10-12-15 Temple, Hair Dye, and the bomb.com

Another Tuesday Email! Graças á Nossa Senhora Aparacida! (Thanks to Our Lady Aparacida) I don´t know much about Catholicism, but yesterday was a Brazilian Catholic holiday, and since a majority of Brazil is Catholic, pretty much everything was closed, including the LAN house where we write our emails!

On Tuesday last week, we got to go and visit the temple here in São Paulo with our entire zone. It was so cool, but the temple looks a lot smaller in person than it does in the pictures, but none of that took away from the beauty that the temple has! I loved being able to go and visit a different temple and I can´t wait to go back! 

This week was pretty good because we picked up a few new people to teach. As we were teaching one of our investigators, F, her boyfriend came in from work, so we decided that we would share a message with him as well. R (the boyfriend) is pretty good. He and F have 2 beautiful boys of 8 years and 2 months old, and we´re working on helping them get married pretty soon so that they can get baptized! Marriage really is a challenge here in Brazil because at times the marriage registry can be really expensive and it´s just easier to live together instead of getting married. In fact, this is a problem for most of the missionaries in our mission. One of our leaders, Elder Santos, is teaching one of my old investigators, RA, who will get married really soon! Elder Santos was talking to me one day and he said that we´re just going to marry the entire world here in this zone of our mission, and it´s true! We will! 

For the Temple Selfie Collection

Holding up the Angel Moroni

MTC District 69D (minus Sister Magleby and Elder Brand)

The São Paulo Temple is so beautiful

My zone

Yesterday I dyed my hair (again). Partially because with blonde hair, everybody just assumes that I am American (which shouldn't really bother me, but it does) and partially because I just don´t like keeping the same color for very long, and I get bored with my hair, so I just like changing. Anyways, it was super stressful because all of the instructions we in Portuguese and Spanish and I was just afraid that I´d end up with purple hair because of misread instructions, but I managed to come out of it with some dark brown hair. (I feel like myself again!) 

Yesterday we had zone pday where I learned a few things:

-I am trash with soccer,

-I am trash with American football,

-I´m the bomb.com with water balloon volleyball!

-Also, I´m the bomb.com with making brownies (Due to the fact that I'm American according to my zone leader, Elder Lopes)

But yeah, zone pday was super fun! I really like getting to know the missionaries that I get to serve around they´re all pretty cool! 

But that´s pretty much all for this week! I hope that all is well with all of you! Love you all!

Our photo was on the cover of the mission newsletter this week

This is some weird fruit that was the size of a baby, so I decided to treat it as such.

10-5-15 Conferences, Conferences, and more Conferences!

Good Morning everybody! How are you all? I feel like I only hear from about 6 of you sometimes, but when I do hear from those 6 people, it´s a pretty good day, so thank you 6 people for your wonderful emails each week!

So this week was another one of those "Conference weeks." Which isn't really a bad thing because conferences are really awesome and cool and we learn lots of cool things. But this week, we had a 6 hour conference with President and GENERAL CONFERENCE!! (Side note: Woo! Other side note: This made 14 hours of the week that we weren't doing much missionary work and that we were listening to people talk, and I was listening to Portuguese for 14 hours, which at times my attention span cannot handle, so that can give you an idea of why I have mixed feelings about conferences.) I LOVED the conference that we had with President Broadbent. He talked a lot about our potential as humans to make it to heaven, which is something I think about a lot. One thing he said that hit me was that there is no one who will live in the Kingdom of Heaven (except Jesus Christ) who will be sinless, the only people who will live in the Kingdom of Heaven are those who utilized the Atonement of Christ and continually strove to improve and become more Christlike. We also had trainings by the Assistants to the President who talked about our potential in general and showed a really good video of a man talking about how the only limits that exist in our lives are our own doubts and fears.

 

Saturday and Sunday were GENERAL CONFERENCE! (Whooo!) I loved this opportunity that we had to be able to hear from our beloved prophet and apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ! I felt the Spirit of the Lord as they spoke (even though I heard their words through translators.) It was truly a special experience to be able to witness the calling and sustaining of new apostles, who are now special witnesses of Jesus Christ. It reconfirmed my testimony that the Church of Jesus Christ exists on the earth, and that it is united under His direction and authority. I tried my hardest to understand most of the talks that were given, but it was SUPER hard to pick out some of the things that were said, but I felt uplifted and strengthened by the love that these servants of God have for each one of us who listened. I especially liked President Dieter F Uchtdorf's talk about simplifying our view of the teachings of Christ. He certainly said some things that I can apply in my own life.

