this week that one of my investigators I had taught for 3 months back in Parque Pinheiro was baptized last saturday! Victoryyyyyyyyyyy. Some missionaries get so protective and competitive with baptisms, and "their" baptisms, and im like "dude chill, its not your baptism, or their baptism, its a soul coming unto christ". So yay for Tatiana in Parque Pinheiro! (the mom of that little baby with bright blue eyes that i adopted)

A member has an avocado tree in their backyard, and we basically did it like a pinata with metal poles trying to hit them down and we ended up taking up a giant bag and i was SO HAPPY.

also theres lots of orange trees along the streets and when were hungry during the day we just pick one and eat it so thats pretty cool amiright?

its especially cool because we are so poor here, haha our mission has the lowest weekly allowance of all the missions in brazil, and i asked brazilians if thats because the food is cheaper here, and they were like "HA no the food here is WAY more expensive" so like WHAT. We get equal to 80 dollas a month for everything

We have an investigator and hes freaking adorable, and his name is Victor and hes 11 and his grandparents are members and hes going to get baptized on the 16th! So you guys will get to see pictures of how freaking precious he is in a few weeks :)

HA GUYS READ THIS STORY:

Ok so heres the thing, I love dogs. and Sister Condena doesnt. So this week we were leaving a house and there was this freaking cute little dog, and Sister was like "yo dog stay away from me" and i was like "no sister, dont be afraid, look at him, hes so cute--" AND THEN THE BEAST BIT MY FINGER. WTH. LIKE I JUST CALLED YOU CUTE AND I TRUSTED YOU AND EVERYTHING. Hahahaha so it actually really hurt but dont worry, i dont have rabies, I cleaned it really well and bandaged it and its all healed now. Like, it didnt hurt that much physically, but emotionally.........................yeah it hurt.

(side note: i already know what my mom is thinking. yes momma, im a big duncecap. Ill never reach down to touch a dog again)

OK so now to the good stuff: General Conference was amazing this weekend. Its almost better than christmas. I learned so much, got so much inspiration for myself and my investigators! I want everyone to watch the talk my President Uchtdorf again, and apply it in your own life. There is no destruction too great, no problem too overwhelming, no mistake so devestating, that it cannot be cured by our Savior Jesus Christ. He is the good shepard. He knows his sheep, and loves them so much, he gave his life to save them. I love my Savior and I love this church and i LOVE being a missionary!

ate mais a gente,

Sister Lipps :) 

K dont have time to explain the pictures but just figure it out, k? ;)

I forgot about Easter...

whats good.

yeah on friday I was like "wait sister condena when is easter?". YEAH for those of you in my same boat, it was yesterday. WHOOPS. Holidays almost dont exist when youre a missionary.

So hey this week we got to start all over again and it was really hard. I dont even know what our zone leaders had been doing for the past 2 months in our area, because we inheirited approx. ZERO investigators.....................#COOL

I started teaching Sister Condena english this week... highlights include "Holy Cow" and "WHAT THE HECK DUDE" hahahaha its great

I ate peanut butter at a members house, that they inheirited from another american missionary that gifted it to them i was like "you guys dont even know how much this means to me". It was the best 15 minutes of my week.

The flowers here are beautiful. I pick at least 3 every day. #HAPPYEM

So this week was cold and rainy all week, so pretty tough to find people, but also its not even winter yet and im freezing so IM A DEAD MAN WHEN WINTER GETS HERE. 

HAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAA YOU GUYS YESTERDAY AT OUR LUNCH WITH THIS LADY IN OUR WARD I ACCIDENTALLY LOCKED MYSELF IN THE UPSTAIRS BATHROOM AND I ACTUALLY THOUGHT I WAS GOING TO DIE IN THERE. HAHAHA IT WAS MY WORST NIGHTMARE COME TO LIFE. OH MY GOSH LIKE ITS REALLY FUNNY NOW BUT IN THE MOMENT I WAS FREAKING OUT, AND AFTER 15 MINUTES THEY FINALLY HEARD ME AND RESCUED ME HAHAHAHHAHA

And my computer just flipped a brick and undid everything i typed and all the pictures i attached and my time is up but everyone watch general conference this weekend and pray i dont "office space" this computer in this internet cafe :-)

Love, Sister Lipps

ESTA SEMANA, ESTA LOUCA CARA

"THIS WEEK, ITS CRAZY DUDE"

HEY IM IN SAO GABRIEL MY PEEPS,

so lets get to it huh

Monday was my last day in my precious parque pinheiro, OH GUYS it was a tough goodbye. We had a family home evening that night with basically all my favorite people, members and investigators, and it was such a blast. We gave a killer lesson about spending time together with your families, and we all told family stories, and then we played games and ate chocolate. And then it was approaching the hour to leave and everyone was lile "NO ONE IS GONNA CRY, OKAY?" and then we cried anyways and took pictures and I made promisses to come back with a cute husband in a few years. 

