Week 70 (03/23/20) "Emergency Flight Home” !!! 

Hi Family & Friends!! 

Some of you may have heard that due to the coronavirus pandemic, All missionaries not native to Brazil are being sent back to the states or to their home country. 

We received a phone call Sunday evening informing us that Emma will be flying out the next day and would arrive Tuesday afternoon. We are happy to to let you know that she made it home safely. 

At this time, she is still in missionary and will be self quarantining herself for the next two weeks. We will update her blog once we find out more. In the meantime, you can still email her at: emma.pierce@missionary.org 

With love, 
Pierce family

Week 69 (03/16/20) "Coronavirus Pandemic” !!! 

Hey Family!

How’s everyone doing?  Hope that this email will find you well, safe, and healthy. Why are we afraid of the unknown? What about it scares us? Maybe more the fact that we feel unprepared? As you know, our beloved Prophet, has advised us that we are no longer permitted to be gathered in large groups, such as church, and church functions, for our protection, because of this virus. I pray that you might all pray that the best doctors and scientist in the world might be blessed with the knowledge to find a cure.

We were instructed by our Mission President to stay calm, and avoid making much contact with people, and be especially careful with people of an older age, as their immune system isn’t as strong as ours. So, my thoughts are to encourage you all to wash your hands OFTEN! Don’t just throw some water on them, use lots of hand sanitizer, stock your homes with good nonperishable food, and pray A LOT!!! 

How might this affect our baptisms, church attendance and proselyting time? Baptisms need to be in SMALL numbers, like the missionaries, someone baptizing, and other men with priesthood to confirm them on the spot. How might it affect our church attendance? We’re not permitted to be gathered in large groups, so we will probably stay home, and study together, and maybe have someone come to our home and bless the sacrament for us.

Side note - I asked President if maybe he could give us sisters the priesthood and we could bless it ourselves, LOL!!! He laughed and said don’t worry. What we know is that maybe not every week we will have the chance to partake of the sacrament but probably at least once a month. Which I’m hoping it won’t be months but just maybe 1 or 2. He also had said that maybe we can go to the home of someone we are teaching and watch a film with them about the church. Proselyting will remain the same, for now, but just use caution with contact. And also, we will not have no more district council until further notice.

I loved what president Santos also said that lessons will be different, they should and will be more spiritual. As I wrote this a few days ago, a few things have changed. We are now allowed to have district council.

How was everyone’s Sunday? For me it was spiritual. Yesterday morning, we went to our ward mission leaders home, and he blessed the sacrament for us. I do have a great appreciation for the sacrament.  Yesterday when I took it, it’s almost as if I had another outlook on it, and I was brought to tears.

I was so grateful that we have men who are worthy to bless the sacrament. Something so simple but what a privilege it is. I hope that those who have the Priesthood understand what a great privilege they have. So, to those, thank you. 

Later that evening, the other sisters helped a lady prepare for baptism, and it was also very special, and different. Just us missionaries, the bishop, the ward mission leader, and the president of RS and the lady’s son.  VERY few people, and then afterwards she was confirmed.

Afterwards we taught a man, whose religious background is Messianic.  It’s a Japanese based religion, who’s more like into good vibes, help your neighbor, cherish the beauty in the world, etc. He spoke to us as if we were his past ancestors, and he had a message for them.  He said a prayer in Japanese, it was very interesting. We basically taught him that God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are different, and we aren’t Gods yet, He thinks we are Gods, and his religious leader is the same level as Jesus. He respected us, and we respected him, but we’ll see what happens when we return next week.

I think that pretty much sums up my week. Nothing crazy happened or ridiculously funny. No splits or exchanges this week, but maybe next week. We will have to see what happens.

Here are some thoughts I had when I was reading 1 Nephi, chapter 17 & 18.  How would it be if the Lord commanded you to build a ship? Would you ask Him, Are you crazy!  Were in the freaking middle of nowhere, I don’t see a Lowe's or Home Depot nearby, yeah I’m good, thanks God, or say the following?

