They don't celebrate Thanksgiving here so we didn't eat a lot that day since our lunch wasn't very good but I hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving. I have never seen so much rain in my life...They say that the more rain you track in on your mission the better looking your spouse will be. If this is true my husband is going to be a super model! A temple worthy super model with a strong testimony of course! To say the least it rained quite a bit this week. (Broke my 4th umbrella) Due to all of the rain most of our appointments fell through but we managed to find a handful people still. Our zone leader who is in my district this week died (finished his mission) so our district had a funeral for him and it was actually kind of sad because my old companion, sister Peres and a bunch of my other mission friends will also go home...So that's a little weird because I'm slowly becoming one of the older missionaries in the mission. It's so crazy how fast it is passing by! Some other exciting news, my companion that I was training finished the 12 week training program and we got the transfer yesterday and I will be staying with sister Fuentes here in Via Matilde for one more transfer. That's going to be 6 months here in Vila Matilde but I'm excited and me and sister Fuentes were pretty excited that we will be staying together! I also think I got my companion addicted to peanut butter, I've been making a lot of pancakes! I also spoke in church on Sunday so that was neat! This week I think my testimony grew a lot because I shared it A LOT! I have really learned that our testimonies are like muscles! When we exercise them through sharing them, they become strong but if we don't share them they will become weak like a muscle that never exercises! I hope you are all always taking the opportunity to share your testimonies and strengthen them! I love you all lots and hope you have a great week! Ale mas ama todos voces!
Love, Sister Peine

Happy Birthday/Halfway Done!

This week was a good week! My birthday was a great day, my companion woke me up at 6:30 am and sang happy birthday to me! Which was a good thing so I didn't even have time to think about the fact that I would be 20 and then we worked really hard the rest of the day and at the end of the day I forgot that it was even my birthday but that is exactly how I wanted to spend my day, it's a good feeling to forget about yourself. Then on Sunday we had lunch with a lady in my ward and they mada a cute party for me! I don't know, I loved it but at the same time I almost was sad because I'm not a teenager any more and its super strange to me! My district also through me a surprise birthday party for our district meeting that was really fun and made my day. THANK YOU FOR THE PACKAGE MOMMA!!!! I loved it!! My companion keeps making fun of me because one of the things that I got the most exctied about was the pen hahah! But I loved everything in the package! So thank you, you made my birthday a special day!!!
This week I hit 9 months on my mission, half way....and I don't know how I feel about that......A little sad because its going by so fast! This week was a great week, we always find good people to teach but this week we found people that I know that the lord is truly preparing to hear about the gospel and I am just excited! Also thank you everyone that send birthday wishes, love you all! I dont know how I feel about having 20 years.....It's weird to not be a teenager anymore and lowkey scary haha..... We are also teaching a girl named Biatris whom I love so much that we are very excited about and she is excited about her baptism date for the first of December! I pretty much forgot everything that we did this week and I don't have very much time so I'm going to wrap it up! I hope you all making the time to share the gospel with everyone that you know, like in Lehi's dream when he ate the fruit, the first thing that he thought was to share the fruit which is our knowledge of the gospel with his family and we are all brothers and sisters so we need to share that knowlege with everyone!!! I hope you are all looking for opportunities to always invite someone new to church or share your testimony and strengthen it! Love you all and hope this week is 10/10!!
p.s. Shout out to the best mom in the world and the birthday package that contained peanut butter I was beyond excited, thank you momma love you!!!!
Love, Sister Peine

Swing Dancing, Ear Piercing and Baptisms

This week was just an answer to prayers, it was a GREAT week! So I don't have much time but I will hit ya with the highlights! My comp has had a fear to pierce her ears her whole life but has always wanted to, so one day when we were passing the pharmacy I planned it all out and she was sitting in the chair to pierce her ears before she even knew what was going on! But she loves them and hugs me like every 10 minutes telling me thank you so that was a good time! I also taught her how to swing dance this week! We have got the backflip to a T! To say the least the training is going wonderfully! Then this week the lord had another baptism!!!!!! Our investigator Gabriel was baptized and it was amazing!! I have never seen anyone so excited to be baptized in my whole life! When he came out of the bathroom in his white baptism clothes he yelled, " Sister Peine are you excited, because I'm so excited," and let me tell you I was excited! He was a great example for his family and I know that someday they will all be members of the church. His dad was even able to watch the baptism and there was a great turn out from the ward and we are excited to keep teaching him and his brothers and family! This week was a week that just made me happy to be a missionary!! I know that the Lord really does listen and respond to our prayers but we have to be listening for when he will respond ALWAYS!! I love our Savior so much and I'm so excited to be a part of his work!!
Love, Sister Peine

Tithing

Hello Everyone!
Hope you all had a happy Halloween! They don't celebrate that here so that was kind of sad but those things happen! Not much has happened this week, we have done a lot of finding and have found a lot of new people but are having a hard time getting them to come to church. Our area is kind of like the New York City of Brasil and everyone is always in a hurry to get somewhere or travel but hopefully the church attendance will be better next week! We still have lots of people progressing towards baptism, slowly but....surely! I don't have any exciting stories for this week so I thought I would share something that I studied this week that I loved. I started studying about tithing. How anything that we have is because of God, not only our jobs but even the very trees used to make money and how when we pay tithing we are making our donation but really we are just giving back what's already His and He is allowing us to receive blessings because of it and be a small part of building the kingdom of God here on earth! That reminded me of one of my favorite scriptures...Mosiah 4:24, "And again, I say unto the poor, ye who have not and yet have sufficient, that ye remain from day to day; I mean all you who deny the beggar, because ye have not; I would that ye say in hour hearts that: I give not because I have not, but if I had I would give." That scripture made me think of a lot of people that I have met here in Brasil. Usually the people who share the most things and want to give what they have are the people that have the least but they have just enough to share that that's what they do, share. Then I was thinking how there is one thing that we all have plenty of to share! Our time. We need to share our time! We all have 24 hours in each day. Who are we going to share it with? Our phone? Netflix? Sleeping? Or are we going to share it with someone who needs a good listener, someone in our family, maybe even someone we don't know and most importantly how much time will we share with Heavenly Father? I hope you are all always sharing what you have, especially one of the most valuable things that we all have, our time! I love you all and hope you all have a great week and use your TIME wisely;)
Love, sister Peine