Was I In the Middle of a Rainstorm?

Well I gotta make it quick but some fun things happened this week as well as spiritual ones and some toughies haha. But what would life be like without opposition? Pretty easy and not worth our time.....but anyway!

The storm story is funny. We wanted to get to know a farther part of our area, and made our way there in the BLAZING sun...but then the clouds starting to roll in (the usual Brazilian summers here; super-hot then loads of rain) but that didn’t stop us from taking a quick visit to the Batman’s alley! Who knew! As we were getting to know the streets and orienting ourselves, there’s a sign, Batman’s Alley this way and I’m like, we gotta go sister!  Let’s just say it was a little road with a bit of cool art and only two things of batman haha love Brasil. Then we got to try and contact a less active but they closed the window cause of the sudden rain! Yup...my little umbrella helped us not one bit...this rain just came pouring down and sideways upways...with wind and I swear little birds lost control of their flight path cause it was so strong. We were also pretty close to the lightning cause we were in the highest part of our area. Well planned on our part. But luckily after hunkering down in front of a school, the guy let us in to take cover. We waited about 20 minutes until it calmed down and tried to teach an investigator, who let us in (thank you!) and gave us fruit (double thank you!)  but then she opened up about her life and I felt blessed to be able to share my testimony and teach her a few parts of God’s plan. As I said the closing prayer I could hear her crying but I know they were tears of comfort, because the spirit was there. The words coming out of my mouth weren’t mine but the Lord’s. How amazing it is to be a part of the Lord’s work.

I thought this was gorgeous....

Some interesting things I have learned or heard this week were, "the church is true because thousands of teenager missionaries with all of their mistakes or craziness haven’t managed to destroy it yet." I loved reading 3 Nephi 17, about Jesus blessing the sick, children and giving one last family prayer. We should emphasize this scripture more often! We got to visit Invanildo who so lovingly shared his fruit and time. He’s a bit stressed with all the kinda cranky customers he has (he sews and fixes clothes) and they show up late, or they don’t show up and he is a bit frustrated with them. But we are trying to teach him about love and faith and he is progressing so well :)

This is us and Ivanildo, a recent convert who sews and sells clothes! he always gives us fruit and is helping me stay so fit and healthy haha he also learned how to read cause of the Book of Mormon! love this guy!

Some study moments or phrases of the week are : the richer we become, the more we must save. Teach to include not to exclude. O Senhor ama o Pecador, não O Pecado (the Lord loves the sinner, not the sin). It’s not just the difficulties that hurt our spiritual progress, but the facilities that surround us. How easy is it to sin nowadays? Great leaders suffered great difficulties but because of their great faith, God turned their great difficulties into their greatest strengths. God knew of their greatness and invited it to come out of hiding. With this idea I think of all the amazing men of the church, prophets etc. who have gone through so much adversity but remained faithful and that’s how they became our leaders. Not from facility but difficulty. And I’ll just end with a funny little phrase that was painted on the wall. "If you didn’t exist, I’d invent you" haha loved that! It’s true. God invented us so we could become something. Learn and find out why God invented you :) and what exactly did God invent when he created you? A person who blesses the lives of others? Who takes advantages of this time on earth? Who laughs? Cries? Prays? Let’s find out just what invention we are :) Children of God with quite a few cool features :) haha I am so cheesy....yikes.

Have a great week!
Love,
Sister Oldroyd- who had a happy conversation with a woman in the street cause her lingerie store didn’t have electricity, so I invited her to church cause she was outside sitting on a bench :) Blessing for power outages.

this is maracujá, it got reaaaaly ripe and so she made us juice from it :) yay!

me having fun with the bubbles...like my awful tennis foot tan? its gonna get better :) haha

my zone! perdizes!