“Whither shall I go that I may make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me? Let’s try to remember that they couldn’t just asked “Siri, how do I build a ship?” Okay, searching.... I found one way, ask the Lord!!! That’s exactly what Nephi did, and we know HOW much he was blessed for his obedience, and not just him but his family. Also, they recognized their blessings which is something else I admired. 

I LOVE this chapter in the Book of Mormon, and always find it so interesting how many times not just in this chapter but the entire BOM, how the Lord is so persistent on us keeping the commandments. Why do you think that is? 

My question is this week for you to reflect, why do we have commandments?

Love you all, and hope you have a fantastic week!

Com Amor,

Sister Pierce

Week 68 (03/09/20) Singing and “Un-wanted Kissing” !!! 

Hey Family!

How’s everyone doing? It’s so crazy, I just felt like I talked to you yesterday. Time passes by so fast. Well since last Monday, not a lot has happened, but we always have full days of work. 

Monday evening, we had a super fun family night with the family of Renato, a 9 year old kiddo, whose preparing for baptism. His family are members. We shared a message about the importance of baptism and invited the President of the RS and her family to come, and it was cool.

Then we played a game where you have one person in the middle. This person has a small cup of water, and they go up  to your face, with this water, and you have to say a fruit, and everyone say to say a fruit different, or you would get the water in your face, and if you say the fruit that that person in the middle thought of, you would get the water in your face, LOL.

The family of the RS president, Rosi Caldas, they moved here to Barreto’s about 2 years ago, because one of their sons had bone cancer, and now he has a prosthetic leg. Truly an amazing family, very strong in their faith and united. Always helping us in missionary work. Anywho, where I was going with that is that they moved from Manaus, Amazonas. They have fruit way different than here, so it was funny because they were naming all types of weird fruit that doesn’t exist here, LOL. 

Tuesday I had a split with Sister Hammond, whose from Dallas,Texas. I went to stay in her area in Mirassol, cute little town. We had a yummy lunch, and her house was cutely decorated in farm type. Then we had some pretty awesome spiritual lessons, and later that evening we made cookies that were very delicious!

Wednesday, we had district council in the morning. We made the cookies for our whole zone, but it was divided, and the other district went to another building. Sad for them because they didn’t get to eat any of the cookies, but good for us because we ate more! LOL

Afterwards I had splits with Sister Lojo, she is the daughter of Sister Shock, and is awesome. She was a little nervous to be in her area by herself, but she did alright, we just got a little lost. She’s pretty awesome, and from Argentina. Up until 2 years ago, she had no knowledge of the church and was an atheist. Truly Amazing!

Thursday, YEAH SISTER KANNAR again, I missed her. We had another awesome day together, went to an area where we normally don’t work, and its far! OH, I forgot that for lunch we had lunch with a family we are teaching, and it was also super good. Friday, nothing exciting. Saturday, we laughed the entire day. Just at everything, from contacts we made in the streets, to people we were teaching. Which was probably good, so that I wouldn’t have my mind focused on the fact that I was hungry, because we were fasting. (missionaries are crazy for fasting)

Sister Kannar and I are liking to sing in the streets at night, trying to learn hymns. One of the evenings we were passing by and saw a lady. We stopped her and asked if we could sing to her, she said sure. We sang and she love it! She then asked if we could sing to her son? We said okay, but what we didn’t know  is that her son is like  23 years old, and would come out to listen to us sing, without a shirt!  Ha, so we sang and he was like, yeah, that’s so beautiful !! We said “ if you want to hear more hymns like this, you can come to church on Sunday”.  

Then as we were saying good-bye, it was a little dark. While I was giving the lady a hug, this boy is on the side of Sister Kannar. The next thing I saw he almost kissing her!!! Oh my goodness, she moved SO quickly! And was like, ahhhh, sorry I can’t, we have rules!  Some people don’t understand, and he kept asking why???  So I was like, in my head thinking  “freaking heck dude, leave her alone she’s mine”!!  WE can’t because we have rules, understand!!!! I kindly said, sorry we have rules, for our protection. Well we left there and were laughing and laughing and laughing. IT was SOOOOO FUNNY!!

