Happy Christmas

Dec 23, 2013

Happy Christmas

woohoo its christmas... but doesn't feel like Christmas because its as hot as… Brazil:) But we had an awesome Christmas conference in Natal this past week. The focus was on the atonement of Jesus Christ, and it was awesome! Also we all got fruit cakes... it’s a desired present here (still gross) but it´s all good. Another miracle that happened this week, it rained. Like not just 5 drops and it was kinda cooler. It was awesome! And you know when there is water there are baptisms. Really this week was a miracle Antonio José was prepared by angels. It was one of those people that contacted us in the street and didn't have any problem with the commandments/word of wisdom, and after he was baptized he was so happy and just kept saying how great he felt. Just the little things make me so happy, and remind me why it is that I wanted to serve a mission. All in all I’m happy and enjoying the mission. We should move into our new house Christmas day.  Keep praying:) 

hope all is well with the fam bam.:)

 talk to yáll christmas day:)

love Sister Leonard

oi

Dec 23, 2013

Oi

Hey we got a house thats all secure and such. We´ll move in at the end of this week. We´re headed to Natal today for our Fiesta de Natal... i mean Conferencia de Natal. This week was crazy as ever but really great. Yhe highlighted experience that I hope makes Dad proud is how we filled up the baptismal font this week. We had Stake Conference this week so that kinda threw things off because of transport and what not. And apparently the water goes out in some places ever other day. So we got to our `chapel´ late and realized we didn't have any water...oops. Anyway there was water in the sinks just not for the font. So we grabbed all the 5 gallon jugs we could and started filling those up. I have pictures on Sister Francis’ camera that I´ll send next week. Just trust me it was really cool:)

Until next week:)

Sister Leonard

Já é Natal?

December 9, 2013

Já é Natal?

So this week was literally the craziest week of my life. Still living in a house of a member. She is fofo demais. ya I don’t think there was one normal day this past week, one thing after another...but we did see a miracle literally. We have a lady here who is an eternal investigator... or was :) She's been investigating the church for two years. I’m pretty sure she knows more about the doctrine than I do. Anyway until friday night we didn't know if she would actually get baptized. Like every time we brought it up she was like `no no maybe in like another year´... anyway we marked an interview with our DL and I’m pretty sure he used his Elder magic. After the interview she was like do we have to wait till Sunday? I’d rather just do it tomorrow... claro. So ya after a week of bad news we had the joy of watching another daughter of God chose to follow Jesus Christ. Que Benção! I hope all is well in your world:) 

love you all

love 

Sister Leonard

Scary stuff in Brazil

December 4, 2013

So i´ll start this letter out with shout out to the cousins. Mainly Mar. thanks for the letter Mar:) 

This letter i think should be for Kendall Rapier but i don’t have his email and i´ll discuss the same things so if Becky reads this let Kendall know its for him.

The one piece of advice... if you could call it advice from my dear cousin was`the world is really wicked´ I thought to my self `umm thanks for that´ but this week has been hard... really hard. Disclaimer I’m fine no worries. 

I'll start with happy things. We went to Natal last week for a conference for the sisters in the mission. We have 35 sisters (38 now i think with this transfer) it was awesome President Soares is an inspired man! After that we had a baptism this sunday. Bia is the cutest thing since puppies. Then things kinda go down hill... one of our investigators has been in a relationship that isn't healthy. This week things came to a breaking point. She was inspired to say in the middle of being beaten that the sisters were knocking at the door. He let her check the door and she literally ran for her life. The Lord inspired her to use us as a tool to save her life. She's better now at her brothers house, but i feel really bad for her.

The next day we made our rounds looking for people to teach, after a few lessons the member that was with us needed to return home, so we decided to stop by in our house to grab another book of mormon and eat something. so we have a lock on the door for at night that can only be locked from the inside. when its locked you cant even turn the key to get it... that was the first clue. I pushed on the door to jolt it and managed to unlock the door. but it was locked with the latched lock. then I noticed the front window open. Anyway we called the other sisters to see if they had passed by earlier and left the window open. ya, no so we went to Bishops, he called for other men in the ward to come over. (the police are kinda a huge joke here) anyway they brought flash lights and saw the back door open (sister m silva and i both double checked that it was locked when we left) no one was inside. a neighbor actually saw the guy jump over our fence with a small back of things and then he left... so  he left all the money all our cards and documents, he took my camera/memory card :( and our dvd player for training, with The District still inside.... so we´re hoping he decides to watch the district and will come back asking to be baptized... also he left the charger for my camera so jokes on him it´ll die in a day or two. so we are looking for a new place to live, in the mean time we´re living with bishop´s mom, she's the sweetest old lady, she reminds me of Honey... don’t worry mom we do all the dishes and sweep and clean up after ourselves. So ya the world is wicked, I feel like I understand that phrase a little more now. I can only try to imagine a small part of how the Lord feels when people do bad things to others. But we´re still smiling... we´ll at least i am, my sick sense of humor is at it´s all time best;)  so ya that´s my update of the week. oh I didn't get transferred so 6 more weeks in Abolição! woohoo! Loving the work and the people.  Oh ya i got my christmas present mom thanks! Im really impressed you remembered! Anyway we´re having fun as always. The lord is protecting us, thanks for all the prayers and love.

