Te Agradeço

This has seriously been one of the best transfers yet. I love my companion, the Elders in the ward, the ward, and the area. I have been so blessed! I also know that I still have so many opportunities in front of me. I am so grateful for the love of the Lord and all of the little things that I see that help me to remember His love. I know my Heavenly Father loves me! And that is such a great feeling. I am trying to stay focused and happy so I can show our investigators what their lives could be like. Things are going really great now, but I know that it won't always be that way. I am trying to learn how to be happy no matter what the circumstance. I know that true happiness comes when our lives are focused on Jesus Christ and the things that He taught. It is really hard to be a missionary, but I am so happy!! It is so hard to explain, but I love it.

We had some great experiences this week too. The people that we are teaching are awesome and I love 'em. Let me tell you about Enildo and Marina. The Elders made a contact with him first and gave us his address. One day we decided to visit to see if we could teach him and his family. We get there and start talking to him and his wife, but he was rude and just told us he was too busy to talk to us and that if he had known that we would come he wouldn’t have given the Elders his address. We normally wouldn’t visit them again but his wife Marina was more interested. So after a few days we finally were able to sit down together and teach them.

Enildo doesn’t really have any religion and doesn’t pray or read the bible or anything. Marina can’t read but she says her prayers. It was super difficult to get Enildo to say the prayer the first time, but he finally did it. We visited them this week and we were talking about the importance of prayer, because Enildo still wasn’t saying his daily prayers. We asked him to pray to start our lesson. With a lot of coaxing, Sister Larissa spoke the first words for him to repeat "Pai Celestial... te agradeço…" And after that he said the prayer, and you could tell that it really touched him this time. It wasn’t the first one he had said with us, but I think it was the first one where he really knew that someone was listening. After that he just loves us and is so much nicer than the first time we met him. It is amazing to see the power of the Spirit and Prayer in other people's lives. There are countless more experiences just like this one. I love being a missionary!!

I got more letters this week! Thank you so much Family! Mom, I loved all the things you said about the Sao Paulo show you watch. Yes, you should totally learn how to make feijoada!! It is so good :) And another good thing you should try: avocado smoothie. Mix some avocados, milk, and some sugar in a blender = super delicious! It is a little strange at first but it’s super good.

So today for Pday…we went to the Sao Paulo zoo! It was awesome! By the way, I love elephants and giraffes and flamingos. It’s pretty awesome all the things that Heavenly Father made for us. The world is beautiful!

I love you all! Try and notice the little things in life that make you happy. Notice the tender mercies of the Lord. They are there!!

Love ya!

Sister Berry

Two Baptisms!

Hello!!

I don’t have a lot of time this week so I’m going to try and sum all this up. Well, I just want to say that I love the area that I’m in and the people here in this area. This ward is mostly made up of converts and they are so strong. It is so amazing to see so many people willing to help the work move forward. I love it here!

An amazing thing that happened this week was we had 2 baptisms! I think I talked about Sandra and Igor, how the Elders have been teaching them for a long time. Well, they got baptized on Saturday. It was a great experience. I thought of the quote that Beth sent me, “There is no such thing as a homesick missionary at the baptismal font." It is so true.

The Elders are just great too. They were so happy and Igor and Sandra were so happy. It was just awesome to see everyone full of joy. Igor and Sandra just took a huge step in their lives. They were washed clean of all of their sins, and took upon themselves the name of Christ.

Oh I love this gospel. I love my Savior and all that I have because of Him. That reminds of a video that I LOVE.  https://www.lds.org/youth/video/because-of-him?lang=eng   Watch it!

 I love being a missionary!

And I love you.

Tchau gente, falou

Sister Berry

Temples, Family, and Love

Oi people :)

Well, I am really happy because so many awesome things happened this week. Wednesday, all the missionaries in the mission had the opportunity to go to the temple either in Campinas or Sao Paulo, and it was amazing. I love the temple so much. The Campinas temple is so beautiful, and it was so peaceful. The temple is truly a house of the Lord.

Sister Larissa and I at the Campinas Temple

After going to the temple and getting a spiritual recharge we were able to have a fantastic week teaching people. I can really feel the strength of the Lord in my life and I love it!

