FELIZ NATAL E ANO NOVO

Hey guys! I hope you all had a great Christmas! We had a good one here in Guarujá. It was kind of different, you know, being far from home and stuff. But it was good. We were able to do a lot of Christmasy stuff. On Christmas Eve and Day, we weren´t able to mark any appointments, so we just went and visited everybody. We sang them Christmas carols and it was nice. We ate some good Brazilian food too. Lots of panetone and chester, which I learned is really just chicken. But it was good. with arroz and maionese e guaraná. We spent Christmas night with a bunch of members who also didn´t have family to spend it with. And we were able to talk to our families, so it was really just ótimo. I don´t really have anything to complain about. The mission is great, and it´s weird that I´m almost done, but it happens to everyone. We´re really excited for this week because we´ll have a bit more time to work effectively and we´re gonna have baptisms! Woohoo starting the year off right! 

This week I read a talk by Elder Bednar about the Character of Christ. I recommend this talk to all you guys. It talks about how Jesus Christ, even in the most difficult moments of His life, still thought about the needs of others and looked to serve them. As I thought about Christmas, and missionary work, and the Christ´s character, I really felt strong love for our Savior and His love for all of us. 

Com amor,

Sister Herron

Pictures from Cubatão and Guarujá!

Tchau Cubatão! Valeu!

Guarujá!

Here goes my last transfer!

Hey guys!

So for my last 6 weeks, I´m in a new area! I´m with Sister Souza. She's from Salvador, Brazil, and today´s 2 months for her in the mission! So I´m gonna finish her training here in Guarujá, Guarujá. It´ll be fun. I´m also a Sister Leader Trainer now, so I´m gonna be responsible for the Sisters here in Guarujá. I think it´s just 5 sisters, but I´ll try to know some more details here soon. 

I took a lot of pictures, but this computer doesn´t want you guys to see them. So you guys will just have to wait for next week. I´ll send a better email next time too. The time was super short today. But I hope you all know that I love you guys and that the Book of Mormon is true. 

Com muito amor,
Sister Herron

Another member of the Seventy!

Here's a picture of our Christmas tree! It's super cute. And we have the best presents!!!!!!!!!

https://www.comeuntochrist.org/light-the-world  To feel more of the Christmas spirit. I cried when I watched the video.

This week we had another devotional with a member of the seventy, Elder Joaquim Costa, and his wife Sister Costa. They are from Argentina and they are super cute. Half of the mission was there together, but I saw all of my companions that are still in the mission.

The devotional was super inspirational. It was exactly what my mission and I needed. Everything had the same theme, without planning. We need to dedicate all of ourselves. Being obedient isn't enough. We have quantity already, but we need to better the quality and the miracles will happen even more than they already are.

We are trying to focus more on the people who are progressing to help them make the last steps. We are praying muito that Patrick can be baptized soon. He's completely ready. He just needs courage to take the step, and open the door. Luiz Victor and his dad are doing alright. I think I wrote about them last week. His mom passed away last week and we went to the funeral. This week we were able to go back and visit them. They're doing a lot better, and they're reading the Book of Mormon together, which is giving them a lot of comfort. They're super excited to go to church. They already think of us and the members of the church as family, so we're happy too. This is the last week of the transfer, so it's gonna be full of miracles.

Have a good week everybody! Love you all!!!!!!

Sister Herron

Church History Devotional

I have pictures this week! This week was a fun one. We had a big mission devotional on Thursday with Elder Curtis of the seventy. He is the Historian of the Church, so he knows a lot about history of the church. In the devotional, they talked a lot about the importance of keeping a good journal and the great gift the Book of Mormon is. And the how the greatest evidence of its truthfulness is the change that it makes in the hearts of the people who read it. Most of the pictures are from that day. It was fun to see my other companions and everybody from the mission again. After the devotional, we went to the bus stop to come home. And the bus was super late. We waited at the bus stop for about 3 and a half hours. It was a long time. But we did get home, it was just 10 at night...

On Saturday, we learned that the mom of one of the people we´re teaching passed away. I realized a little bit about how important our work really is. We went to the funeral and it was super sad. People that don´t understand the plan of salvation will have a really hard time being happy in this life. But we had already taught him about the plan, and I´m really grateful that we had already found him and his family and that we could be here for them at this time.

But on happier notes, yesterday was the Primary Program at church and Patrick went! And Heitor participated with the primary! It was super cute and also funny. And this week, he´s going to fast to know when he should get baptized. So that’s exciting.  Logo logo. It´s gonna be great!
I hope you all have a marvelous week!

