April 25, 2011

Boa tarde todo mundo!

Wow!!!! What a week! Me and Sister Bowden had an amazing week! It was a real testimony building week. So over the past several months President Batt has been stressing over working more with the members and getting references. And this week was incredible! So there´s this deacon in the Aracati Branch that had told us he had some references for us, but everytime we went to his house he was never home. Well, last week my district all fasted that we´d have good success for this transfer and I prayed that we would be able to receive more references from the members because they had been struggling to give us any. Well, on friday one of our appointments fell through so i mentioned that we should probably go and see if Cacio was at home(the deacon). So we head over and he´s home and he has family visiting (non members :) so we got their address so we could send the missionaries to their house in another area (that was 2 different families) :) so then Cacio takes us to his friends house that he had been telling us about and we get there and there´s 3 ladies and Cacio´s friend sitting out on the porch just visiting. We ask if we could talk with them a bit about the church and share a message. It was great! We were sitting there just visiting for a little bit, getting to know each other and some of cacio´s family came to join us...2 more people. So then we start the lesson. We were teaching the first lesson, The Restoration. And just as we were getting started their neighbors come up and start listening....3 more people. And just a few minutes after that, one of the ladies sons comes home with a friend. CRAZY!!!! THat was the coolest thing that´s ever happened! IT was like we were teaching a class. It was cool cuz here´s these two white girls in the middle of all these Brazilians teaching a lesson...so cool. ANd after the lesson we were just visiting a bit and one of the ladies said, "if only someone had a camera right now.." and lucky enough me and sister bowden both had ours. So we took a picture with the whole group. A couple people had already left to go home but i was glad to have a picture of everyone! But because of one boy, one reference, and within one hour we had 11 new investigators who are great! And then yesterday we went to talk to cacio and he had brought another friend to church, and we went to teach him and his family yesterday afternoon. What a missionary!!!!!! And he´s only 12!!!!!

Well, that was our highlight of the week.... :) looking forward to another great one!!!!

I´m so excited for all the boys getting their mission calls!!! ANd that´s crazy that we got another one coming to Fortaleza from the ward!!!! SO cool!!! Well, sounds like you guys are staying really busy on the farm! Too bad I´m not there to help! I think not being home to work on the farm is haunting me, because I keep seeing tac weeds all over the place. I´m going to take a picture of me pulling one, one of these days. Sister Bowden thinks Im crazy, but i told her she doesn´t understand, because i spend a lot of the summer pulling those dang weeds!!! haha

Well, hope you all have a good week and good luck with work, baseball, and school everybody! Hope you all had a Happy Easter!!!

Love you all!

Love, Sister Salisbury

April 11, 2011

Hey everybody!

Well, me and Sister Bowden got transferred.........PSYCH!!!!! We´re together again! Can you believe it?! We were so excited, we had the phone on speaker phone when the elder was talking to us and when he said we were staying together we freaked out!!! It was probably a little over the top, but we were super excited! So yesterday on the way to church we met up with our recent convert, Sandrinha and our friend Silvinha. We played it up a bit and told them that we were both leaving. It looked like they were going to cry so when we got to the church we told them we were just kidding. Sandrinha was so cute, she said she was about to cry and was thinking that she didn´t pray enough last night and that she needed to have more faith! It blew me awaay. We talked to a lot of the kids at church and I guess there were a lot of prayers said saturday night in our behalf. The members here really love us. And me and Sis. Bowden were talking when we got home sunday night that if it wasn´t for any other reason that we stayed, it was because of the prayers and faith of the kids that prayed for us. I felt really loved after yesterday. It was an amazing day at church too! It was fast and testimony meeting and Sandrinha and our other convert Davi were sitting with us and we were trying to get them to go bare their testimonies. So we decided all of us would go up at once......what a blessing to see the fruits of our labors! It was so neat to hear their testimonies, both of them were just wonderful!!!!!! I can´t even describe the feeling that i had. It was amazing!

Oh so I´ve been meaning to tell you guys for awhile now, but I always forget....me and sis. Bowden argue quite often. We´re getting better though, we´re goign on 3 transfers together now and we´re just barely starting to figure things out. We fight over doing the dishes!!! Haha She always thinks I do them more than she does, but we´ve decided to make a dishes chart to keep track of who´s turn it is. It´s a little out of control, and that´s usually not what comps fight over, but in our case....it´s quite a BIG deal.