SO, Tuesday night, after a 3 hour bus ride ALONE, I arrived in sao Gabriel, the area Bom Fim. My comp, sister condena, is precious from peru and Im already learning SO much from her. We are opening the area here, which means that we're both new, and before our area was a part of the elders, but the hardly worked here because its so big, and its still huge, but we arrived without knowing anyone or where to go and without any investigators. SO basically we had to start completly from scratch, so that was interesting....but we had already some little miracles in finding people to teach, that seemed like destiny, like they were waiting for us! 

Thursday we had our mission confernece, so all the missionaries in our half of the mission gathered together for a big spiritual party/training. So that was a good time! And I learned so much! And I love when I get to see Sister Parrela, the president's wife, because she always says "OI SISTER LIPPS OH YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL AND PRETTY AND PERFECT AND WILL ALWAYS BE PRETTY AND PERFECT IN WHATEVER AREA YOURE IN" Not even exaggerating.....haha I flippin love her. 

The Elders in our district our a freaking HOOT. Ha they crack me up with their stories. My zone leader told us THE FUNNIEST story about when he was a newbie on the mission and him and his trainer accidently ate a dessert with wine in it, and they had like 6 servings because they didnt know and it was good, and then had to call presidente parrela and drunkingly explain what happened, begging not to go home because they broke the word of wisdom. OH A GENTE, I ABOUT DIED LAUGHING.

Lols tried to do a contact this week with a lady, but she just tried to convince us to take her cat she found on the side of the road................yeah we didnt get her address...................but sister condena literally almost took the cat................I was like "Uh sister wth are we going to do with a cat???"

OKAY SO SUNDAY MORNING GETS HERE, And were walking to go wake up an investigator for church and PRESIDENTE PARRELA CALLS. SO obvi we were lilke "ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh crap buckets what did we do". he tells us that, although we just got to know this new area, HES SWITCHING US TO THE AREA OF THE ELDERS. WHAT. SO STARTING THIS WEEK, WE HAVE TO LEAVE EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE WE JUST MET AND START OVER. AGAIN. Oh you guys. We about flipped a brick. so thats the story of how we opened two areas in one transfer. Esta louca cara.

NEWS FLASH, I LOVE THE BOOK OF MORMON. Seriously, ive grown to love reading, really feasting on the works of that book. SO EVERYONE READ IT, OKAY? ;)

COM AMOR, 

SISTER LIPPIES 

PICS:

OUR ROCKING FHE

MY LAST MORNING IN PARQUE PINHEIRO 

1. Sister Macedo, my hispanic soul sister from the ctm (SIDE NOTE: I AM REALLY WHITE LOLS)

2. My new zone here and my comp! 

#tchau

Wuddup I got transferred.

10 reais to anyone that wants to come pack for me. Because I dont hate many things, but I think i hate packing.

Ok so basically Ive been such a stress case about transfers, which will take place tomorrow, that I didnt have time to think about what I wanted to say in this email so, This is my apology in advance hahaha.

SO, yeah im leaving Parque Pinheiro amanha, and im going to Sao Gabriel! Half of me was praying I wouldnt be transferred because I love the people here and I suck at goodbyes (translation: I just cry too much and make people feel uncomfortable when I say goodbye),but half of me was hoping I would go because this companionship as been pretty pretty tough. Its a weird thing to spend 6 weeks with only one other person, living, sleeping, eating, you basically only have them to talk to 24/7. When youre companions with your soulmate (Sister Mcknight), it rocks. But when you and your comp arent friends and she doesnt like you or want to talk, its a tough situation. My new companion is another unnaturally short Peruvian hahaha so we'll see how this one goes!

