Week 57

Meet Sister Ramona

Week 57--August 21, 2016

Time on the mission is weird. It goes by too fast. I was talking to an Elder one time about it and he´s like its because it´s the lords time not our time. His time is a lot faster than ours. It´s so true his time is soooo much faster!!  Heavenly Father, I love your time, but could you slow it down for a minute or 2? (;

Alrighty I just need to take a minute to talk about my sweet companion.  Her name is Sister Ramona, she is 21 and was baptized in July of 2014.  She has been a member for 2 years!!  Isn´t that cool to think when I graduated High School she was being baptized and now she is my companion??  Sooo cool!(:  Her family wasn’t baptized when she was, in truth, none of them liked the church or anything about it.  When she left on her mission, her dad wouldn´t even talk to her he was so mad.  So she gets out here on her mission and she´s about a month or 2 in and she gets an email from her dad apologizing for all that he said and for not being supportive of her serving a mission.  He said, “Oh, and by the way, these last couple weeks I have been listening to the missionary lessons and I was baptized last week.”  I know, that’s why I love this church and why I wanted to serve a mission!  MIRACLES!  Last week, Sister Ramona’s dad baptized her 3 siblings!  Talk about blessings from her having the faith to serve a mission!  My sweet companion is reading the Book of Mormon for the first time out here on her mission.  She doesn’t have very much confidence because she doesn’t know a lot of the doctrine.  She has only been a member for 2 years.  Sometimes she gets nervous to teach because she doesn’t want to mess up.  I just tell her to share her story.  Every time she bares her testimony and says why she was baptized and that she has only been a member for 2 years, but felt like she needed to serve a mission, the spirit is so strong!  She has so much faith!  I have been a member my entire life and I questioned about serving a mission at one time.  She is so amazing and such an example to me of what the Church of Jesus Christ is really about.  We don’t need to know everything to be a missionary, or to teach.  We just need to know and have felt the gospel of Jesus Christ change our lives and then have a desire to share it with others.  I love her and I’m so grateful she´s been my companion this transfer. 

By the way….Sister Ramona sure knows how to clean..wow!  To tell you the truth, all Brazilians are super good at cleaning.  All you young men out there, if you want a wife who knows how to clean a house, come to Brazil and pick one!  Oh, and they know how to cook too! (; 

THIS WEEK WE HAD 3 BAPTIZMS!!!!  YOOOHOOOO miracles!!!  The baptism was super special and super neat.  I am so grateful God gave me the opportunity to meet this amazing family.  Fatima is my dear friend that I will have forever.  She is 25 and has 3 kids...ages 10, 9, and 5, she´s been through a lot to say the least.  God sure loves her and I know it because he sent us to teach her.  I’m excited to see her grow in the ward here in Novo Mundo.

We got a new bishop yesterday, he is 25 and got back from his mission 2 years ago! He is already a bishop of a ward!!  He´s going to have big callings in the church, everyone already knows it!  The new bishop is our next door neighbor.  We have the old bishop living in front of us and the new bishop living on the side of us.  I´ve never felt so protected on the mission! (;

My training for zone conference went super good!  I´ll tell you about it next week! Looove you all!!  Have an awesome week! xoxoxox

-Sister Jessie Jaynie Smithie

BATISMO DE FATIMA, LINDIANIE, & LINTIUDE!!!! WOOT WOOT! ((((:

 Look at Fatima modeling, she was so embarrassed to wear this you have no idea! haha

This guy was baptized the same day, he is HUGE!!!  It took 2 guys to hold him down.  

They had to baptize him 3 times because his 

big toe kept coming up!

I gave them the CTR rings and 

they loooved them (:

Lunch at this members cute house....

...the food was so yummy!!!

I was obsessed with these puppies and the member was like, "do you want me to take some pictures of you with them?"....I'm like haha, yeah, sure! 

He took so many and wanted his plants in the background it was so funny(;

Oh Brazil, how I love you (: The whole time I was taking these pictures my companion was like, put your camera away, it's dangerous! People here are always saying that it's dangerous but I'm like, ohh it's fine!!!

(I swear my eyes are open in this picture next to the tree, but you can't tell because 

the sun is so bright) hahaha (;

The members neighborhood.....my companion doesn't like to take pictures with me...:( mom i looked at this catus and thought of you, it was pretty neat!

Mom, I looked at this catus and thought of you, it was pretty neat!

Going on splits is fuuuunnn (: 

Universitario!! WOOT woot!!!