Wow so you guys would not believe this!!! We were at the church saturday night to teach piano and english and a lady was throwing a birthday party for her one year old......it was off the top!!!! This is a party I´d never seen before for a 1 yr old. It was "The Little Mermaid" theme because the baby´s name is Arielly and holy cow!!!! I can´t even explain to you what it looked like the entire place was covered with decorations, had a cotton candy machine, food, cake, pop, candy, the works. And Arielly was dressed up as the little mermaid. She was really cute, but wow!!!! I´ll send pics :)

How was Alaska?! I bet it was super fun! But yeah, I think Brett is doing good, I guess he´s really busy working right now, he´s done with school for now and he´ll be going to Utah. I was hoping to be able to talk to him on mother´s day, but it sounds like he´ll be in utah. Maybe he´ll come home that weekend though, not sure, i´ll have to ask him. Is mother´s day may 8th?? And you guys should probably put more minutes on that card that I have. I don´t know how many its got left. Have you guys heard anything else on coming down here, plans, flight tickets, visas and what not??? And does my pres need to talk to the church or somehting about me coming home iin august or have you guys called the church or anything. Maybe you already did, im not sure. And mom can you find out when i need to have papers in to cbc for fall 2011??? I need to make sure i can get signed in for fall.

Well, i gotta go but i hope all goes well this week for everyone!!!!! I love you all and i miss you tons!!!!

Love, Sister Salisbury

April 4, 2011

Hey Everyone!!!

Did you guys LOVE conference?!?!? Well for those who "paid attention" haha i love the pics that chandler took! I absolutely loved conference and I got to watch it in english which was way nice! Last time I had to watch it in portuguese and I feel like you lose some of the stuff and the voices are different....but it was so good. We got to watch all 4 sessions! I don´t know which was my favorite, I liked so many of them. One of them that I really enjoyed was Elder Richard G. Scott, it was so neat!!! Loved it! And mom, those donuts looked so delicious! Sunday we had a baptism in between the sessions, it was so neat! It was a little stressful trying to get everything to go right and what not, but it all worked out good. The girl that was baptized is Alexsandra (Sandrinha), she´s 17 yrs old and she is the sweetest thing! She´s actually thinking about moving to the US with a friend. Oh something else, there´s a member here who is marrying an american in the spokane, wa temple in june i believe. I think the guy is from Coeur d´Alene, Idaho. Crazy huh?!

That´s awesome Kyal is going on a mission! And be sure to tell me when jacob and bryson get their calls!!! And brandon is already coming home?!??! HOly cow! I bet his family is REALLY excited!

THe language is great! And yeah I can pretty much say anything i want. Granted there are those times when I´ll get stuck on word, but for the most part it´s all good :) What a MIRACLE!!!!!! About a year ago I was praying that I would be able to speak the language. It´s amazing to be a part of this work and see so many blessings come from it! I love the church!!!! I was thinking during conference how anyone could just look at this church and not believe it´s the church of Christ. Just the organization of it alone is just INCREDIBLE!!!! All the general authorities, the choir, the members, the Spirit.....EVERYTHING!!!!! What a blessing it is to live in the world at such a time as this. It´s so amazing!

So really quick! I had a crazy dream last night that I want to tell you...

I was at the CTM with my current companion, Sister Bowden. The CTM was the connell high school. We were outside talking and I look out by the road and there was a line of telephone booths. I had just missed mothers day and i hadn´t been able to call home, but i see mom, dad, chandler, garrett and joseph each at a phone. You guys start to leave and i wanted to talk to you so bad but everyone was telling me i couldn´t. I was freaking out and i yell, "JOEY!!!!!!!!!!!" You guys don´t hear me so i yell again and joey turns around and tells that it´s me. He starts runnign at me but then dad grabs him and tells him he can´t see me. Then mom trys to come over to me with blaire wells but mom doesn´t talk to me, she leaves and blaire asks me if i want to get a ride home with her i tell her YES! and then i woke up...

it was really strange, and it just made me want to see you guys that much more, but it´s ok. I just want you all to know how much i love and appreciate every one of you! I have the BEST FAMILY anyone could ever ask for!!! I hope you all have an amazing week!!!! I love you!!!

Love, Sister Salisbury

Ps i wore my white summer dress yesterday to the baptism and it was super cute...i´ll send pics next week!!! :)

oh and transfers are this next week too...not sure what will happen....