Other than having the wonderful opportunity to hear these inspired leaders teaching us by the Spirit, this week has been a pretty good one. I think one cool thing about missionary work is being able to serve around all different types of missionaries, members, and people that are learning about the gospel, and in all of these, you are able to watch the personal growth of people in their lives and in the Gospel of Christ. From a few of the emails that I have received from friends and family, I am able to see how the Light of Christ is illuminating your individual lives. I think this week, I got to see that in another missionary in my ward. This missionary, who has only been a member for a little more than a year, has such a strong  testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ it's almost unbelievable that he´s been a member for such a short period of time. That´s just one thing I love about Christ and His Gospel, that it can completely transform any ordinary person into something extraordinary. I was able to see a little bit of that this week as my fellow missionaries shared their individual testimonies and thoughts about the Gospel.

Well, anyways, that´s a good little bit about my week. Looking back sometimes, the week is a blur, especially this week. But it was a good week nonetheless! :) Hope yours was too!

Love you all!

Sister Denton

Not related to anything that I previously wrote: This week I ate a pizza with chocolate in the crust, it was AWESOME. Just imagine, you eat a whole slice of pizza, and at the end, there´s dessert! Yum! 

Sister Alencar and Sister Denton

Sister Denton, Elder Melo, Sister Lima, Sister Tycksen

[note from Amy: A sister from their area emailed this photo to me a few days after p-day]

Cutest companions in the world!
Companheiras mais lindas no mundo!!! 

9-28-15 Good Mormon Morning!

(I accidentally wrote Mormon instead of morning first, so I decided to keep it there.)

So this has been a very unusual week for me, but mostly the only thing that sticks out in my mind is Saturday, so I'll get to that in a second. 

This week was pretty good, but very abnormal, because we had Pday on Tuesday for Mission PDay instead of a regular Pday on Monday. That's why there wasn't an email last week. Our president only allowed us to write our family and him, so yeah, sorry about that if you were expecting an email! 

Anyways, Mission PDay was fun! We spent the day at the Botanical Garden here in Sao Paulo! There was lots cool stuff to do. The mission played games, sang, danced, and had a talent show. At the talent show, one of the mission secretaries (an Elder of about my age) kept bugging me to go up front and sing something, so I went up and did the missionary rap that I learned in California with my trainer. It was pretty funny because I don't think that anyone was expecting the white girl newbie missionary to get up and rap, so that was cool. After the rap, I sang amazing grace to the tune of Gilligan's Island and to the tune of the mission hymn, which everyone liked as well. 

So the rest of the week was pretty difficult just because I was sore from playing hard at pday, but the good thing is that we picked up some new investigators. As of now, we've got 5 different Marias in our teaching pool. It's so funny sometimes when we're planning because something like this  will happen

Me, Let's go see Maria after lunch.

Comp, Mother Maria?

Me, No, Maria Two.

Comp, And what about Maria-Divina?

Me, She's after Maria the Wife of Corinthians.

So yeah. I'll probably never name a child Maria after my mission.

So this week, we've been trying hard to accomplish more things and stuff. We want to increase our workforce and do lots of more work and baptize more people, and this has our leaders on edge. So our leaders were pushing hard to have more baptisms at the end of the month. Also, I'm guessing that my comp and I were having the most success in the zone because pretty much all of our leaders were breathing down our neck to have us baptize someone. So after lots of thought, we decided to go and talk to one of our investigators who is preparing for baptism and has huge desire, but she lives with her boyfriend and she's not married or separated, which needs to happen before someone is baptized. When we went to talk to her, she told us that she's not been sleeping with her boyfriend for 3 months, that he's been sleeping in another room, and that she's trying to get him moved out of the house! So after a little deliberation, my comp and I decided that she was ready for baptism. As of right now however, our bishop has a few concerns about the situation and he just wants to wait a little bit longer until the situation is 100% resolved. But now, our investigator is ready for her baptism that'll be coming up soon, so I think that's pretty much a miracle!