Love,
Sister Herron

Little Miracles

Hi everybody!

This week was a pretty basic week. Nothing too exciting happened. But as a missionary, every day is full of little miracles and little challenges. Every day, I have been noting one miracle or inspiring thing that has happened that day, so I think I ́ll share some of them with you guys today.  1) We have been teaching a lady named Silvana for a while now, like 3 months. who needs to get married before she can get baptized. And her "husband" doesn't want to get married, or really do anything spiritual. But we started teaching him, and he read a little and said the prayer!!!! baby steps    2) We found and started to teach a man who is very interested that we contacted from the activity at the cemetery last week. And some of the members were very discouraged about the activity. but the blessings come. 3) Our elect investigator, Luiz Victor, is having trouble going to church because his mother has cancer and his doesn‘t like to leave her at home alone. But they accepted that she received a blessing of healing, and she’s a new investigator now too! woohoo!

So that´s some of the better little miracles of the week. Until next week!

Sister Herron

Halloween

District Cubatão

My companion is super cute and made Halloween costumes for us.

Zuleide, an investigator of the Elders in our ward, was baptized! 

So we got a picture too.

This week was a interesting one. I went to a cemetery to make contacts on Saturday so that was kind of different. Brazilian cemeteries are way different that American ones. Sorry that my email is super short today, but at least it has pictures!

Com amor,

Sister Herron

Boa tarde!

This week was a working week. Nothing super out of the ordinary happened. It´s getting hotter here, and starting to feel like summer. We´re currently teaching 2 rapazes that are progressing. The first is Patrick. We´ve actually been teaching him for a long time, and he´s just been progressing in his own little speed. But logo logo he´s going to get baptized!

We´re also teaching a rapaz named Luiz Victor. We found the 2 weeks ago, and he´s an elect of the Lord! Every time we go there he´s like, Wow I didn´t know that! It´s super awesome. He said that he was praying about something and then two days later we responded his question with the Plan of Salvation. He also has a date for baptism. He just needs to go to church a few time, e pronto!

The picture for this week is future Sister Rute. XD She´s super cute. Also, she asked if I'm pregnant. KKKKKK she´s the little sister of a recent convert and her mom is getting baptized this week!

But that´s about it for now.

Love you all!
Sister Herron

I actually took pictures this week!

This week was super awesome, and a little bit weird. But I liked it.

First of all, we had transfers, and..... I stayed. Again. But with Sister De Maria again! Woohoo! It's gonna be my 5th transfer here in Cubatão. Let´s go! Woohoo! This transfer we´re definitely going to have a baptism. I'm super excited.

1) We had a little service project where we painted the front of the house and the gate of a lady in the ward. It was fun. We got to use pants and help and stuff.

2) Sister Freitas had her last district counsel, so we ate food and stuff. Also, our zone made t-shirts.

3) Last night, we had a Family Home Evening, and Patrick went! He's the cousin of one of the recent converts, and we've been working with him for a while. But he's really starting to progress now, and we're excited.

4) We had divisions this week too, so I spent Wednesday in Parque das Bandeiras. I spent the day with Sister Tomlinson, and I learned a lot that day. It was a great day. And Sister De Maria did awesome leading another new Sister here in Cubatão. She's already an expert.

But that's all for now, gente.

Amo vocês,

Sister Herron

Top 4 Lists

Hey, everybody! I thought this week I will do something different, and share all the funny things that happened this week.

1) For my birthday, one of my investigators sent a Happy birthday tele-message. I don´t know exactly what that´s called in English. But it was like a flashback to who knows what year. It was funny. And after the message a lady asked if I knew who sent it to me. I didn’t, but I thought maybe President Harman had a weird idea for the missionaries birthdays. But the lady said " It was your brother in Christ, Patrick!" We laughed a lot about that.
2) This weekend was a holiday, Children´s Day, so there were a lot of drunk people on the street, and sometimes we try to get their contacts before we know they´re drunk. One of them. asked my name and understood Ellen. another man told me that my name tag says " I am Andrea".
3) One of the investigators of the elders from our ward, while reading the Book of Mormon, said God would never command Nephi to kill Laban. She was very skeptical about it. However when she was watching the new Book of Mormon videos she was telling Nephi to just kill him already. "Mata logo filho!" hahaha We laughed about that a lot.
4) I learned that I´ve been saying the word rock wrong all this time.... and that de nenhum jeito and de algum jeito mean the same thing.

