A Good Week

Good moments

We had noite familiar that was awesome. It was my turn to give it and we talked about knowing which side we were facing and what we are doing to prepare to return back to heavenly father. It went pretty well. We talked aobut the different things that could bring us to the wrong path and the things that could bring us to the right path. And I had every single one of them try to shoot a basket in the trash can in the beginning saying that if they made it they would be saved, but the trash can was super far away from them. All of them missed and I joked about how all of them missed their salvation and were swimming in a lake of ashes ;) But then we talked about how our decisions in our life can bring us closer to the basket or farther away and how we should always be working hard to make the decisions to bring us closer to the basket so that we can gain our salvation. Then we ate cake! :)

On tuesday we met T's mom. Thais is a teenage girl that has been in the church for one year. She met the missionaries a year ago and entered the church alone, even though all of her family and extended family was against it. It was super hard for her, but she is still going on strong. Well, anyways, we didn´t know where she lived and one day we were knocking on doors and found her house. We started to talk and realized that she was T's mom. Not gonna lie, at first I was scared, because I didn´t know how T felt about her mom or if she wanted us to wait but I thought, ´´What the hey, lets just go for it.´´ So we presented our purpose and asked if we could share a message with her, and she said yes! And loved it and marked another day! :) That wasn´t even the best part :) I saw T the other day and she came up to me and kissed me on the head. Which was super weird, but she was so stinking excited. She told me that her mom told her that she met with us and marked another day. T said that she played cool, but after her mom told her that she went to the bathroom and cried because she was so happy :) Those are the moments that I love :) So we´ll see how that goes this week :)

D is doing great! Sorry I haven´t talked about her before. Laziness.... ;) But she´ll be baptized this week :) And T´s doing okay, but everything will work out for her :)

WE ARE HAVING A CONFERENCE WITH THE MISSION WHICH MEANS I´LL GET TO SEE EVERYONE BEFORE I LEAVE. I LOVE THAT.

I don´t even remember any of the bad moments this week. Probably becuase there are few ;) I love you guys and I can´t wait to see your faces! It´s freaking me out!

Love

Sister Parco

PaRcO

Monday

Noite Familiar! We went over with the jovens about the new theme this year. O ye that embark. It was awesome! And we made carrot cake! Woohoo!

Terca 

Wednesday

Took a bus to Curitiba. Alone. So weird. Got there and met up with Sister R to go to Gralha Azul together. Love at first sight. We were practically made for eachother. She is crazy and we had the best time that night. We were both going through the same things and we have the same personality. We already promised we´d go to eachother´s weddings. So we got there and it was Sister L´s birthday and me and Sister R decided to make a rap and a remix for her birthday. So we sat there dancing and singing for her. Then we made cake for her, but we accidently burned it because we were busy having a competition of throwing popcorn in the other persons mouth. Then we went to bed practically giggling. It was real nice to know her :) Sister D always told me that we´d get along really well, and we did! Speaking of Sister D, the was super painful. You know those moments where you realize that you probably won´t see the other person ever again? It was one of those moments when we said bye. So that stunk. But she´s thinking aobut going to BYU! So we´ll see how that works out :)

Thursday

Meeting. Left at 3 to arrive in Prudentopolis. Okay. Probably scariest thing of my life (exageration). I got back here at 7:30, and the Sisters were in the middle of a lesson, and I was there in a sketchy rodoviaria, and yup. My phone was dead. I don´t like to be alone. But I decided it was better to go to a members house 5 minutes form the rodoviaria than sit there for an hour with a dead phone. I didn´t think that it´d affect me that much. But walking alone at night on the street was super weird and scary because I´m so used to having a person by my side. SO WEIRD. But I survived! ;) And when I got to the member´s house, I called my companions (because they were in a trio) BUT, The irma gave me crackers and juice! :)

