Brazil

Happy CARNAVAL! Brasil sure loves a festa! It was/is carnaval weekend
and in Quissama, we live on the main street and all of the floats and
parties and music and everything was right in front of our house. So
it didn`t go to well sleeping last night. :)
And we had to get up nice and early today because woo hoo, festa in
VITORIA with the Sisters! A nice little 7 hour onibus trip does good
for anyone! And we`ll stay here in Vitoria tonight and tuesday night
and back to RIO on wednesday. It is so good being here and is so
beautiful and I love these sisters! Life is goooood as a little
missionary.

This week, was delightful. oh my goodness, the lunches this week were
soooo good. Lots of yummy fish and salads and fruits and of course…
rice and beans! I love Quissama!
Beth got baptised too! Yay! It si so wonderful to be able to help
people and to see people making the right choices! Because everyone
has agency to be able to choose between the good and the bad. (2 Nephi
2:27) And when we choice the good side, woo hoo blessings! When we
follow the Spirit, we are happy! yay!

As you see from the pictures, life is full of adventures and funny
things and wonderful people. We find just what we look for.

A funny for the week: Luis asked me, “Are you from Siberia?”
And good news, I bought some lovely grapes. 2 boxes for 4 reais! Oh alegria!

Have a happy healthy week! Only 2 more weeks to this transfer and then
only one more trasnfer of 6 weeks. Weird. I love this lovely life as
Sister Owens.

And… to everything there is a season. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

Happy Valentine’s Day! I don’t even know what to start writing because I just read emails from my lovely family and looked at beautiful fotos they sent me of Stacy and Scott’s wedding! Woo hoo! So I’m just focused on that right now and don’t know what to say. But my sista is beautiful and I’m so happy to have a new brother in law. Heavenly Father is blessing us all a lot a lot! 

As always, I still love being here in Quissamã with Sister Cunha and we’re happy for P-day today to be able to rest our little minds and legs and make cookies! We’re doing lots of Family Home Evenings (que alegria!) and will be presenting the wonder and awe of cookies this week. 

This city is wonderful and we had some lovely adventures this week, riding the free bus to the boonies, teaching one of the Lord’s elect as she made tapioca/bijú, watching some meninos make a dog sled (see foto), picking lots of divine fruits, visiting Raimundo and Berenice (eleitos) at their little house in the wilderness and eating pão de queijo (breaded cheese basically) with guava sweet paste doce thing, and more adventures too!
I love Quissamã and the filhos de Deus here.

Another little story… there’s a man here named Abel, who goes all around Quissamã putting salt everywhere, on the streets on the sidewalks, we find traces of him everywhere. :) This week we saw him and we always talk to him and invite him to church and baptism, but he asked if he could consecrate our feet with consecrated vinegar he had. This is an offer that you can’t refuse, so he got out his bottle of vinegar and poured a few drops of vinegar between out toes. :) Now my feet are consecrated and the work shall continue to go forth. :D 
The field is white already to harvest.

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all! :)
Love Sister Owens

Wooo hoo we had another baptism here in Quissamã of a delightful
family who is coming back to church! Enter the fold. :) And we’ve got
another baptism this week too. Quissamã is so wonderful and it is
fulllll of good souls who want to live the gospel. There are of
course, plenty who don’t want to hear too much, but you get what you
look for, né?

There were some lovely sunsets this week and nature is so wonderful. I
love it here in Quissamã because it’s like a little town in the
inteRIOr and there are good people and it is so nice having so much
green around, and seeing cows and horses in the middle of the street.

Twas fantastic in Campos this week for conferência de zona!
Conferences and transfers and soooo good. I love missionary festas! :)
Learned lots of wonderful things and was reminded about D&C 18:10 “the
worth of souls is great in the sight of God.”
And also about when Christ asked Peter is he loved him and Peter said
of course, and then Christ just said “Feed my Sheep”.

