Quissama :)

Tis the last week of my second to last transfer. Eek the Cat! :)

Sister Cunha and I heard from a little bird that we'll be staying here in this lovely Quissamã land! But not 100% sure. And we might get another sister here too, which woud be excellent and is much needed. And... Presidente will be hooking us up with lovely new bikes! Hallelujah! We need another sister and we need bikes and the world (especially Quissamã) would be a much better place with all of this.

The branch is growing and lots of souls are being baptized and confirmed and more to come! The Lord is blessing us so so much. So much. We are finding excellent people, who change my life everyday! The mission is so good. Is is so good to help people and to forget about your own problems and just focus on the work.

Things are going really well and my time is running out and I don't believe it. This week was so fun and happy. We went to Vitória! And had a festa/conference with the sisters and with Presidente and Sister Araujo. Was so edifying and fun fun fun! Twas nice watching a cartoon or two with them all too! Movie afternoon complete with popcorn! :) Oh the little things in life bring such joy.

And got some lovely lovely mail from Homer seminary class (from Christmas :)) and McKenzie and Joyce and Adriessa (with lots of goodies) and Cottams and Stacy girl and I love mail. Nothing like getting a hand written letter from the peeps you love. Obrigada!

Twas so fun being at the chique mission home with the beautiful beach and was so good having a sleepover with the sisters in Jardim da Penha. So many good thingswhen you're a missionary. :) And then we came back here to Quissamã and had a talent show and it was fun fun fun.

Love you all and don't forget to say your prayers. :)

Obrigadaaaa!

Happy CARNAVAL!!

Happy CARNAVAL! Brasil sure loves a festa! It was/is carnaval weekend
and in Quissama, we live on the main street and all of the floats and
parties and music and everything was right in front of our house. So
it didn`t go to well sleeping last night. :)
And we had to get up nice and early today because woo hoo, festa in
VITORIA with the Sisters! A nice little 7 hour onibus trip does good
for anyone! And we`ll stay here in Vitoria tonight and tuesday night
and back to RIO on wednesday. It is so good being here and is so
beautiful and I love these sisters! Life is goooood as a little
missionary.

This week, was delightful. oh my goodness, the lunches this week were
soooo good. Lots of yummy fish and salads and fruits and of course...
rice and beans! I love Quissama!
Beth got baptised too! Yay! It si so wonderful to be able to help
people and to see people making the right choices! Because everyone
has agency to be able to choose between the good and the bad. (2 Nephi
2:27) And when we choice the good side, woo hoo blessings! When we
follow the Spirit, we are happy! yay!

As you see from the pictures, life is full of adventures and funny
things and wonderful people. We find just what we look for.

A funny for the week: Luis asked me, "Are you from Siberia?"
And good news, I bought some lovely grapes. 2 boxes for 4 reais! Oh alegria!

Have a happy healthy week! Only 2 more weeks to this transfer and then
only one more trasnfer of 6 weeks. Weird. I love this lovely life as
Sister Owens.

And... to everything there is a season. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Happy Valentines Day (a little late)

Happy Valentine's Day! I don't even know what to start writing because I just read emails from my lovely family and looked at beautiful fotos they sent me of Stacy and Scott's wedding! Woo hoo! So I'm just focused on that right now and don't know what to say. But my sista is beautiful and I'm so happy to have a new brother in law. Heavenly Father is blessing us all a lot a lot! 

As always, I still love being here in Quissamã with Sister Cunha and we're happy for P-day today to be able to rest our little minds and legs and make cookies! We're doing lots of Family Home Evenings (que alegria!) and will be presenting the wonder and awe of cookies this week. 

This city is wonderful and we had some lovely adventures this week, riding the free bus to the boonies, teaching one of the Lord's elect as she made tapioca/bijú, watching some meninos make a dog sled (see foto), picking lots of divine fruits, visiting Raimundo and Berenice (eleitos) at their little house in the wilderness and eating pão de queijo (breaded cheese basically) with guava sweet paste doce thing, and more adventures too!
I love Quissamã and the filhos de Deus here.

Another little story... there's a man here named Abel, who goes all around Quissamã putting salt everywhere, on the streets on the sidewalks, we find traces of him everywhere. :) This week we saw him and we always talk to him and invite him to church and baptism, but he asked if he could consecrate our feet with consecrated vinegar he had. This is an offer that you can't refuse, so he got out his bottle of vinegar and poured a few drops of vinegar between out toes. :) Now my feet are consecrated and the work shall continue to go forth. :D 
The field is white already to harvest.