Friday

So, this week was a week of patience that we are studying together, all the girls. I really learned a lot more about patience and about humbling myself to accept the Lord´s time. This friday we had an interview and she passed and was excited, but then the next day, she got discouraged and her therapist told her that it was better to not go through with it. Everything was against us in that moment, and we had to really trust that the Lord would keep His promises. I realize how valuable it is to have patience. The Lord, He truly knows best. I trust in that 100%. I felt a little discouraged with my self, because in these moments, I should´ve had more faith than I had. Because I know that everything has a reason, and that these moments we need to trust in Him even more. I´m very grateful for the attributes of Christ. I have learned a lot while I´ve been here and have so much to learn. I´m so glad for our weaknesses and a person that knows us more than we do. I was reading a talk about patience this week, and I thought that something was really intersting. It talked about how we need to know our strengths AND weaknesses to know our limitations to know how to be patient with ourselves. Isn´t that interesting? I love that. I always run faster than I have strength. I love weaknesses. I love being humbled. I love the Lord showing me what I need to do. I love repentance. I love change :) I love progress. The Lord is pretty great :)

The sticers of my name fell off. And just stayed the letters PRO And I decided that our family has to create an air conditioning company. It would be called Air conditioning pros.

PaRcO

Isnt that the coolest thing ever?

Random thought over. I love you guys! :)

Sister Parco 

I Love Service

Good things

NOITE FAMILIAR. I love the youth here in Prudentololis. They are the ones that hold this branch together. And we´re all basically best friends. They love the Sisters and we love them. It´s so wonderful to see that change in them. When I got here, all of them stayed on their cellulars and didn´t participate in the message, but this NF was so much different because all of them kept quiet and bore their testimony and asked questions. And all of them are modest and wow. It´s so incredible. They came back from youth conference and all of them are changed. I love that. And I love them. they are seriously the best. They are probably the people that i´m going to miss most when I leave. We know that they will make a difference in this branch. They´ll be the future leaders. Gah. I am just so proud of them. We want to start a missionary preparatory class for them. I think that it would be awesome :)

T is preparing for her baptism! She´s changed so much :) 

I love divisions and being able to serve the sisters. There was a sister that was going through a few hard things that I live with and she just needed to talk. So we layed in our beds and talked about how we could fix everything and what the Lord expects of us on the mission and how grace works. It´s surprising how much everything changes. Instead of worrying about getting enough sleep, I have the opportunity to help a Sister. I love that. It gives me a chance to always look outward. I love that. I think i´ve learned a lot of that here. I´ve started to look for the quiet things that I can do that no one else notices but that helps in some way or form. It´s surprising how much the atmosphere changes. It´s affected even my prayers. I was realizing this week that I was just asking and asking and asking. Asking to be better, asking to help me with my faults, asking just a whole bunch of stuff. But as I started to try to switch my attitude to service, I realized that I actually felt closer to my Father when I just stayed there and asked forgiveness for my faults and just sat there and thanked Him. I guess I never really realized how much service can change your whole attitude. I mean, i realized it on a mission before, but I think I am learning it more than ever this transfer

Do you realize how cool the BOM is?!?!? Its so stinking awesome! I´m still doing that goal to finish the book of mormon in 3 months before I go home and I´m in Alma right now. WAR CHAPTERS. I love it. I love thinking about Moroni, I love thinking of what they did to fortify themselves, I love thinking of what they were going through and what they were thinking. Man, I just love it. Go home and read now.

SHOUT OUT TO ALL THE ACTIVITY DAY GIRLS. You have to tell them that their letters basically made my day <3 I lOVED reading their letters and just made me feel all warm and bubbly inside. You don´t know how much of a difference a letter makes for a missionary :) Made my day :) <3

Not so good things

I have these little moments when I freak out thinking that it´s already the 3rd week and that this transfer started like yesterday. Why is it going so fast....

Funny things

SO we were knocking doors and after a while these 12 year old boys had curiosidade in what we were doing and started following us. So here we are knocking doors with 7 12 year old boys standing behind our shoulders. It was super funny, and also convenient becuase we´d arrive there and the boys already knew the person that lived there so they´d yell at them and shout their name for them to come out. Super convenient. :) hahaha but so much fun. We´re basically best friends with all the little kids in the neighborhood. We have secret handshakes and stuff. Yup. We´re that cool.

