Week 43 I'm in Heavennnn

April 24, 2017

Yup, I literally am in heaven here yall.  Paranaguá is HEAVEN. Paranaguá é CEU.

Let me just tell you how I met our Bishop here.  We arrived in Paranaguá via bus, and when we got off, he came up to us and said, "Hi Sisters! I´m the Bishop! I´m here to help you!  Let me take your bags! Are you guys hungry?? You all will be my daughters!"  (It´s better in Portuguese, sorry I had to translate lol) BUT YEAH.  That night he brought us sandwiches, and then the next morning he brought us hot bread. YUP.  Heaven yall.

I don´t know if I mentioned last week, but both my companion and I are new here.. so we don´t know how to walk around our area etc!  BUT wait.  The members here are AWESOME and one of the young men/recent converts led us around each day showing us where our investigators live, who is a less active, who is a member etc.  

YUP.  It´s heaven here!!!

AND GUESS WHAT!!! MY COMPANION IS SISTER COUTINHO.  She´s Brasilian. We shared a room in the MTC!  And guess what?! She lived in Provo for a year and a half before the mission to learn Portuguese! WOOP!  I love her!!!  So for my entire mission I have been literally praying for a companion who likes to run and eat healthy like I do.  AND GUESS WHAT!  Sister Coutinho does!  

Guys.  For the first week since my mission has started, I have been able to run 4 times!!! It was MARVELOUS. I am so happy. SO happy!!!!!! All of you have already served a mission know how stinking great it is to  have a companion who likes the same things as you.  Literally heaven ❤

And we are already starting to get to know our area and our investigators as well!  We found a woman, Mayda, this week who came to church with us and I´ll keep yall posted on her progression!

But basically, Sister Councill is super happy and pleased with life.  I just want to testify to you all that I know God loves us.  I know He worries about us, about our plans, about our desires etc.  I know HE has the PERFECT plan for each of us.  I have felt that this week. He gives us hard times, and He blesses us with good times. And, all of it is for our well-being :)  

Trust in God, because He knows YOU, and knows what is best for you,

xo Sister Councill

 

 

I don´t have a ton of pics, but here they are!

(no in particular order)

Last hug with Sister C. Silva 😖 She´s now home!

my new companion!  Sister Coutinho

My AREA! There´s mountains in the distance, palm trees.. heaven..

A chocolate easter egg! It´s tradition here to buy these for Easter!  And I bought one after, because it would be cheaper ✌

 

 

Week 42 Transfers

April 17, 2017

Well, wow, I have sooo much to tell ya´ll!!!

First off, fun fact, I´m here in a mall  emailing you all!  Why is that interesting?  Because missionaries can´t enter shopping malls.. haha.. but we got permission because we´re not in our area yet, so WOOP. 

BUT GUESS WHAT.  I´m getting transferred!  Goodbye Fazenda Rio Grande and HELLO Jardim America!  My next area will be in teh city of Paranagua.. which is the BEACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Guess who is pretty stoked??? this girl.  Because it´ll be a little bit warmer there, which is fantastic because it´s going to be winter here soon, and Brasil doesn´t have internal heating ✌

Also a few weeks ago I wrote to my Mission President saying that I was feeling too comfortable in my callling and area.. and guess what?  I just got called to be a STL (Sister Training Leader) 😯 So that means that I´ll get to take care of other Sisters!  I´m excited, and this is going to be quite the adventure! 

Man.. it was pretty hard saying goobye to people in Fazenda... goodbyes are just hard any way you look at it.  I told everyone that I promise to go back and visit (when I have money 😂)!!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! I dyed eggs all by myself last Pday!  Also I made Cinnamon Rolls to celebrate!  This week I also tried making applesauce (cuz Brasil doesn´t have it)  and it actually turned out pretty okay! 

Yesterday in Sunday School the message was about our Testimonies, and how our testimonies are our foundations. 

Alma 32:39 says..

"Now, this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit thereof would not be desirable; but it is because your ground is barren, and ye will not nourish the tree, therefore ye cannot have the fruit thereof."

I love this scripture.  Because it says that we can have a knowledge of something, for example, that Christ is our Savior, but if we don´t nourish this belief, we won´t have the fruits of it.  We have to constantly nourish our beliefs. 

How do we do that??  Praying, multiple times during the day.  Reading the scriptures, EVERY day. Going to Church, every Sunday and partaking of the Sacrament. 

But I would like to pose a simple Q for you all.  What are you doing to strengthen and nourish your testimonies, and how can you be more diligent?

I know our Savior Jesus Christ lives. I know that through Him and our faith in Him, we can see miracles every single day.

I love you all and pray for your daily sucesses,

xo Sister Councill

Week 41 pix

Week 41 whz up from Brasil

April 10, 2017

Hi yall!

Well, this week was wonderfully difficult and I am super grateful that it is over!  How was your week??  

Some fun things that happened this week... I sent my shoes to a shoe shope to repair the color, and ended up painting them a totally different color!  I´ll attach a pic !