That's pretty much it for the week! I hope you're doing well and that you have an amazing week!

Sister Denton

I held a rooster this week, which was pretty awesome. In Portuguese, there's a phrase ''Quando galos tem dentes'' ''When roosters have teeth'' Which is kind of like the equivalent to ''When pigs fly.''

Everybody jump on 3!

9-21-15 Obrigado por usar o We Transfer - o ficheiro foi enviado para

Here's a video of me and sister alencar teaching the importance of being baptized by the proper authority. a couple of things I like about this video. 1. we've been teaching a group of 12-13 year olds who are pretty awesome, and this is one of the lessons that we taught them. 2. The dye that we use is orange, and when it is mixed with water, it kind of looks like guarana. so when we ask the boys what we've become after we sin, one of them shouts out guarana! 3. the reaction of all the boys after we pour in the bleach.

[note from Amy]
Another week without a letter of any significance. Sorry about that. It's my understanding that her mission is having a mission-wide p-day gathering at a botanical gardens tomorrow. I think they have activities and lessons scheduled for a good portion of the day, so maybe they took an abbreviated p-day today and she didn't have much time. Anyway, she did send the following quick note, a video, and a birthday list. Here's a link to the video:

p.s., guarana is that soft drink that they love in Brazil, probably the equivalent of American coca cola, but a different flavor. It's really good. If you ever go to a Brazilian steakhouse for dinner, they probably have it, try it sometime.

9-14-15 Transfers, New Investigators, and Rainy Cloudy Weather

Hello Everybody! I don´t have much time, so this will be a cut/paste email! If you already got some, you can skip over to the next part!

Transfers were pretty cool. It was refreshing to not be the freshest freshie, so that´s something. I liked knowing what would happen and knowing a little more Portuguese. We sat around for a good long time before the greenies came. We had a visit from an area 70 who serves in the Portugal region but he´s been doing a mission tour here. They speak Portuguese SO WEIRD there! It´s pretty funny. So transfers then. My new companion is Sister Alencar from northern Brazil, close to Fortaleza, but I can´t remember the name of the city. She´s pretty cool. She has 10 months on the mission and she´s 24 years old. She´s a really good missionary. Together we found 17 new investigators this week, which was pretty darn good. We´re going to hit the standards of excellence sometime this transfer and have pizza and ice cream with President Broadbent. My housemates are Sister Lima (brand new STL) from Brazil somewhere and Sister Tyckson from UT. Sister Lima has 7 months on the mission and Sister Tyckson has 4-5 months on the mission. She served in Montana before coming here. They´re opening a closed area so they've been a bit stressed out this week, but I think they´ll be just fine. We've been working a lot with the old investigators in our area and we've been having pretty good success in our area. We´re targeting the favela (ghetto) and finding lots of really prepared people there! Yesterday we taught two 12 year old boys named Daniel and Ryan and we´ll try to be teaching them a bit more this coming week! It´ll be pretty great! Woo!

This week has been a rainy cloudy one. We had a couple of days when we were caught off guard and without umbrellas, so we got pretty soaked (not pretty, we got completely soaked) The first day we were together, Sister Alencar and I were waiting to cross the street in front of a HUGE puddle when a bus passed by, drenching us right before lunch at a member´s house, so that was pretty fun. (Not.) Ahha. But we have a new elder in our ward, Elder Alvim from here in Brazil, along with me, Elder Melo, and Sister Alencar. We´re going to hit standards of GOLD this transfer and do GREAT things! 

Hope you all have a GREAT week!

Sister Denton

9-7-15 Sick Companions, 60 Contatos, and Transferencias

Hello Everybody!

Sorry about not sending an email last week! It´s a little difficult at times when you have limited time on email, but I will try harder in the future! 

This week has been a little bit strange for me because each day either I or Sister Rubilar were sick, so we didn´t get a lot of work done, sadly. It´s a little frustrating to just stay in the house and not do anything, so I tried to make the best out of the time we spent there and I organized our area book (a binder with information about the area and people we teach here) into semi perfection. Before papers and folders were spilling out of the book, but now, everything is beautiful and secure. I´m pretty happy about it because I HATE having a bad area book. It´s pretty frustrating, but all is well now!

