December 21, 2015

Weekly Update:

This week we had a Christmas miracle! Lydia sent us a message that we could stop by her house again. When we went there she said she would come to church again and at church said she still wanted to be baptized. We need to teach her well these next couple of weeks. We will spend Christmas Eve with her and her family so we´re pretty excited for that.

Also I´m so excited to skype my lovely família!!

This week was pretty great too because we had our Christmas party of the mission. It was really far out interior and it was really beautiful. It rained the whole day haha. But it was awesome seeing Sister Covey, Sis D. Sousa, Sis Cannon, and everybody again. We played soccer and a few games but the best part was the mechanical bull!!! 

I´m so grateful for this time of Christmas so that we can all remember that our Savior was born for us! He was born so that we can all be happier, be better people, and have true peace in our lives. I´m so grateful for His sacrifice and the love He gave and gives us everyday. 

Merry Christmas

Feliz Natal 

Sister Haggard 

December 14, 2015

Weekly update:

Last P day Sister Conde and I went to Mercado Municipal and the street 25. The mercado was cool except a vender got me good. There was this rapaz selling fruit and he stopped us. And then he kept cutting fruit and feeding us all kinds of cool fruit and we were like ok, so we felt really obligated to buy fruit. I bought two mangos but he told us the price in grams! When he weighed it, it was 40 reais! I said nope and so he lowered the price but it was still very high, but I felt bad because he fed us fruit! Sister Conde also paid a bunch for some strawberries haha. Now every time we see mangos or at a member’s house Sister Conde explains how I got tricked because of the mangos. We also ate mortadela there! 

This week we had the ward Christmas party too.

This week was a little sad because Lydia cortou a gente- she said she doesn´t have time to investigate the church right now because she has to study a lot for these national tests and work. I think it´s pretty sad when people say this because the gospel and our Savior can help us and bless us so much in our difficulties and challenges. The gospel blesses us 100x more than we can even imagine because it´s for eternity, and also there isn´t a job or test the Lord can´t help us with. But Lydia invited us over for Christmas Eve for dinner after so we´ll see! 

I gave my first talk in church about faith and the Widow of Zarepta.

One time I jumped to get on the bus and there were two Elders behind me. But my skirt wasn´t the flowy kind so my foot went short of where I planned, so I fell on the public bus flashing the elders and the whole world behind me HAHA @_@

This week our whole mission is getting together for our Festa de Natal WooHoo! 

Feliz Natal! 

Sister Haggard 

December 7, 2015

Weekly Update:

It is always hard to think about what happened in the past week because it flies by! So in our area there is the stadium of a soccer team that is very popular the palmeiras. They are green and white. This week they had a really important game and so there were a ton of people and there were a ton of people setting off fireworks, but not super pretty fireworks more like the kind that makes a lot of noise. We knew they won because afterwards in the wee hours of the morning there were lots of cheering and honking and fireworks in the street! This week we kept visiting Lydia and her mom Alice. They are so nice. Lydia has doubts about the Book of Mormon- her brother said some things too he doesn´t like religion- so we assigned her Alma 32 that talks about the word of God and compares it to a seed and how we need to feed the seed with our faith and cultivate it with patience and effort. When we do our part we will be given experiences from our loving Heavenly Father that will testify if the seed is a seed from him or not and we can see the blessing or fruit of this seed and know for ourselves if it was a good seed or a bad seed! 

We also had a cool experience with prayer. Everything fell through and so we said a prayer. Basically every time we do this shortly afterwards we find someone to teach and share the gospel with. We said a prayer, walked up some steps, rang the doorbell of a contact we had, and we were able to teach! 

Yesterday the President met with us and told us that the grandma of my companion passed away. It is something so hard to deal with especially here in the mission, but Sister Conde is really amazing. What a comfort to know that this world is not the end and that our families can be together forever! 

I love you all at home. I hope everyone is well.

Abraços,

Sister Haggard 

November 30, 2015

Weekly Update,

This week we followed up on a referral and found Lydia! When we stopped at her house I didn´t think they would let us in because the house is very chique and fancy. But She opened the gate and we went in and taught about the Restoration with Lydia and her mom and it was such a great lesson. The next day Lydia came to church and said this is what she is looking for! We also found many new people to teach. The Lord is always preparing people for the restored gospel now it´s our job to find them!

This week we also had a split with our sister treinadoras which was good to! But when we had lunch there it was at a member’s home of a very old irmã and the food was very very sketchy so afterwards we ate pastal! 

Beijos e abraços,

Sister Haggard 

November 23, 2015

Weekly Update

A lot happened this week! I was transfered to the area Perdizes which is São Paulo São Paulo. It´s one of the harder areas because lots of the contacts we make in the street don´t live there and its very corrido. It´s also a huge area with lots of apartments, which is tricky. When people ask which area I´m in and I say Perdizes everybody gets the same look like good luck hahaha. But this just means the miracles we recieve will be obvious to see. But the area itself is very cute very city life.  

My new companion is Sister Conde, Minha filha! She is 28 and is from Argentina but lived in Italy and Spain for a long time and likes to travel. She is very relaxed and has a great testimony. 

This week we had tranamento das Sisteres, which is like a multi zona but just sisters. One of the dupla of Sister Training leaders gave a trainamento about aperence, which was pretty funny especially after they passed the microphone around and other sisters shared stories about how their companion stopped them from leaving the house in that outfit and they were very grateful for it haha. Also Sister Cannon arrived!!!!! She is in Butantã, close to the temple and is opening up an area and she will destroy! 

We had Stake conference in the stake here. For the Saturday session we brought an investigator and President Del Guerso called me up to the front to do a practica to explain the importance of the wards helping in the missionary work. The Sunday session was fun too because we got to see a lot of the CTM instructors because our stake encompasses the neighborhood Casa Verde, which is the neighborhood of the CTM. 

Something really sad/funny happened yesterday. So Sister Conde doesn´t know the area here and so in a way we´re reopening this area because neither of us know the area (que bom). And we have to take the bus a lot to get to and from lunch because it's often in the area of the elders and the area is big. So yesterday we took the bus to return to Perdizes and we passed Avenida Paulista which was cool and everything was great, until we realized that we were not returning to our area! We took the bus that was returning to the airport FROM Perdizes! And so we hopped off, waited for an hour for the bus to return because on Sundays they pass a lot less and the bus that returned was the same one and was making a loop to return, so the bus driver thought it was funny too. So ya Perdias em Perdizes!! 

We also had a lunch really cool, where the member chose who gave the message and what it would be about, and so one of the elders, Elder Olsen and I gave our testimonies and it was a great spiritual moment. This area will be a challenge, but I think here I will really learn to develop more faith and strengthen my testimony.

Até próxima semana! 

Sister Haggard

tchau Maria Rosa

tchau Miriam e Jussario

Oi Sister Conde

Oi Sister Cannon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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