So I’m just here in Rio, feeding sheep and it is excellllllent.
Our João (was a pastor), blessed the sacrament this week in white
shirt and tie. Woo hoo. Job well done.
And good news, I’m not sick any more. It was funny at zone conference
because there are four of us sisters here in Rio, one has a cast on
her leg, one went to the hospital before our conference started, one
more with a fever, and I was getting over a month long cough. Don’t
know what was happening with us, but all is well now. :)

Sister Cunha also informed me that I was teaching lessons in my sleep
this week, talking all about the spirit and how we have to pray and
ask Heavenly Father for answers, and how because He loves us and is
our father, He sends the Spirit to teach and testify to us. There’s so
much to do during the day, that I guess I’m starting to practice
teaching at night too. And last night I dreamed there were a bunch of
cockroaches on me and it was not too lovely, but hallelujah we don’t
have cockroaches in our house.

Hope you all are swell and thank you for the love and prayers and
mail! :) Got wonderful letters this week from all my grandparents and
some lovely sísteres and some grand ol´ buddies and a little package
from my mtc comp and mail from fam and lots from dear Cottam fam and
mail and letters brings pure joy to my little soul. Obrigada! Boa
semana para vocês! :D

Hoppy New Year!
New Years wasn’t too eventful here in Quissamã, but twas lovely.
Sunday morning we met with the leaders of the branch to (buscar?)
fetch a bunch of lovely souls that promised to go to church. It was
raining and peeps don’t really like going to church in the rain.
But… there were a few faithful that came with us! Woo hoo! And the
frequency was up to 35 this week. Hallelujah. It needs to just keep
going up so that the church building can be built here. The meetings
are held in a rented house and it is not too nifty, fazer o quê né? I
loooove Quissamã and this transfer is gooooooooood good good.
First of all, let’s talk about saturday, new year’s eve… João got
baptized! Woo hoo! He was a tender mercy from the Lord and he is super
fantastico! He’s got a looot of biblical knowledge and faith and is
sooo good. And recent discovery.. he’s a pastor. :) He didn’t ever say
anything to us but you can tell he’s done a lot of churching in his
time. :) But we asked him and sure enough, pastor João, new and
faithflu member of the Church of Jesus Christ. And sunday afternoon he
was already doing visits with us. Yay! I looove finding the elect.

We’re teaching lots of peeps here in this wonderful place, so many to
teach. And it is so wonderful when you find those elect, who are
waiting for the restored gospel. We had some baptisms marked for this
week too, but we all have agency and make our own choices and
unfortately, some people choose not to live or accept the gospel. But
agency is wonderful and so central to Heavenly Father´s perfect plan.

What else… we have zone conference this week! Woo hoo! Here in
Campos. So yay I’ll get letters again and we’ll get another nice box
of Book of Mormons to give to all of Quissamã. I love this place. And
the members are really wonderful, the few that go to church at least.
:) There’s a lot of less actives here too, who are also wonderful, but
need lots of help in coming back to church. It’s not too easy, but it
is always worth it to the what God wants.

PS Good news… I just saved a bundle on car insurance by switching to
geico. Okay, not really, but actual good news… I found some celery!
I looove celery (especially with delightful peanut butter) and I
haven’t had any in over a year. I’ve never seen it here, but
hallelujah I found some this week.

There is so much to do here in Quissamã. Sister Cunha and I are
working a lot a lot and doing everything we can think of to strengthen
these souls here. There’s just not enough time! Adn the transfer is
already half over. But we’ve got a bunch more baptisms that will have
to happen in these next three weeks. We’re looking for the elect,
they’re out there. There’s good things and people everywhere!

Time for me to go home and write letters and finish preparing for a
wonderful week. Thank you for your prayers and everything and eu amo
vocês! Feliz 2012!

FELIZ NATAL! Woo hoo! I love Quissamã! This area is excelente! And it is so good working with Sister Cunha. She is excellent and this will be a transfer full of miracles (and work work work)! And miracles need to happen here… :) On sunday there were only 29 peeps and the past year there has only been one week that they’ve had a baptism. But now… enter a gente… and many good things ahead! After all, everyone needs the gospel and the promised blessings of the Lord, so we are here to work along with the wonderful members to baptize, reactive, and complete families!