Maple syrup concentrate discovery!!!

Hello everyone!

Well me and my daughter are doing fabulous down here in Brasil! I lied in my last email, she is actually from El Salvador!! Her name is Sister Fuentes and she is the cutest thing ever (like mom like daughter) jk haha! But really I love her so much! I have been learning a lot of spanish too, so thats a good time! This week we worked so hard but it was great. We walked so much my daughter got pretty sore but my mission phrase is, "no pain no gain," which means this week we just had a lot of gain! But then I made chocolate pancakes and cookies for my companion to help her feel better so no worries she is stong and healthy! This week we had a menos ativo (less active) go to church that hadn't been in 2 years, we are also teaching her family, they are hilarious! This week we did a ton of contacting and found a bunch of new investigators to teach this week so its going to be great! One of our investigators, Mel also came to church so we were really excited about that! She just has to get married and she can be baptized, but there are a lot of things we have to do with paper work so she can get married, but none the less we are excited! Also this week we got to take one of our recent converts, Gabriel to the temple for the first time to do baptisms and it was amazing! I love watching peoples faces when they see the temple for the first time, Its one of the many things I love about being a missionary! I also made a life changing discovery, in the temple shop here in Brasil they sell maple concentrate that you use to make maple syrup that I'm beyond excited about! Other than our investigators, temple trip, my daughter, and my maple syrup discovery I think that is about all for this week! Thank you for all of your prayers and emails! I hope you all have an amazing week and are making time to read the book of mormom every single day because it truly has the power to change your life. love you all and ate proxima semana
Love, Sister Peine

uma filha

Hello everyone,
This week was crazyyy.....We had a mission tour and a leadership training this week so I got to see all of my friends in the mission it was great! I will try and send pictures if this coumputer will let me but if not I will send some next week. Then yesterday President Miller called me to ask me if I could train so that is crazy because I still barley know how to use the bus and metro systems...but it will be cool to have a "daughter" in the mission (congrats mom) she will be born tomorrow...The other thing that Im a tad nervous about it she is from Nicaragua and I do not know how to speak spanish haha but I guess Im going to have to learn! So today for pday Ive just been hanging out with the AP's all day and we went to the temple of salamon which was super cool! Then tonight I will sleep in the sister APs house and I will meet my daughter tomorrow! Im super excied but it will be interesting for sure......I speak english, she speaks spanish and we are both trying to be fluent in portuguese together....so if you would all like to pray for me I wouldnt mind! Well thats about all I have time for this week but I love you all and I will update you all on my daughter next week! beijo
Love, Sister Peine

Visit from the Apostles

This week was oh so good! Literally almost everything fell through this week...BUT we had a visit from the Apostles and I got to see some of my favorite people so I can't complain! We also had divisions with the sister AP's (assistant to the president) which was a lot of fun and I learned a lot from them! I went with sister Southwick (who is also from Utah) so that was a good time. Then on Thursday we had family night with a family in the ward and our recent convert, Gabriel. We made tacos which was also a good time. On Friday we all met together at the train station with our zone to travel to the church where M. Russell Ballard and Elder Soares and his wife spoke to us (the church next to the temple.) When we got there, there were about 700 other missionaries there which was really cool to see! I also saw a bunch of people that I was in the CTM with, my mission mom, sister Torres (my mission soul sister) and some people I knew in high school or met at EFY's so that was crazy to see so many people I knew! Elder Ballard's and Elder Soares talks were really inspiring! Elder Soares talked about the example of Jesus Christ in missionary work, how he talked to literally everyone about the gospel. He didn't ever want to let anyone lose the opportunity to hear about it, and neither should we! He also talked about how every time the Lord gives a commandment he promises blessings that we will receive when we keep that commandment and how we are commanded to open our mouths and share the gospel and when we do this we will be blessed with the words we need and the spirit! Then Elder Ballard spoke, he told us about how much he loves us and how the 12 apostles pray for us every Thursday! Then he went on to talk about faith and how if we have faith, true faith then we don't have fear. He also talked about how we have pathways being guided form heaven for each one of us and when we don't have faith sometimes we are passing by all the blessings that are on that part of the path! He also talked about our missions and how we aren't just learning to be good servants of God but we are building a foundation of the principles and doctrines of the gospel that we are going to use for the rest of our lives and how when we really understand the gospel and have faith we will be happy because we truly understand how to change, how to find true happiness, and have hope...through Christ. Then he closed by telling us what he thought Christ would say to us if he was there, and part of what he said was, "there is nothing so hard that we can't accomplish it together," which I really liked. If we want something to happen we only need two people to want it to happen...us and our Heavenly Father and truly nothing is impossible. That's one of the biggest things I have learned so far on my mission. After the apostles spoke to us my whole zone got lost in the Sao Paulo south mission at 9:00 at night because we took the wrong bus, so we all wandered around the giant city in Brazil together like a herd of little lost sheep! It was so funny! Well, that's about it for this week, I hope you are all praying and searching for opportunities to be missionaries and then sharing your knowledge without fear. I challenge you all to pray to find opportunities to be a missionary and give a Book of Mormon to someone you don't know! Well, I love you all and I hope you have a superb week! Beijo!