And I think that´s all that I can remember of the funny things from this week. But it was a good one.

And here are my 4 favorite lessons from the week:

1) With Paulo, we taught the plan of salvation. just the first part. But he was absolutely amazed that he lived with God before he was born.  We tried to move on, but he just coming back to that.
2) With Heitor, we taught the 10 commandments. He is hilarious, he doesn´t know basically anything about God, but he understood the part about how he can´t pray to horses hahahaha
3) With Manoel and Val, we taught the Word of Wisdom. Manoel was like Wow, I´ve never heard that you can´t drink coffee. He wasn´t upset or anything, just pure surprise. But when we invited him to live it, he said "If God doesn´t want me to drink, then it´s not for me to drink"
4) With Jurandilson, we shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It was really good. He wants to follow the right path, but needs to make a few changes in his life first. He accepted a baptismal date with enthusiasm and we made some goals to help him prepare.

And that´s all for today. Have a great week everybody!

Amo vocês,
Sister Herron

Conferencia Geral!!!!!!!!!!

Hello everybody!!!!!! This week was a great adventure for us! Other than the hundreds of little miracles in the daily life, we had a few other excitements. On Thursday, our entire zone had a service project in São Vicente. We visited a nursing home and sang for them. It was super fun and also a challenge for my Portuguese haha.  Velhinhos são difíceis entender. One of the ladies there, Teresa, wanted a picture with me and Sister Thurber. She was cute. Unfortunately, while we were in São Vicente, we lost our cell phone. We had to learn some patience, but with some prayers, it was found and we have it again.


And I loved General Conference! It was amazing! They talked a lot about covenants, which I was thinking a lot about last week. Really, it´s only when we make promises with God that we can progress to reach our potential. My favorite talks were by President Eyring and Elder Rasband I think. And Elder Gong. But I loved it all. And we had some people come to church to watch with us which was amazing!


But I love you all. Have a great week.

Sister Herron

Book of Mormon Challenge

Hello everybody! 

This week was full of adventures. We had splits this week which was fun. I stayed here with a novinha, Sister Lima, from Brasilia. She´s super cute and it was a fun day. We took the bus to a far away area, and my shoes broke there. Also a man that I´ve been teaching since May decided that he doesn´t want to follow what we´ve been teaching. But Sister Lima was a great sport and it was a day abençoado. Later on Wednesday, we taught a kid named Heitor. He´s only 10 years old and has a lot of personality and he doesn´t really know anything about God, so it was a very interesting lesson. We laughed a lot. He has a lot of deep questions. Like if God is our father, does He have a girlfriend? And Joseph Smith is going to turn in God? kkkkk He´s super funny that kid. 

The elders in our ward had a baptism this week and we had a few people that we able to go and watch which was awesome! It was really sweet and the spirit was super strong. This week we starting reading the Book of Mormon as a mission. We´re going to finish on Christmas Eve. And we are super excited for General Conference! I don´t have any pictures from this week. Sorry guys. But I hope that you are all well, and I love you guys!

Sister Herron

Fotossss!

Hello everybody! This week was an adventure! As a missionary, everyday is a good day, but this week had a few different excitements. We had Zone Conference this week in São Vicente, which was awesome! With Presidente Harman, the conferences are a little more fun. We had a Book of Mormon jeopardy and district Cubatão won! hahaha. And I finally took a picture with Sister Harman. She´s super cute. And her portuguese is getting a lot better.  We had the interesting experience of visit an evangelist church. They tried to cast demons out of both me and my companion. That was a first. But yeah. I´m pretty grateful for the Holy Ghost and for the Restauração. Sister De Maria had her 1 monthday on Satuday and tomorrow i´ll have 14 months. It´s kind of crazy isso, mas tudo bem. The other pictures are of Sister De Maria with pizza and german pancakes with maple syrup, and Distrito Cubatão.  But that´s about it.    I hope you´re well and working hard and everything. 

Love vocês,

Sister Herron

A New Companion

Sister Herron And Sister De Maria

Santos

Santos

Pancakes and Herron Maple Syrup

Herron Maple Syrup

Hello guys! Essa semana foi uma aventura! I´m training Sister De Maria!!!!! Woohoooo! She´s awesome. She´s from Forteleza, so I finally have a companion from Brazil again. She´s helping me a lot with my Portuguese. But this week was awesome. We´re worked até o pó. We had 6 people who were able to go to church this week, and it was Stake Conference too. This week was also super great because we were able to work better with the members and I think that´s why so many people were able to go to church. And this next week is going to be even better. It amazing how when you follow the Spirit, the day is always full of miracles. We get home absolutely exhausted, but with a great feeling. And that´s what drives us to do the same thing the next day.


