Sister Lillie Haggard: August 24, 2015

Weekly Update:

Last Sunday we had a difficult day, but we met Cristiani and her sobrino Allison ( A boy´s name here) and her son Igor. This family is a miracle. We met them because we made a contact with her mom, but Cristiani was home when we interphoined up to the apartment. This week we brought them to a church activity- "Improve Night". I´m not particularly fond of this activity in English none the less Portuguese haha. We were also the first to arrive at the Church, so I was kind of freakining out internally because this was their first experience with the Church and I wanted it to be a good one! We gave them a tour of the Church and it was really good. When the activity started not many people were there, but it worked. Sisiter D. Sousa and I participated in one activity where we spoke "Chinese" and two other volunteers translated what we said in Portuguese. For me this was particullarly funny because I didn´t understand the Chinese sounding words or "translated"version or the translated version in Portuguese because I was focusing so hard to come up with words in Chinese! But it ended up being good and Cristiani came with us to Church and liked it! I was able to bear my testimony that the good feelings she felt there was the Holy Ghost.I love Church, especially as a missionary because the classes teach the people what we will teach. I know that Church lessons are inspiried because this week the lesson was specifically what 3 people in the class needed to hear. We are also continuing to teach sweet Maria, her baptism is this Saturday! WOO!

This week was Sister Mejia´s last, which is sad. She is so wonderful. She will return to Peru and continue medical school.

This week we also had training of the new missionaries, which was super fun because I got to see Sister Covey!

Also, tomorrow we will be getting another dupla of sisters in our apartment and area! I´m super excited! It will be a newb and a trainor.

This week was really special because we were blessed to hear the words of the Apostle Neil L. Anderson. Before our meeting a member- Mirriam and Jussario- offered to take us out to lunch close to the temple and church building. They are super cool and nice.

Elder Anderson talked about the Attonement. I have been thinking a lot about the Atonement. Every single person needs to study the Atonement. Jesus Christ is not soley a moment on the Cross. He lives! We can feel him in our lives and feel the healing power of him when we apply the Atonement in our lives. And we do that when we repent and change. This change is the power of the Atonement and through becoming better mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, siblings, workers, citizens, friends, people we can have true happiness now and joy for eternity when we are able to live with our Father in Heaven forever. If every person understood the Atonement, everyone would want to be baptized! That is why I´m here to share and teach people that God loves them and to give people more happiness. Sister Anderson also said we need to be honest. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are beings of perfect honesty. We cannot give ourselves the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is granted to us by Heavenly Father and he cannot lie and so if we are living how God wants us to live, we will have the Holy Ghost in our lives. But if we are dishonest we are cheating ourselves of the blessings the Holy Ghost brings becasue we can only have Him with us when we are worthy. When we live how God wants us to and are obedient, we are happy!