Joana
Week 67—October 31, 2016
What a week people! Lets see...
-
Sister A. Smith and I have been
running in the mornings...I forgot to tell you all!! I will finish my mission running...literally.
hehe I always said, when I have 3 months
left on my mission, I will start running/exercising to be a little more in
shape. We run when we can! (;
- We started teaching ENGLISH!!! We teach every
Friday at 7, you are all invited if you want to come by the way! (: I taught English in
Caldas Novas and loved it, so I’m excited to do it here with the ward in Novo
Mundo. Everyone is super duper excited! I think it will be a hit and we hope to get
some investigators while we do it!
-
Mom, I got your package and I was
sooooo EXCITED!!! THANK YOU MOM! I LOVED THE LETTER!!!
- New rule!!! WE WEAR PANTS NOW! Starting tomorrow! It´s the weirdest thing! I don’t feel like a missionary, I feel like a
normal person. I don’t like it, but I don’t
want to get the Zika virus or Dengue fever from the mosquitos. The rainy season is starting here and the
mosquitos are hungry for our blood...so pants will be a good idea! Safety first!!
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!! President Bührer wanted all of us to choose a house
to clean on P-day so we all chose to clean our zone leaders house, and then we had
a BBQ! It was so fun!! Every P-day has been really busy, but it’s
been full of memories, so what could be better? (:
Okay, so I don’t know if you all
remember Joana. She is the lady who had
the dream about the fruit of the tree of life before she even knew about
chapter 8 in the Book of Mormon! Yeah
her! Well, let me tell you her whole
story. Joana´s brother is a member and left a Liahona on her table one
day after visiting. She didn’t read it
and just went to work. She had never been
interested in knowing anything about the church. So one day she went to work (she´s a nurse)
and she saw the elders there (one of the elders had health problems) Anyway, she
had a feeling to talk to them and ask them about their church. One of the elders taught her a little about
the Book of Mormon and then wrote down her address and said, I’ll send the
missionaries who live closest to your house.
THAT WAS MY COMPANION AND ME!! Sister Ramona and I taught her at the end of
July and on the first day of teaching her we marked a baptism date. Joana
had a smoking problem and was also a Jehovah’s Witness, and had been for many
years, so her knowledge of the Bible was big and her doubts about the Book of Mormon
were big too! Every time we set a
baptism date, it fell through because she kept smoking. Pretty soon we learned that her problem with
smoking wasn’t getting better because her testimony wasn’t strong enough. We worked on her testimony of the Book of Mormon
and invited her to read, study, pray and write down questions she had about it.
Holy cow! did she ever have questions
for me? Loads!
I think my time with her tested my
testimony of the Book of Mormon, but it also strengthened my testimony more
than ever! Joana had so many doubts
about the Book of Mormon. I would literally
pour out my soul, bearing my testimony, and I would read scriptures to her that
bear testimony of the truth of the Book Of Mormon. We would invite her to pray and find out for
herself if the Book of Mormon were true. I would cry a lot just wishing and wanting her
to know for herself that the Book of Mormon was true. We prayed and fasted for her, and at times she
wouldn’t answer our phone calls. We
would mark days to visit her and she wasn’t home (she lives 1 hour on foot from
our house and 25 min by bus.) At times,
I questioned if she even wanted to be baptized anymore. Satan put so many
thoughts in her head, and doubts, it was so sad. Satan is so real, and so annoying!!! I told her to stop listening and keep
believing and having faith.
I told her, “you won’t know every
detail about the Book of Mormon in a day, a week, or a month. The first thing you need to know is if it’s
true and that will only come from reading a little bit and then praying and
asking God if it’s true.” At times I would pray and ask God why he sent
me to teach her because she is so elect and needs a missionary that can explain
things better to her, that can help her better than I can.
But now, I pray and thank Heavenly
Father for giving me the honor of teaching her and helping her gain a stronger
testimony of the gospel. I am on the 3rd
companion that has helped me with teaching her, and I have stayed here and
watched her grow and progress. Two weeks
ago I said, “okay Joana, what are you going to do? You have stopped smoking, you are studying
the Book of Mormon, you are progressing.
Are you going to take that next step of faith and get baptized this week?” She´s like, this week? No. I said, “then you choose the date of your
baptism.” “I want you to choose it.” She
chose the 29th of October!!!
Saturday she was baptized and
yesterday confirmed a member of the church!!
You guys, I have never taught someone for so long, 3 months!! I have learned to endure, to not give up on
someone, to look at their progress day by day, to have patience and love. Literally,
my heart has never been so happy. She
still has questions and needs to learn more, but we all do. We all need to strengthen our testimonies, and
now she has the Holy Ghost to guide and teach her more than I ever could!! It was a neat baptism, she bore a sweet
testimony at the end. I was crying the whole time. (;
I love you all!!
- Sister Smith
Joana's baptism!
My hair is so brittle and sun damaged
Cute bug
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