love sister Leonard:)

Record breaking attendance!

November 25, 2013

This week was good. we set a goal to have a record breaking attendance at church. mainly because the members here have been waiting four years for their chapel and it was in jeopardy. like usually we have 100 people at church, which is really just a big house remodeled into a church. anyway if we didn't bring up our numbers the members would have to wait another four years. anyway lots and lots of prayers, lots of walking, lots of talking and testifying. we had 186 people at church yesterday. 18 investigators! and it was packed! foi ótimo! umm we sometimes have days where everything falls through and we end up walking a lot and not teaching a lot. e aì, this happened one day so we sat on the curb and we prayed. this isn´t the first time we´ve done this and it sure wont be the last. but we prayed hard, and decided to start our day from the beginning, revisit all the people that weren't home. we had an awesome day after that prayer we taught a lot of people the first vision and the Spirit was just awesome como sempre. 

I've been reading more and more conference talks lately... still don’t have october but eventually I will. And just figuring out how God works and what he wants us to do. Anyway here are a few things I’ve learned. He really does have our best interest in mind. He wants us to be happy in this life and the life to come. He has given us a map and a guide to show us how to do that. He sent his son to show us how to return to his presence and he has given us commandments for our safety and when we obey with exactness we are blessed. But we are never blessed in the way we want and its never according to our timing. When we really stop to count all the little blessings in our lives, we have so much to be grateful for.

Until next time :) 

Lots of love and lots of prayers de me:)

love sister Leonard

There are two of her

So she's been gone for 3 months, and I finally managed to get flat Sister Leonard put where she belongs.  I've missed seeing her face.  Now I will place her right next to the back door and scare myself each time I walk in.

Sister Leonard is in the corner!

Sometimes I worry about me... When Flat David lived in that spot, I went out one day to carry in some case goods.  It was very bright and sunny.  I put on my sunglasses and grabbed a case of soup and brought it in the house, where it was dark.  As I got in, I saw a person in my house, I screamed and dropped all my soup on my feet.  Realizing it was Flat David, I laughed at myself and went out to get the other case of soup, and did the exact same thing a second time.  Yeah, having Aleah in the house is going to be fun!

Oi!

This week was awesome. A few things that Sister M. Silva and i did this week were: 

Interrupt a soccer game to preach the gospel, we make lots of contacts everyday and i have to shame talking to random people... probably because i really don't know what I’m saying and we´ll i saw a lot of people who needed to hear about the Gospel so i called a time out and invited everyone to church... no one came to church... probably because i interrupted their soccer game but still it was really cool:)

i related the gospel to a brownie, I’m sure you´re wondering how that can be... we´ll in my mom´s special top secret brownie recipe it has 5 ingredients... surprising how something so amazing can be so simple but it is... just like the Gospel:) also we have 5 very simple steps to achieve happiness in this life and joy in the life to come. We need faith, when we have faith and we know God exists and loves us it makes us want to repent so we can be like him, only way we can truly be forgiven of all our sins is to be baptized, and after that live worthy of the gift God gives us which is the holy ghost, after that is endure to the end, do all the little things, pray daily, read your scriptures, go to church and be made clean again. easy:)

 we invited bandits to our Halloween party, our Halloween party was awesome!:) We had lots of fun and no one was hurt the whole ward dressed up... I’ll send pictures:)

 We had an activity in a `park´ really a dirt field, and got over 30 references for the other sisters (their area) but we are going to do the same activity in our area also at the end of the month:) we have lots of people to teach:) thanks for the love and prayers. hopefully this week we´ll get beds! if not tudo bem:)

All and all a great week.

love sister Leonard

Awesome Halloween Cake

Me and one of my buds

Twin costumes!  (We are Minnie Mouse!)

Beautiful Friends