Happy Valentine's Day to you all! :)
Love Sister Owens

Oi Família! Amo vocês muitoooo. E é isso.

Oi Família! Amo vocês muitoooo. E é isso.

Sister Cunha and I are working so much here. Every night we get home like dead girls and then have to do our planning and I always end up falling asleep writing in my journal, or falling asleep praying on my knees (do that a lot), and I need to be better at going to bed at 1030 like a good sister missionary.

Tis grrrreat being a sister missionary and the peeps love us here so much. I love this area and it's so good with my dear companion and would be great to stay here for my last transfer. We have transfers March 6th, who knows what will happen. But whatever happens I know I'll be where the Lord wants me so things will work out.

I'm learning so many wonderful things. I've been gone long time and lots has changed. Soon I will no longer have a single sister and I think at least half of all my friends are married people know and lots have kids too. Interessante né.

I hope and PRAY (lots) that you all are well and happy and healthy and prosperous and that you all are praying lots and studying the good word (aka scriptures :)). Heavenly Father loves us lots and wants us to be happy!

Blog(and put these fotos. thanks stacy girl. you're a champ of all champs.)

Woo hoo! We had a sweeeeet baptism this week in a river! Raimundo is so excellent and he is someone who was truly searching for the truth. And woo hoo he found it and it is so wonderful to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord. I am so so grateful. And soon his dear wife will be a member of the chuch of Jesus Christ too! Yahoo wamu!

I love adventures and this week was full of them! Raimundo wanted to be baptized in a river, so we had to find a river and good baptismal site. Thank goodness we finally have a ward mission leader because he and his wife took care of this all and I am so grateful for the members of the church here. I love Quissamã!

And it is so beautiful here. There are so many fruit trees and we just pick fruit during the day as we're speed walking around. :) I ate a cactus fruit this week, a yummy little red frutinha. Good thing I had my cute little pocket knife with me to be able to cut the spines and pricklies off the fruit. And I saw a cute little owl too! This world is so good.

I'm learning lots and have lots more to learn the next couple months ! I love these people and know that Heavenly Father loves us so much and put angels in our lives to help us, because we all need lots of help! Thank you for your love and prayers and wish Stacy and Scott and happy wedded life!

Happy quase February!

"God does notice us, and he watches over us. But it is usually through
another person that he meets our needs. Therefore, it is vital that we
serve each other."
 -President Spencer W. Kimball

Happy quase February!
I love Quissamã and am a happy girl because we have a ward mission
leader now, to help us in this grande obra! Woo hoo, my goodness we
were needing a bit of help. The members here help us a lot and lot and
we are teaching lots of lovely souls.
But it is still sooooo difficult to get them to church.

But woo hoo Raimundo was at church for the second time this week and
he's getting baptized on saturday. He is soooo goood. He has an
appliance repair shop on the street of the church and one day we just
started talking with him and then another day we went back and taught
him and he is excellentíssimo! And he has been searching for the truth
and investigating lots of churches and beliefs. And through reading
the Book of Mormon, he has a nice good solid testimony and said that
this is the last door he'll be knocking, searching for the truth.
Verdade!

What else... we had a zone meeting and thank you Cottams and grandma
and Hayley and Lilly for my letters. I love mail. Have I mentioned
that?

We're working with some wonderful less active members here, who have
such strong testimonies. One of these members has a chubby little old
dog named Suzie. And he made us a super fantastic lunch the other day,
vegetarian friendly too! Hallelujah!

And another woo hoo, we're making cookies today! And we're going to
have an activity with the young women and make cookies too. Yay
cookies.

Lots to do here in Quissamã and it is so goooooooood. It's been like
100+ degrees but for some good reason, I'm still alive. Tis good to be
alive.

By the way, Jayme, another ol' fellow we were teaching, started
singing "500 Miles" by Peter, Paul, and Mary. PPM, so classic. Oh I
love these peeps here. Time is passing rapido!

Love you all. I'll try and send some Rio sunshine, and por favor send
some cool weather here down under. TTFN! :D

mais uma transferencia em Quissamã!

Just finished a splendid transfer full of faith and miracles and lots of work here in Quissamã with Sister Cunha! And gooooood news (....geico....)! We're staying here together again! So much to do here and I hope I'll get to stay my last two transfers here with Sister Cunhazinha. It is going so well and we are helping lots of blessed souls.

But whatever happens, the Lord knows best and knows very well what he is doing.