IMPORTANT:

I HAVE A NEW MAILING ADDRESS

Caixa Postal 40

Centro- Sao Gabriel- RS

97300-000

Brasil

If you sent something to the other address already, dont fret, my child, it'll get passed to me eventually!

Ok what even happened this week..............................

My mind is at a blank haha sorry.

Any RM's have good ideas for Family Home Evenings? fun games, interactive lessons?

I want everyone to read the Ponderize talk from the last conference and choose a scripture to ponderize and then email me :)

SORRY THIS EMAIL IS BAD I GET REALLY STRESSED WHEN I HAVE TO PACK. LOVE YOU GUYS.

LOVE, SISTER LIPPS

Pictures:

The infamous crazy family with the ex-voodoo dad. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

Me and my child. SURPRISE! ITS A BOY! (dont freak out, President authorized the sisters to hold babies haha)

Us with our bishop, Bruno (who got his mission call to AFRICA this week), and Felipe!

We went to their house one night, and Tales had made himself a missionary nametag, and before his sister said the opening prayer, he said "BE SURE TO PRAY THAT I CAN BE AN ELDER ONE TODAY"

I'm betrothed to an 80 year old man

Happy 4 months to me! I finish my training this week, and everyone keeps trying to freak me out telling me that im going to train this next transfer HA IM SCARED GUYS. but we'll see. Being a new missionary is like Manny from diary of a wimpy kid when he does bad things and then says "Im only 3" because i dont know what im doing still. Im only 4 months. 

Ok my subject line was kind of dramatic. Im just trying to catch attention, pull in more readers, using that rhetoric I learned in my AP Lang class. The story is that we met this 80 year old man, literally so precious, and the first lesson with him, he cried because he was talking about how lonely he's been since his wife passed away, so DUH i cried because Im emotional like that, and then at the end of our lesson I told him I liked the roses in his front yard, and then he got out some shears and gave me some and it was the sweetest. (And i went home and arranged them in a bowl and felt so at peace with my life. If i was a mission president, I would work in 30 minutes every day to arrange flowers because I love it so much and is the best destressor.)

So anyways, our next lesson he asked us if we could arrange him a new wife hahahahhaha. Love him. 

SURPRISE WE HAD A BAPTISM THIS WEEK. I didnt wanna tell yall last week because I did that once and I think I jinxed it. Laisla, the 12 year old that looks and acts like shes 18 haha. But yeah basically everything went perfect, and we all bore our testimonies at the end and the spirit was SO strong. THE CHURCH IS TRUE. FO REAL. OH and guess who baptized her??? FELIPE. MY NOW ACTIVE LESS ACTIVE THAT IS WORKING ON HIS MISSION PAPERS AND ALSO NOW OUR WARD MISSION LEADER. AH, so many good things. 

My english is awful. I can write and think it english, but coming from my lips, just doesnt work. I was practicing with a Brazilian Elder because hes learning, and hes actually really really good, but yeah its bad. 

It got cold this week! So I guess thats eventful huh

ADVICE REQUESTED: How do I coordinate lessons and lunches and everything with all our investigators and members when they are never home and we dont have time to check every hour to walk by their house and we only get 100 minutes per month on our cell phone. HOW. 3 minutes a day is NOT ENOUGH. Its been stressin me all week 

We went last night to the house of the family that I talked about last week, that is literally always fighting, and found the 10 year old brother locked in a room tied up with his clothes. WHAT. It took 10 minutes before we finally got his older sisters to spill who did it. We were trying to teach, yeah know, but the spirit was just not there so we were about to leave, but I finally convinced them all to come into the same room to say a prayer, and i went to go get the 10 year old from his room, because he was in there crying, and I saw that he had made an envelope and decorated it and put it on his wall that said "Envelope for letters from Sister Lipps" (last week I wrote them all little notes) and my heart exploded and all the impatience left me and I knew that there was no way I could abandon this family or these kids or let Satan get the best of them. So we each went around in a circle, kneeling in their front room, and said a prayer. And it was still kind of tense between siblings but really guys, prayer works wonders. 

My challenge this week is that everyone says their prayers as a family EVERY NIGHT before going to bed. And EVERY MONDAY has a family home evening. It seems like something so little, that we dont realize how big of a difference it makes. 

Outro Estudo Adicional:

Alma 36

The introduction of the Book of Mormon :)

Love, 

Sister Lipps