Also I found a type of banana that is literally HUGE. Unfortunately, I ate it before I could take a picture.. sorry folks.. maybe next time?

But the highlight of the week, was that GILMAR WAS BAPTIZED!  woop woop woop!

It was a pretty intense story as well, let me tell ya!

Okay.  So on Thursday morning we get a call from the Hospital, saying that Gilmar was there.  We dropped everything and went to the Hospital!  He ended up being okay, and was released that afternoon.  Saturday we planned for him to be baptized.  Sister Libanio and I went to the chapel first thing that morning and started cleaning and filling up the baptismal font.  OKay okay everything is going okay.. we head to lunch, and when we get back we discover that the font wasn´t filling and all the water was going down the drain!  So what do we do?  We find a hose.  We find buckets.  And we start filling it up ourselves!  We even tried plugging the drain (pic attached).  Well, it didn´t work in time for the baptism.  So we left pretty upset and planned to baptize him Sunday after church.

A little bit about Gilmar.. we found him about a month ago, and since them he hasn´t missed one Sunday!  He´s awesome!  He has had an incredibly hard and unfair life.  He used to be a rich, black-belt Karate teacher, but then his "wife"  tried to kill him and he was left with slight brain damage, and limited movement on one side of his body.  Because of this, he can´t enter cold water, sooooo we had to plan his baptism for the hottest part of the day, and with HOT water!

Okay, so Sunday arrives, everything is going great, the tank is filled and WAIT.  The water heater isn´t working.  So what do we do?  We start heating huge pans of water on the stove!  AND in the end, HE WAS BAPTIZED! 

Literally a miracle. 

Speaking of miracles, I want to talk about a miracle that happens almost every single week.  It´s called, the Sacrament!

This last week for both my companion and I was physically and emotionally difficult- I know 1000% that it was because last week we didn´t have the opportunity to take the Sacrament.  Last weekend was General Conference, which I LOVE.  But because it was GC, we didn´t have Sacrament Meeting, and therefore, no sacrament.

There´s a scripture in the Book of Mormon that talks about this....

"And the Church did meet together oft, to feast and to pray, and to speak one another conserning the welfare of their souls.

And they did meet together oft to partake of bread and wine (water), in remembrance of the Lord Jesus."

Moroni 6:5-6

I like the part that says, "they did meet together oft."  I know that it is incredibly important that we meet often to partake of the sacrament.  

We live in such a hard world.  SO much imperfection and temptations and terrible things.  

The Lord has blessed us with THIS opportunity almost every week to take the Sacrament. To feel His spirit.  To feel His love.  To renew our covenants with Him.  To be forgiven of our sins. To focus on the saving power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  To start a new week.

I know this last week was so hard because I didn´t have this blessing in my week.  I know that sometimes it may seem like just another Church meeting, but Sacrament meeting is the MOST important meeting that we have in the Church.  I´d like to invite ALL of you, to go to church this next Sunday (yes, EASTER) and take the Sacrament. There isn´t a better way to celebrate the fact that Christ lives.  

This week, every day the Church will release a new video about Easter.  mormon.org   You all should take this opportunity to watch these videos each day, because I can´t!  

Love you all, and I know we all will be blessed as we strive a little (or a lot) harder to be Disciples of Christ,

xo Sister Councill

Week 40 Pix

Week 40 ola pessoal!

April 3, 2017

Hello people!

This week was great and I´m happy!

Last week I said I would write about what Conference talk was my favoriete!  Well my favorite talk was by Elder Ulisses Soares!  He based his entire talk on my favorite scripture, Mosiah 7:33 ❤

This was the first time that I can remember where this scripture has been used in General Conference. So I was pretty stoked that there was a whole talk about it!

"But if ye will turn to the Lord with full purpose of heart, and put your trust in Him, and serve HIm with all diligence of mind, if ye do this, he will, according to his own will and pleasure, deliver you out of bondage."

This scriputre has brought me much peace and comfort since I found it about 7 years ago. You can analize each phrase in it, and study it like Elder Soares did in his talk!  I love it because it has such a clear promise at the end.  It is the PERFECT formula for every situation and difficulty.  If we turn to the Lord, TRUST in Him with all of the faith that we posses, and do our best to serve Him diligently, He promises us that He will "deliver us from bondage."  

This "bondage" could be a hard semester at collage, losing a job, losing a member in the family, confusion, depression, an addiction..  God promises us He´ll deliver us from all of this.  BUT we have to do our part and trust in Him and His timing. 

I know that God loves each of us. I knoww because every time I sincerely pray to Him, He responds to my prayers. This Conference talk was a powerful response to my prayers. 

I know the Book of Mormon is true.  It blesses my life every single day. Our prophet Thomas S. Monson has reminded us to study the Book of Mormon daily.  

I know that as we exercise our faith, pray sincerely to our Father in Heaven, and study the scriptures daily, He will bless us with peace and joy.

xo sister councill

LOVE YALL

Half Way pix