Well, I love you guys! Took too long to answer those other deep questions, but I´ll save some time for them next letter! Love ya!

Sister Parco

Diligence

So I spent a lot of my time looking for videos I could use for our investigators, So i won´t have much time to talk, BUT! This week was great! We worked hard, met some new people and yup!

Little things

We are working in an area we´ve never worked in! Just new people, whoohoo!

We decided we would study and make goals for an attribute of Christ every week this transfer, me and all the girls that I look after. This week is diligence! You guys can participate too! ;) 

Love you guys!

Sister Parco

The Last Transfer

Week of surprises

So, you know how we were living in 4? Well now we are not :( It was super sad. We were all really tight. So Prudentopolis, that usually has 4 missionaries, only has 2 now. And it´s a big area. But we´re up for the challenge

The weird stuff

I can´t believe that this is my last transfer. I don´t think that it has hit me yet that I´m gonna be home fast. It´s weirding me out. Me and Sister B made a pact that we´d work harder than we ever have this transfer. I´m excited to see how it will turn out :)

I´m only gonna answer some of the questions because I´m running out of time

Who you learned to see through God’s eyes

We had something pretty sad happen this week. You know what is sad? When a person gains a testemony, even has a dream about how the Book of Mormon is true and the true church, but denies it and does nothing. We were teaching one of our investigators this week that told us all of this, but yet she doesn´t want to ask. I think I learned to see her through God´s eyes because when I thought of all the many blessings that God has in store would be lost, I felt super super sad, because It´s right there, in front of her, within reach, and she knows that it´s a good thing, but still doesn´t want to make a change. It makes me think of how God feels when He sees His children making the changes and seeing a difference, but still going in the opposite direction. We´ll have to see. maybe it's not the right time, maybe it´s meant to be, I don´t know, I just hope that it can work out for the future....

One place God directed you by the Spirit

Everytime I look back at our week and the things we did, I realize how much the Lord has a hand in things. For some reason, in the red area, we had people that were progressing, but this week everything fell, and people started being flaky. It was so funny. It was as if Heavenly Father was saying ´´don´t work in this area any more´´ We even had people walk up to us that we didn´t really know saying that they had the Book of Mormon and wanted to return it to us because the Mom doesn´t know how to read. That same day, we were finding Book of Mormons everywhere (which is another blessing, because we are running out of Book of Mormons) And so we worked in a different area and found amazing people! And guess where that area was? You know how we have to take care of both of the sides now that the other sisters left? Well, guess where there only productive side was? Yup, right across from the new area that we found amazing people and on the same side as T. WHAT. It´s as if he´s basically showing where the golden people are. I noticed this during Sunday and I couldn´t stop smiling and laughing at how wonderful Heavenly Father is and how perfect everything works out. MIRACLES.

I love you guys sooooo  much and hope you are all wonderful! Be good!

Sister Parco

Learning and Growing

Another Crazy week! Splits and a reunion with for the newbies and it was pretty awesome. It helped a lot. It was nice knowing that we were all going through the same things and that we could help eachother out. But this next week should be full of a lot more things because we are going to stay in our area this week :)

People

T is real good! She´s loving the gospel and seeing differences in her life! She´s gone to church 3 times already and wants to participate in everything. Even cleaning the church! How crazy is that! She´s going through a lot of rough stuff and a lot of crazy stuff happened to her in the past, but she is reading the book of mormon every day and feeling a difference and a peace.

E is a teenage girl that we met during an english class. We bore our testimony about that book of mormon and her teacher who is our president, gave a her a book of mormon in english and portuguese. And we bore our testimony about it and explained the significance of it. We returned there the other day and she had already read 30 pages and prayed! We found all of her family and they told us how they wanted to read the book of mormon too!