Love, sister Peine

Missing cell phone

E ai de boa? Essa Semana foi um pouco difícil mas mesmo assim foi uma boa semana. So this week was one of the weeks that kinda just kicked my bum, but it was still a good week because we worked really hard! We left our area a lot for divisions and district meetings but we found a ton of new people in the other sister's areas which was a lot of fun! So this week my companion left our cell phone on a bus! We called the number and the bus driver answered and told us we could get it the next day when he was passing by on his bus route, so Sunday morning came and it was stake conference so we actually needed to take the bus anyway, but there are tons of buses that make the same route and we had no way to call and ask which bus was his so we stopped a woman on the road to ask if we could borrow her phone to call our phone which is kind of a weird question so we had to explain the whole thing to her. It turns out she was hammered, ha ha, she was coming back from a party that she had been at all night long and she could barely walk straight so explaining the whole thing for her was very difficult but in the end she walked with us to the bus stop and stayed with us until we had our phone to make sure we got it O.k and then we made a contact with her so we are going to teach her this week (hopefully a little more sober) but really she was the nicest drunk person I have ever met in my whole life. Not too much else happened this week just a lot of divisions and working hard! This week on Friday we are going to have a visit from 2 apostles so we are super excited about that and it will be a bunch of missions in Sao Paulo. We will leave our mission for the conference who we are super excited!!! Also today for play we went to the gym, it was a lot of fun but that's about the only exciting thing we did today. We are going to eat pancakes tonight with some members who tole me they have maple syrup so that is also pretty exciting because they don't have that here and I actually miss it a lot! Well I miss you all and love you, hope you are all having an amazing week and are doing all the small and important things! Alma 37:6-7.
Beijo, ate próxima semana
Love, sister Peine

Bus stress!!!

Hello everyone!

This week was a good one! (Maybe one of these days I'll think of another way to start these things) But it's just because all of my weeks are so good! I guess that's just what happens when you're serving the Lord but really this week was just too good. Gabriel WAS BAPTIZED and it was so AMAZING! Then today after his confirmation he told us how he's thinking about going on a mission..man we were so excited! We also had divisoes this week with sister Ogohtuama and Sister Cifuentes! It was a lot of fun! We met one of the members there named Ganilton. He is 88 years old and he loves helping he missionaries! He is seriously an angel for all the sisters who pass through that area. He has a wall FULL of pictures of all the missionaries that have passed through that area and this box they all signed that he had me sign. He's so cute, and then he made cakes for us! So there was a down side this week....the buses here are GIANT, it's like 2 buses put together and it bends in the middle, it's wild! We were coming back from our lunch appointment and we get on the bus and there are 2 seats open so I sat in the back of the bus and my companion in the middle, close to the doors. Side note....I only have 3 weeks in this area and our area is HUGE so I still don't know how to get around so good yet... So I'm just chilling on the bus and all of a sudden I see my companion outside my window, so I jump up and start running for the doors just in time for them to close literally almost on my nose as my companion is yelling, "Oh no, I forgot you don't know the area!" and then the bus took off. Well, the bus stops are very far apart here and it's like a giant maze....Also I had no clue where I was or even how to get back to my house and my companion had the cell phone! So I ran to the front of the bus to tell the bus driver that I needed off the bus and he said O.K, thinking I was talking about the next stop (as we are getting further and further away from where I last saw my companion, so all sorts of stressed, I yelled, "No you don't understand, I need to get off RIGHT NOW!" He looked at me like I was crazy and also a little annoyed then looked straight forward and slammed the brakes, pretty sure everyone on that bus got whip lash...because we were definitely going a solid 50-60 mph on a busy road! So after I got of the bus I started sprinting in the direction of my companion I was without her for like 20 minutes and when I found her she was waiting for me with her camera taking pictures of me sprinting down the side walk, to say the least she was not as stressed as me haha then today we had p-day with our zone, it was a ton of fun, we played volleyball and ate hot dogs....well that is about it for this week, oh ya, today I hit 6 months in the mission so that is crazy, it is passing by soooooooo fast, but I am loving every minute of it and there is no place I would rather be than here in brasil serving our Savior. I love you all and I hope you have a great week, ate a proxima, beijo

Love, sister Peine

Locked Out!!

Hello everyone,

Another good week here in Brasil!!!! This week we had zone conferences which is always a good time and it was a lot of fun to meet a lot of the new missionaries in my mission! It also rained sooooo much this week! One day it rained so hard that our umbrellas weren't even doing anything so we ran to the church for shelter (our church is giant, it has 3 levels and an elevator) when the rain slowed down enough we went to go back out on the street! Well, when the door of the church shut my companion looked to me and asked if I had the keys......and I definitely didn't! The other thing about our church is that it has a giant wall around it and a gate with a giant lock that you unlock with our keys that were inside the church.......so not only were we locked out of the church but we were locked inside the walls of the church.......our bishop got a good laugh out of that phone call.......after waiting for about an hour he came and saved us....moral of the story my companion is no longer allowed to touch our keys haha!! We also made a lot of new investigators this week! Gabriel and Victor are really excited about their baptisms coming up this month so hopefully everything goes good with them! Well that is all I can think of for right now! I will remember some good stories for next week but I love you all and I hope you are doing amazing!

Love, Sister Peine