This week, we had a training with president and the assistants for just the new missionaries in the mission. It was a pretty good training. President Broadbent spoke a lot about following the example that Christ has set for us and about following His path. He also talked a bit about another mission president who requires his missionaries to make a minimum of 60 contacts per day (our minimum per day is 10) in order to find people to teach. Our zone leader, who was also at the training, bet me and Sister Rubilar that we couldn´t do that, but that if we did, he would buy us pizza. Needless to say, we were more than inspired to make those contacts. We spent the first hour when we were back in our area making contacts until we had 60 each. Then on Saturday, we had the pleasure of eating pizza paid for by our zone leader.

Transfer call came yesterday! It´s so stressful here in Brazil with the transfers! In Cali, we had all the information we wanted the Saturday before transfers. Here, we get the call Sunday at night saying just if we´ll stay or if we´ll go! Ah! Anyways, I´m staying here in the Jardim Consórcio ward, but Sister Rubilar is getting transferred. So tomorrow I´ll be getting a new companion! 

All is well for the most part here! Last week, our ward split, and we lost an investigator because of it. Now she´ll be taught b our district leader, but all is well because she is awesome and she wants to follow Christ and do the right things, so I´m happy about it.

I forgot my umbrella yesterday and this was the result!

As always, I hope everybody is doing well and that your week will be AWESOME!

ps. today is Brazilian Independence Day! Whoo! 

8-31-15 No letter this week?

A note from Amy:

Dear Family,

We don't know why, but Holly didn't write a group letter this week. She and I emailed back and forth a bit, so I'll share some of that with you. She also emailed Grant, so I'll share that bit too. She's doing well. I asked her how she's doing on a scale of 1 to 10 and she told me she felt about 7 or 8. I'd consider that pretty good. I can't say I'm much better than a 7 on most normal work days, can you? I save the 9's and 10's for banner days, like vacations, homecomings, and cash bonus days!  

She said, "Things are pretty good for me, but  now Sis Rubilar is kind of down. I feel like I´m on a seesaw with her. When I´m up, she´s down, and vice versa. Nossa!...Yep, still sick. Dunno what we´ll do. She´s also pretty down because the ward split yesterday and Rosangela (our investigator who has a baptismal date) is now the investigator of our district leaders. She´s pretty sad because we´ve been working hard [with her], but I´m just glad that she´ll get baptized. Dunno. Eer since Velia´s baptism, I´ve been less and less concerned about numbers. I´m trying to recognize success in different ways...  heey check  out what I did this week while Sis Rubilar was sick! The scriptures that I got at the MTC are really heavy, and while I use them to study, I hate lugging them around everywhere, plus, I don´t really need D&C and PoGP, so I´ll just be using this. When we visit the temple, I´m going to buy a smaller bible (super cheap, R$10-15)"

She decorated the book with pictures from old church magazines. 

I had told Holly about our dinner last night, which consisted of smoked pork shoulder, baked beans, cotton candy grapes, and corn on the cob. She's always hated corn. This was her reply:
Cotton candy grapes sound awesome! I want to try some! Before I left there were some awesome cherries in Cali called Washington cherries. Keep your eyes open for them! You´ll be shocked, but I actually like corn. One night in California, we had dinner with members, and I decided to try corn on the cob. There´s this one streetfood stand here in my area that there´s a guy ALWAYS steaming corn on the cob, but I haven´t gotten to try it yet.

This is what she sent Grant: "So yesterday we had dinner with a member who´s half Japanese. She lived there for 4 years. She told me that in Okinawa they speak a completely different dialect than the rest of the Japan! You never told me that! Did you know, or did you feel like Japanese was just extra hard in Okinawa than in Kobe? Anyways, she had a Book of Mormon and a Japanese book. I learned how to write "to fly" in Japanese. Does this scripture look familiar, or have you forgotten completely any Japanese characters?"

Sister Denton with Japanese Book of Mormon

Pages from a Japanese book

We think her hair looks a lot lighter. We don't know if it's because she colored it, or if it's from being in the sun. She's definitely more tan too. 

That's all for this week.