Then as we were laughing, we passed by a house, and I wanted some gum. As I was grabbing my gum and opening the package, suddenly, these dogs just started barking. I thought they were going to jump the fence and were going to eat us! But instead, I screamed, and Sister Kannar did too! Again, she moved SUPER FAST, and of course of gum went flying in the air! Oh, my goodness, we laughed and laughed and laughed!!

Then yesterday at church we had an amazing baby blessing! Usually babies either cry the entire time or they sleep. This baby chose to cry, but as you all know the cry of a baby is so pure. In sacrament we had one lady speak on the importance of reverence. She said reverence is more than just quietly sitting, its thinking of our Father in Heaven above like the primary hymn says. She then spoke about how are we doing with the reverence of Sabbath Day worship. What things should or shouldn’t be doing? Or maybe, what things are we missing that we should be doing? Is our Sabbath day like the rest of the days of the week? Just some good things to think about. Then the stake President spoke, about how we should follow the council of our dear Prophet. 

He posed a question that President Nelson prosed. Why is our Heavenly Father so insistent and constant in His appeal that we should hear His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ?  In John 14:6 we get the answer. In what ways do we hear the Lord? We should make time to truly study and feed upon the words of Christ. As such, when we study, we should also ponder, and then put into practice what we have learned. 

Because of what President Nelson said, in coming days it won’t be possible to live spiritually without the guidance, direction, and constant influence of the Holy Ghost. I would like to challenge you all to ponder these words and be more connected spiritually.

Before I close, I forgot to mention that due to the coronavirus pandemic I will not be able to play the piano for Elder Bednar. All conferences and special events have been cancelled until a later date. I have approximately 9 weeks left until I’m home. I hope you all stay safe and virus free.

I love you all, and hope you have an amazing week!

Sister Pierce 

Week 67 (03/02/20) Week Full of Miracles !!! 

Hey Family!

Well this week was just full of miracles!! Truthfully, I don’t even know where to start my letter, so I’ll just from Monday evening. 

Monday evening, Elder Mitchell calls me at 10:20 at night! Asking if I can give a training for Zone Conference Thursday. What am I supposed to say? NO?  Ha-ha yeah not that easy, so I said, sure.  So that evening, “ha-ha” like 10 minutes later, I was thinking about how I can give the training, I couldn’t sleep, so I started writing some ideas down, but I couldn’t stay up all night since I had to get up early the following day.

The next day would be my first split with the sisters and we would have to get up at 4am to catch the bus at 5.  The hours are a little different because this past weekend, and Tuesday were a holiday/ Carnival. It’s a weekend where people barley dress in clothes, and Drink A LOT of alcohol, and just do stupid stuff, a lot of Brazilians don’t like it and neither do we.  

So we got to the bus stop in time, but the bus didn’t leave until 6 am, so we waited for an hour...then we finally arrived to Ribeiro Preto, which is like 2-1/2 hours away, and just in time to split ways and maybe catch all the right buses so that we didn’t have to wait forever. But of course, that didn’t happen, so we had to wait, and wait some more, then we finally got to our area, I came back with Sister Silva to Barreto’s.

Sister Silva is who I roomed with when I was at the MTC, but then (15months ago) I DIDNT UNDERSTAND ANYTHING, hahahahah and it was so strange because I can understand her now. That was a miracle. Then our splits here was super good, we laughed a lot, and she’s really awesome. She doesn’t have anyone in her family who supports her being on a mission and was baptized about 2 years ago herself. We were able to find some awesome new people to teach, then that evening we went out to eat ACAI, and celebrate 5 months for Sister Gaspar.

Then Tuesday evening, I was up late making cookies for my training meeting. We finally got to bed and woke up at 330 am to finish things and prepared to leave to get our bus at 5, and as we arrived, the bus was pulling out and almost ALMOST missed it!  I was a crazy person and ran right into the front of the bus!  Yeah, I know it was not a smart idea, but we caught it, lol.

Wednesday Morning, we parted ways for another split with the sisters in Votupuranga, Sister Christian and Sister Carvalho. But the next bus to Votupuranga didn’t leave until 11 am, and lunch was like 12-12:30pm, we had to get another bus just to go to lunch in another city, and were  so worried that we were going to miss it, and not make it to lunch on time, but the Lord heard our prayers, we got to the city in Votuperanga, and ran off the bus so that we could see if we missed that second bus, and you would believe it- we didn’t. 