Thank you for the letter from the YSA Surprise Stake! I loved it!

Mother's day! I got to see my family on Skype! Woo hoo! It was so amazing to see all of them. I love my family. I’ve been thinking a lot about happiness and the love of God. God loves every single one of us and He wants us to be happy. However, it’s not always easy for us to be happy all the time. But it should be. I’m focusing on choosing to be happy NOW and in every circumstance. I can be happy no matter what if I trust in the Lord and focus on Him and the things that really matter.

I am so grateful for the opportunity we have to learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for my Savior, and I just want to make Him proud.

Remember that you are amazing!

Love, Sister Berry

Climbing Mountains

Hello Everyone!

Well this has been another great week in Brazil. So much stuff happened! Some updates: Sister Larissa and I are getting to know the area a little better. It’s a little hard to find an address though--hardly any of the streets have name plaques, so we have to talk to everyone to ask the names of the streets. But like I said, we are learning our way around.

By the way, it’s getting cold here. The nights are freezing now, but I love it. It makes me feel like its Christmas... but it’s not so it’s also a little sad. I like the cold though.

This week we had the amazing opportunity to have a mission conference with the Sao Paulo North mission to hear from Elder Marcos A. Aidukatis and Elder L. Whitney Clayton and their wives. It was so awesome! And the talks were absolutely perfect. I really liked the talk by Sister Aidukatis. She talked about the scripture 2 Nephi 25:26...

"We talk of Christ, we preach of Christ, we rejoice in Christ..."

It is all about Jesus Christ. I am so grateful for my Savior and Redeemer and that I get to tell others about Him every single day. That is why I am here.

Another cool thing Elder Aidukatis and Elder Clayton did was they took the time to shake all of our hands and wanted to know where we were from. It’s great to feel the love.

I was also able to see a bunch of old friends in the mission and some of the elders that were in my MTC district. It was awesome. 

We did an awesome hike for our p-day today. I almost died getting to the top, but it was so worth it. There was so much fog and it was sprinkling a little bit too. The view was so amazing! “Heavenly Father did a good job.” And I saw a Hummingbird. I know Heavenly Father loves me.

We had an amazing lesson with the other Elders in our area this week. We watched the Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration movie (SUPER good, you have to watch it). It’s kind of a long story with these investigators, Sandra and Igor, but to sum it up a bit, they’ve been investigating the church for a long time but they still haven’t gotten baptized. So after the film, we all bore our testimonies- that we know that this is the true church of Jesus Christ and the only place to find true happiness. But what I loved was the testimony of Elder Correia. The Spirit was so strong, and he told Igor that we missionaries would not be giving all our time, our lives, to this church if it wasn’t true. Joseph Smith wouldn’t have died for something that wasn’t true, and that he didn’t believe in with his whole heart.

I am here because the Church is true. Christ lives and loves us. I am so grateful to be a missionary. I am so grateful for a loving Father in Heaven.

Sister Berry

New Area, New Companion, New Adventures

Things are fantastic here in Sao Paulo Brazil! So here's the big news: I am now in Boa Vista! Mogi das Cruzes. Basically it means that it's super far away from where I used to be! And my WONDERFUL new companion is Sister Larissa. She's Brazilian from Rio Grande do Sul, and is super sweet. She only has 3 months left of her mission, and she's engaged! Her fiancé is serving his mission in Brazil right now too. I love her!

Transfers! I love transfers. I had the chance to see a bunch of missionaries all in the same place. I got to talk to my trainer Sister Beazer! That was awesome!! And I got to see my MTC companion, Sister Kormylo whom I love! So that was great. We found out who we were paired with and where we were going and we got our bags and went. We had a ride back to our area which was super nice because it was an hour away by car; I can’t even imagine how long it would be by bus or train.

We are in a little house behind the bishop’s house, and the family is amazing. We have a nice little apartment, and everything was all set up for us. OH, I forgot to mention that we are opening up the area. Sister Larissa wasn’t in this area before; we are both new. So we are super lost, but the work moves forward anyway. The bishop has a huge 'backyard' and has banana trees and oranges and I think tangerines too. So we have a lot of delicious fruit in the house now, yum!