Love you all and I hope that you guys are all doing well.

Sister Herron

Transferências! De novo

Hello everybody. This week was super good! It was raining the entire week, but we worked hard. But we had transfers today. I stayed here in Cubatão, and I will train a new sister. She is going to get here tomorrow. Sister Torres went to Tupi (Ocian 2), which was my last area. For today, I´m with a sister from Nebraska, Sister Ames. It was a bit of an adventure for us to get where we are now. We got lost in Santos a few times, but it worked out okay. 

This week had a few highlights. 

1) Silvana told her husband that she wants to be baptized, but needs to be married first. She was very frank with him. It was awesome. 

2) We marched in a parade in Santos on Saturday. And that was kind of different. We couldn't try to make contacts with people, but it was fun. We sang Called to Serve and there were members with Pioneer clothing. 

3) We ate pancakes and Herron maple syrup with some members yesterday. 

4) I ran into a rapaz that I taught back in my first area. His family is still going to church, but they haven´t been baptized yet. It seems that they don´t like Elders very much so I´m trying to help them even though I´m in another area. 

5) Transfers! woohoo!

6) The training for the trainers with President Harmon was awesome and the spirit was so strong.

I'll send a bunch of pictures next week 

Love you all!!!!

Sister Herron

O Profeta no Brasil!

District foto plus Lideres de Zona

Hello everybody!

This week was awesome! The prophet of God, President Russell M. Nelson came to Brazil! On Friday, he spoke to all of the missionaries here in Brazil from Brasilia. He talked about the power of the Book of Mormon, and the truths that we learn from the Savior himself in 3 Nephi. If you haven´t had the opportunity to read this account, I invite you to do so. Start in chapter 11. This part speaks of Jesus Christ´s personal ministry to a group of believers in the Americas.  Sister Nelson, Elder and Sister Cook, and President and Sister Aidukaitis also spoke and it was remarkable to hear what Heavenly Father wants us especially to know as missionaries here.

On Sunday, the same people spoke for all the people of Brasil. They were in São Paulo, so a lot of people including Silvana went there mesmo! It  was a  great spiritual experience. They spoke of becoming more like Christ, listening to the Holy Spirit, being more united as a people, teaching and learning in our families, making temple covenants, and the truthfulness of the Restauration. After the conference on Sunday, as President Nelson was leaving the stage, everyone sang Graças Damos o Deus por um Profeta, ou We Thank Thee o God for a Prophet. The Holy Spirit was so strong. Basically everybody was crying. And I am grateful for a modern day prophet. God loves us a lot.

Love,

Sister Herron

Chuva de Bênçãos

This week was super good. It also rained a lot. All my proselyting stuff smells like mold, but that's ok. Sister Torres and I are teaching a lot of people, but none of them were really progressing. So, last weekend, we fasted that they could grow in their faith and have a desire to learn more. And this week, that prayer was really answered. We weren't able to find a whole lot of new people to teach, but our days were filled with compromissos. 

Silvana told us that she feels like she´s received an answer about the Book of Mormon, and that is driving her to keep coming to church. She is super sweet. Every time that we go to her house to teach her, she doesn´t let us leave until we´ve eaten. Even when we aren't hungry. But that´s how Brazilians show their love and appreciation. 

On Saturday night, we just had a little bit of time left so we went to visit a family that we're teaching. The son, Jurandilson, was out in front of the house with a friend. We invited them both to come to church. And then, a miracle happened, and they came mesmo. And they liked it a lot and they want to come back next week. So that was awesome. And this week is going to be awesome too, because on Friday, we're going to have a devotional thing with President Nelson!!!!!!!! He´ll be in São Paulo this weekend and he's doing a devotional with the missionaries!!!!!!!!!! So I'll tell you more about that next week. But I hope that you´re all well and that you have uma semana maravilhosa. 

Love,

Sister Herron

Fotos:

The other day there was a little marching band just with drums. I thought it was cute so I took a picture. And that same day, to get to our lunch apointment, we had to cross a railroad, but there was a train stopped in front of where we needed to go. So we climbed up on the train. and then took a picture.