P is a teenage girl too that we found with her family. When we first talked to her, She said, Yeah I know you guys! I´ve already seen the many videos that appear on Youtube (mormon messages)! I even watched some of them with my dad! WHAT. Okay. Never happens. So we returned another day to teach her family and then we told her to watch Joseph Smith the prophet of the Restoration. They were an awesome family. They even gave us a ride to church because we were late to the baptism of the other sisters!

I is a mom of a family that we met this week. She´s wonderful and is reading the Book of Mormon and loving what we´re teaching. We marked a date with her and she accepted :)

Shout out to Collette for helping me think of things to say in my letter! I hope they will be somewhat interesting for you guys :)

Lesson where you felt the spirit the most that week & why

I think the most spiritual lesson was when I was doing splits with I. We were teaching a lady that was absolutely discouraged and was passing through a lot of medical problems. She was so discouraged that she started to cry. I don´t know why, but I feel like in these moments I feel the spirit the most. There is something special to me that makes testifying of the gospel bringing peace really strong to me. I feel the most powerful when I can show to them how much the Gospel is going to bless their lives and help them with their problems, the little ones until the big ones. And when I testified, I just wanted her to just take everything I had and wanted to do everything to help her take a step in her life. I´m very grateful for the Gospel and the fact that it brings comfort and guidance in the times that we need it the most.

Who you learned to see through God’s eyes

I think that the person that I am learning to see through Heavenly father is my own companion. We´re pretty different in a few things, and I think the more that I see through my Heavenly Father´s eyes, the more I am growing to love her and appreciate the differences.

One place God directed you by the Spirit

It´s interesting how the Lord guides you in everything. We had a bunch of plans on Saturday, but for some reason the conacts that we made a week before seemed more important than our compromises. So we decided to contact all of the contacts, that are like 30 seconds from the other, so we basically stayed on one road the whole day, and we ended up finding 3 families that were ready to hear the gospel! We returned the other day to see if the family was waiting up for us that one day, but turns out that they weren´t even there that day. So instead of walking 30 minutes to find no one in the house, we found 3 families on the same road!

A person or principle that changed your perspective on eternity that week

I really really came to have an appreciation for the sacrament even more this week. There´s something amazing and wonderful in the fact that a prayer and the simple action of taking the bread and water with a repentant heart can do so much. Do yu realize how powerful the atonement is? Do you realize how wonderful it is to start a new page every week?!? Do you know how completely lost we would be without the atonement? Do you realize how merciful Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are for giving us this opportunity? BEcause I don´t think that I did. And it just kind of hit me even more this week of how wonderful of an opportunity it is. I love the sacrament and I´m extremely grateful for the atonement of Jesus Christ.

Love you guys!

Sister Parco

Kidney Stones

Life Lessons

Hey, so you know how they say that the mission prepares you for married life? Well I think I am super ready after this week. You know how they say having a kidney stone is like having a baby? Well, guess who had a kidney stone this week. Yup. It was fun. I think I am ready to have kids ;)

One thing that I really appreciated from this experience was the power of priesthood. It is something I am truly grateful for. It was amazing how God was kind enough to bless us with the Priesthood. How grateful I am to have a worthy father that holds the Priesthood. After taking some drugs, I asked for a blessing, and right after the blessing, I didn´t have any pain. Just shows to me how much our Father in Heaven loves us :) <3

Overview of the week

This week was so rough. We had to leave during Pday to go to a leadership meeting in Curitiba on monday and returned Tuesday night. Wednesday I passed the kidney stone, and we couldn´t work, thursday I spent half the day doing exams and the other half working, friday, we had to go to Irati for a meeting and spend the whole day there, and Saturday and Sunday we went to work. It was probably the craziest week that i´ve ever had one the mission

During the meeting I was pretty scared because I felt like the new kid, hardly knowing what I should be doing, and just guessing, but it turned out great! We were making comments on how to better our teaching, and after I made a comment, he said that he would call me to be the STL of the STLs. I´m gonna have to thank sister Torres for that one because we went psycho when we were together for 4 months on our teaching. I just hope I can help others even being the new kid :)

I love you guys! Sorryt hat this was short, It was an unproductive week, I promise that next week will be better! :)