WHY you might ask, but that same bus that we just ran off of, was the SAME bus that was going to the city we needed.....yeaaahhhh, MIRACLE!!! 

Our splits together were good, had some funny experiences. First, we were teaching some people and they had some little ducklings.  I asked at the end of our lesson would it be ok if I held one? They said it was ok, so I said sure, and he handed it to me. I don’t know why, but I screamed and dropped it, everyone was laughing, LOL!! 

Then another family we taught, I asked to use the bathroom. As I was washing my hands, I moved the hair cream to a different spot so I could wash my hands. But instead of moving it, I accidently dropped it upside down and it was spilling out everywhere, LOL.  I was like HECK! what am I supposed to do now? Well I start picking it up off the floor and putting it back in the container.  Then I left the bathroom really slowly, and confessed what happened. Everyone was laughing 😊

Well that night, I was still working on baking some cookies for our meeting. There was no way I could do it all by myself, so I asked the other sisters if they could help me bake the cookies and bring them Thursday for the conference, which they did. I’m super grateful they did. Thursday came, and the cookies were all different shapes and sizes, some burnt, others not ha-ha!!

It’s now Thursday morning.  We had planned to wake up at 4am, to finish things up and get to our bus at 5:50am. Do you know what time we woke up?  YEAH, it was 6am!!!! 10 minutes after our bus left!!

So, what are we supposed to do now?  First, I called Sister Macedo, my SLT companion, and asked what I am supposed to do? The next bus didn’t leave until 7:30am, so I would have arrived late, which wouldn’t be good. Well we hung up the phone, really distressed. And then made another phone call, but this time it was with our Heavenly Father, saying a prayer asking for the Lord to help us, and of course the Lord ALWAYS hears our prayers, especially if our Faith is really strong in that moment. Well, I said a prayer, and afterwards I was looking at the sister’s phone, who could I call? I came across a members name, who the sisters said is super awesome, so I called him, and asked if he could see how much an Uber ride would be to Ribeirao Preto.

Well he was able to find an answer, and it would be about $120 reis (about $35 US Dollars). So, we agreed that either we could pay that amount, and be on time, or take the bus and be there late? We opted for the Uber, and the driver was so amazing. We listened to hymns the entire time we were driving there. I got to finish getting ready for the conference, and sure enough we arrived on time. We split the cost, and she even gave a little discount.

The conference finally started, and this day would be the highlight of my week! I don’t think I’ve ever really told my parents how much I am grateful they encouraged me to play the piano, and to learn, but it has served me well my ENTIRE life. From church to school, and other events. Because almost every conference in my mission, I’ve gotten to play, and I usually play every week for church, and almost every week for district counsel.

Of all the times I have ever played the piano, I would have never imagined, and I’m sure my parents as well, this is something that I’ll NEVER forget. At the close of our conference, President Santos says the following: 

Elders, and Sisters, when I was in the MTC, I went to talk to Elder Bednar and said it would be a dream of mine, if you could come visit my mission in Ribeirao Preto.  It would just be so amazing, and I’m sure he’ll forget, or not have the time, but it’s always been a dream of mine. He continues…. Elders and Sisters, Elder Bednar is making my dreams come true!!! He will be visiting the mission, on the 12^th of March, which now, is next week!  And GUESS who has the amazing opportunity to play the piano, ME!!!!!!

You guys, I get to play for an apostle of the LORD, and also Elder Adikitus (the area president of brasil) I am freaking out!!!! And WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW, I am so excited!!! Thank you, mom and dad and other members of my family, for teaching and encouraging me to play. I love you. 

My training went well. We left and arrived at the bus stop late, and sure enough, they didn’t have any more busses for Barreto’s that day. The next bus would leave at 10:30am, or 5:30pm the next day, Guess what else happened? Our phone was dead so we had to ask around and see if someone would allow us to use their phone to call the other sisters to come get us.  It was a super crazy and spiritual week all in one. I love you and can’t wait to talk next week.

Love from Brasil,

Sister Pierce