Week 15 (3-4-19) Phone Call & Pictures 😊 !!!
Dear Family & Friends !
Thank you for all of your love and prayers. This week was very special. I was able to talk to Sister Pierce for about 20-25 minutes before her time was up and she had to go. This was the first time since Christmas I heard her voice. Due to the limited time, she was only able to call and send some photos this week. She told me that she wants to call us every other week and send emails the opposite week.
Hearing Emma's voice was amazing! Her dog, Granby was so excited that he hopped up into the chair and put his snout into the phone as she was talking to him. As she kept talking, he wanted to find out how his Emma was inside the phone. He stayed there until our phone call was over.
In our brief conversation, she wanted everyone to know how grateful she was to be serving our Heavenly Father by sharing the gospel to her brothers and sisters in Brazil. I could feel her love for our Savior as she bore her testimony in Portuguese. I will ask Emma if she can send a short video clip of her speaking the native language sometime. You will be amazed to hear how fluent she has become in only fifteen weeks.
I will do my best to relay her message regarding the photos from memory. She was speaking so fast that she kept saying words in Portuguese and asked me what the word was in English that she was thinking of? As much as I would love to play this version of Portuguese to English Scrabble, I wasn't prepared to communicate this way. I will be sure to have Google Translate open next time we speak.
She told me that Google Hangouts is the only authorized program in her mission besides her email: emma.pierce@missionary.org she can use to talk, text and send photos. This app is available for Apple & Android phones here in the USA and is much easier for her to communicate thru if anyone wants to send her a message, she would love it.
Before she ended our call, she shared her testimony about miracles from our Heavenly Father and power of Priesthood Blessings. In the fourth photo below, the sister on the left wearing the hat found out that she had cancer and started chemotherapy. Several months later, while going thru her treatments she kept getting sick and associated it with the side effects from the cancer and or treatments. Thru additional testing she found out that she was pregnant. Her doctors, friends and family wanted her abort the baby due to the high risk of serious birth defects or the possibility of the baby being stillborn.
They were also worried about her health and told her that if she stopped chemotherapy the cancer would continue to metastasize until it was no longer treatable and gave her a very low survival rate of less than a year. This Sister told her doctors, family and friends that she was not going to abort the baby and stopped her chemotherapy. She received a priesthood blessing and pleaded with her Heavenly Father to protect her and the baby during the remainder of her pregnancy. The time came and her son was born healthy without any defects or complications from the cancer. Additional testing showed that her cancer did not get worse as expected or predicted from her doctors. She has continued on with her treatments and shares her personal testimony about her Father in Heaven and the power of Priesthood blessings.
Sister Pierce ended by asking us to continue to read the scriptures and pray daily. She also wants us to stay warm. She sends her love to you from Brasil.
Delicious rich and creamy ice-cream! Need I say more?
Our mission office in Ribeirao Preto
This is a BAT that I am holding. They are everywhere and
I never thought in a million years I would ever hold one!!
Two sisters and their babies in our ward in Eldorado. Read the
story above about the sister on the left and her miracle baby.
My first area in Eldorado
Sister Rodriguez is not sick. She is peering over the edge to see
how high up we are from the ground that is only held back by
one little railing. This is crazy scary!!
Future Sister Missionaries in our ward
Sister Pierce and another Sister Missionary
Sister Pierce and a ward member
Wigor and his little sister Hagatha
Hagatha at her Baptism! She has so much energy that she
was bouncing off the walls and running everywhere!!
Sister Pierce and two other Sister Missionaries preparing
dinner, can you guess what they are having?
Street vendors selling Churrasco's!
about $3 each in Brazilian Real currency
Churassco's in beef, pork or chicken. They are super delicious!!
Sister Pierce saying good-bye to Sister Rodriguez
as she was getting ready to leave on the transfer bus
Sister Pierce & Sister Castro taking a selfie
Ward member who gave me a delicious recipe.
Sister Pierce said these guys come by about once a week selling
eggs and pineapples. She hasn't bought any, but heard they are great!
approximately $5 for (30) eggs, and $6 for (1) pineapple in Brazilian Real
Sister Macedo with O Livro De Mormon in a homemade chair
swing they saw when out on exchanges for the day.
Sister Pierce wanted her picture taken also,
she's hoping the ropes don't break!!
Getting ready to eat lunch with members!
Manual one of our newest ward members,
he was baptized in January.
I don't have people asking me about "The Book of Mormon",
but I do have them asking about "O Livro De Mormon"
Standing & Sitting on the dock admiring the beautiful landscape
around me with "O Livro De Mormon"
Sister Missionaries are awesome!!!
Zone Conference