Heavenly Father made miracls happn here this transfer! So good. From an area without leadership, with the frequency going down everyweek, with only two baptizing weeks in two years, and now to an area with frequency going up evry week and weekly baptisms! Woo hoo! Lots of lovely peeps waiting for the gospel. The field is white!

 

This week drove back from the bach with 7 peeps in a little green vw bug, and did ti dy with the yw and had lots of lovely fun. I love Quissamã! Yay for missions! And good souls!

I love Quissamã!

I love Quissamã! It's the last week of the transfer and I hope that Sister Cunhazinha and I will stay together here another transfer or two. We're seeing so many miracles and milagres and so many good things! The frequency was up to 56 on sunday! We brought lots of new peeps to church and lots of less actives are coming back. Yay! And baptisms every week! Including a miracle baptism this saturday that came out of no where. Woo hoo!

But when you have faith and do what the Lord asks you and work a lot a lot a lot, you see miracles! Yay! There's lots of little (and big) angels working around here helping us share the gospel and bring happiness to people's lives. Make the world a better place than when you found it.

Muito obrigada for all the letters and little packages and love that you all send me. Makes me a happy little Sister Owens.

Sister Cunha and I get home every night so tired and sweaty because it is soooo hot here. I put my hands in the freezer today and pretended it was snow. Thank goodness there's a lovely little wind here. But it is all worth it and I hope I stay here in Quissamã and that Sister Cunha stays here too!

I'm learning lots of lovely things and we're teaching wonderful people and I love them all so much. We're teaching a guy who wants to get baptized and receive the gift of the holy ghost so badly, but he is not understanding that he has to keep all of the commandments in order to do this and to have the spirit. We had his baptism planned for this week (in a lake!) but we'll work with him a bit more, do some sweet fasting, and next week it should be all good. :)

And I found out that someone we were teaching in Itaparica is now a member of the Church of Jesus Christ! Woo hoo! No effort is wasted. Every leaf counts!

Been watching the Preach My Gospel dvds too and they are fantastico! Life is so funny and weird on the mission. It's like the world outside of my little area doesn't exist. You forget about music and movies and things of normal life. You gain such an eternal perspective and just want to help others do this too.

Because basically the Second Coming is coming and now is the time to prepare (Alma 34:32), a hora é agora! :) Good thing God loves us so much to send Jesus Chirst to be our Savior and that He always forgives us of the errors and sins we commit time and time again. But Heavenly Father's plan is perfect, and He will do everything He can to help us, but the choice is ours.

Thank you all for being so lovely and have a happy day and week and life! :D

Quissamã

Wooo hoo we had another baptism here in Quissamã of a delightful
family who is coming back to church! Enter the fold. :) And we've got
another baptism this week too. Quissamã is so wonderful and it is
fulllll of good souls who want to live the gospel. There are of
course, plenty who don't want to hear too much, but you get what you
look for, né?

There were some lovely sunsets this week and nature is so wonderful. I
love it here in Quissamã because it's like a little town in the
inteRIOr and there are good people and it is so nice having so much
green around, and seeing cows and horses in the middle of the street.

Twas fantastic in Campos this week for conferência de zona!
Conferences and transfers and soooo good. I love missionary festas! :)
Learned lots of wonderful things and was reminded about D&C 18:10 "the
worth of souls is great in the sight of God."
And also about when Christ asked Peter is he loved him and Peter said
of course, and then Christ just said "Feed my Sheep".

So I'm just here in Rio, feeding sheep and it is excellllllent.
Our João (was a pastor), blessed the sacrament this week in white
shirt and tie. Woo hoo. Job well done.
And good news, I'm not sick any more. It was funny at zone conference
because there are four of us sisters here in Rio, one has a cast on
her leg, one went to the hospital before our conference started, one
more with a fever, and I was getting over a month long cough. Don't
know what was happening with us, but all is well now. :)

Sister Cunha also informed me that I was teaching lessons in my sleep
this week, talking all about the spirit and how we have to pray and
ask Heavenly Father for answers, and how because He loves us and is
our father, He sends the Spirit to teach and testify to us. There's so
much to do during the day, that I guess I'm starting to practice
teaching at night too. And last night I dreamed there were a bunch of
cockroaches on me and it was not too lovely, but hallelujah we don't
have cockroaches in our house.

Hope you all are swell and thank you for the love and prayers and
mail! :) Got wonderful letters this week from all my grandparents and
some lovely sísteres and some grand ol´ buddies and a little package
from my mtc comp and mail from fam and lots from dear Cottam fam and
mail and letters brings pure joy to my little soul. Obrigada! Boa
semana para vocês! :D