So much happened this week! To sum it all up-

1) There was a GIANT SPIDER in our bathroom one morning. The picture cannot capture how huge it was. It was ginormous! The bishop wasn’t home so Nilva, his wife, came over with bug killing spray. When she first saw it she jumped back and ran almost out the front door again. After using all of the can of spray, we were able to get it out of the house. 

2)  We ate a nasty, nasty (double nasty) drink/soup called Mocató, which is a drink/soup made from the inside of a cow’s hoof. It was warm, salty, and the consistency of snot. I drank the whole cup; the lady was super insistent.

3) We had the best Churrasco (BBQ) ever at a member’s house this week. It was soooo good. There was so much meat! There was also garlic bread and cheese too that was amazing! It was really, really good.

We already did some cool things this morning with the Elders in our area. We saw some super cute monkeys, just hanging in the trees, and a cool Buddhist temple. My camera died halfway through but Elder Pott’s took some good pictures on his camera--I´ll try to send them next week.

I love this new area and I am so excited for all the new adventures that are coming my way!

Just remember that God loves you and he hears and answers your prayers. I cannot say that enough. I know that Heavenly Father answers our prayers; probably not the way that we thought, but the way that is best for us to grow. Just keep on keepin’ on, and do your best.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY! I LOVE YOU! Have a fantastic day, I’ll be thinking of you!

Jessie and Francesca Wall--EMAIL ME! I love you...maybe. I’ll have to think about it ;)

Love, Sister Berry

Goodbye to Nova Cidade

Hello! Hello!

First some news…TRANSFERS. All four of the Sisters here in Nova Cidade are getting transferred! It’s kinda crazy but true. I’m a little sad to leave this area and all the amazing people that I have met here, but I’m excited to go to a new area and meet new people.  A lot of great things happened this week, some funny stories that I would like to tell, but I don’t have the time. (I spent my time emailing my Aunt back and forth). 

One thing that happened was when my comp and I were leaving the açaí place with some Elders in our district… I totally slipped and fell. Yup, just like me to fall in front of the whole world. I messed up my knee but mostly it was my pride that got bruised.

We have been teaching some amazing people here but no one is married to the person they live with! We were teaching the second lesson with this lady who is living with her dad to help him and she is fantastic. We found out that she’s been living with this other guy for 20 years and is still not married. People that are living together have to be married first in order to get baptized. We are working hard to find people that are prepared to live the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Church was really good yesterday. A recent convert invited me and my companion to go see the new Avengers on our next P day! If only! I had to tell him that we don’t watch movies on our missions and he got a little sad. But I am excited for all of you back in America to see Avengers!

I learned something this week during our lunch yesterday with the Stake President. We were talking about the Savior and when he was tempted by Satan to turn stone into bread, have angels save him from death, and all the riches of the world that Satan could offer. But Jesus Christ denied everything and told Satan, “get thee hence”. And the way I understand it, the Savior was able to do that because He knew who He was. He knew that he was a Child of God, and that He had a grand and marvelous work to do here on the earth. When we know who we are and why we are here, we can do amazing things. You are a child of God, and you are here on this earth to be happy. The only way that we can be truly happy is through the true gospel of Jesus Christ.

I love you all. Remember who you are, and that you can do hard things!

Love Sister Berry

Freia!

Hello everyone!!

This week went by incredibly slow. Or fast. I can’t really tell. All I know is that last Monday seems like an eternity away. So much has happened this week.

Some good news, it’s getting colder! One day this week was just a wonderful kind of cold that made me feel like it was Christmas. It was marvelous.

Also, I learned the word for "brake" this week in Portuguese. Like the brakes on a car. You want to know how? A member drove the four of us missionaries back to our area after lunch one day. The problem is he is still learning how to drive his stick shift car. I have never been so scared or prayed harder in my life! My comp was just sitting in the front yelling "Freia!" every 10 seconds. He stalled the car countless times, almost crashed, but we got home safely, and that’s all that matters. It was an experience to say the least!

I don’t have a lot of time, but I just want to say that I know that my Savior lives, and He loves me and each one of you! I listened to general conference this week in English and it was cool to see how much I understood in the Portuguese one. I know we have a living prophet on the earth today. Find out for yourself!

I love you! 

Sister Berry