Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Letter #32 I Have Hope


mommmmmmmy,

how are you fingers they good hah? i had a splinter in my pointer finger all week that hurt... does that help? we went through pain together. ya i just got an email today that were getting 18 new missionaries (brasilians) at the end of april and got 4 amerincas last week and 3 americans this week! the visas are coming slowly.. i dont know if they are elders or sisters but well find out.the area is great its cold!!!! its the coldest place in minas! the wind is freezing at night combined with the rain and humididty you just feel wet all the time. but the people are great really humble... but yes i have to be careful ha we walk into houses and then figure out that the person tha let us in is on some major meds so we just thank them and leave ah.. i just read a letter from the president that was really comforting.. he said he has faith in me and being senior out here he said he only sends those he trusts to places far away from the mission home with full confidence. that gave me a little hope knowing the pres is on my side.

no your prob ahead of me i stopped at alma because i started reading our search for happiness soooooooo gooood! im almost done i couldnt put it down.. i want every person in the world to read it its so clear and simple.. i love the way Ballard writes its like he is talking to you saying hello the church is true it all makes sense ha i love it. so ill get back in the bom next week. so here in barbacena, everyone thinks im sister clement! people will yell on the street sister clement or get offended if i dont know them bc they think im her or sister harris another blue eyed blonde that was here last year... so being senior i have felt a lot more responsibilty out here... ive never felt so much urgency to find people to teach... thats our biggest difficulty right now finding those that want the message.. we teach a ton but the accepting is the hard part.. ive never met so many catholics. my other areas were catholic too but here everyone is muito forte. that talk that amber sent me last week i think elder christofferson about our daily bread. living day by day lining our will to the lords. i tried putting this into practice this past week. we started our fast saturday praying for what we wanted.. we had a potential of 7 men to take to church with us and no one came.. it was a big blow to my confidence and my faith we tried so hard all week to help these people come to church and no one ended up getting up.. i tried to remember the daily bread our blessings we had already recieved from the lord that day.. as we were walking to church i was praying really hard to heavenly father please show me or tell me where these people are.. i started just invited everyone and their mom. i shouted to the first house and they said they would come but not until later, here sac is at 11 so i said k come at 11. got to church a little down knowing we weren't successful in bringing anyone new. but what i didn't know was the second class was a man that was prepared for the gospel. after the principios do evangelho a man came up to us and said i want to be baptized and i want to be fast...uhhh what who are you and is this miracle i have been praying for? apparently sister ward and sister flora taught him last month and he stopped coming bc of his wife but sunday he said i dont care i know this church is true and i want to faz parte... we were more then happy to help him but the prob is that his wife has to know and has to approve of it... were going to work with his wife this week so that he can be baptized conf weekend.. this was a big test of my faith.. i had to aline my will to the lords and let him bless me i don't know what lies ahead or what the lord has in store i just have to trust in his plan no matter what.. and that family that i invited came at 11 and welp they were already baptized just inactive and needed an invite to want to come back to church.. the lord always has blessings for us they might not always be the ones we think well get but they always come. i have already learned so much this past week and loving it here.. in Elder Ballards words " all of us came here with the personal responsibitly to seek for gods eternal truth to abide by it and yes share it with others when we find it"... "hope is a precious priniciple by which to live, hope grows out of faith and gives meaning and purpose to all we do." i have hope and live by it everyday... josua 1;9 the lord will be with you... fear not -love you all!!!!! sister corbin


Above is Aubree's Mission Plaque from the Ward waiting for her return.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Letter #31 Do Our Part


oh i forgot to tell you that i saw two toranchulas(not sure on spelling) right before i left pampulha i dont remember if i told you that or not and i almost stepped on one haha it was hillarious the whole neighborhood came out to see why these two girls were screaminghah.so i love that you are reseraching up on barbacena so it looks like i dont need to tell you that i live in the city of doidas ahaha our house is infront of a mental institution so you can imagine the people we meet everyone morning we leave our house ha. yes and its cooolllddd here! its like utah just random it will be hot one min than super cold and at night its super windy. ya i heard about this story they just dropped the sick and mental people in barbacena bc its so far away and inclusive and cold! that they decided to make this city for the doidas ha yay we have already taught a few doidas i taught my companion to say out there so when she thinks its a doida we just move on haha. but i love barbacena its great! the church building here is huge but its only a little branch but the members are great! this past sunday i gave a talk and only had two days to prepare somehow sister flora got out of it and itwas just me. i talked about having faith in our heavenly fathers plan for all us. and i didnt have to teach the principles of the gospel i was so nervous it was about the atonement the second hardest next to the priesthood lesson which is next week ... i hope the teacher comes prepared. this past week has been great with sister flora i love her she isnt scared to talk and she has a deep love for the gospel. she still is really new so she is not used to my boldness when i open doors its funny and she is a little slow at walking well try to work on that. i love brazil,here has alot of differnt religions and beliefs let me just say that i gained a huge testimony that everything has its opposite. we have our heavenly father and jesus christ who is love and peace but we also have the devil who is all hate and full of wickedness. i have gained a strong testiomny of prayer and a greater understanding of preisthood power. so happy the gospel is on the earth!on monday sister ward and her familly were here to visit barbacena. they had family home evening at the presidents house of the branch and they asked me to be the translator. sister ward was giving the lesson and i was in between her and her family translating... this shouldnt be hard right? fallllseeeeeeeeee. apparently i started out fine then i started repeating sister ward speaking in portugues to sister wards family after about 30 secs sister wards dad said sister your speaking in portugues.. the president said can i understand english? i had no idea everyone started laughing and i was super embarrased haah.. the prob was that sis rueckert and i always spoke both languages so i can't tell the difference when i talk it even happend a few times with sister flora this week i would start in port and end in english and the only reason i knew was bc sister flora would tell me to repeat what i said. i refocused and finished the lesson translating in englsh well i hope i did.. it was bitter sweet to see her family. they were so happy to see her teach the gospel to this family, her dad was especially proud and i could tell it was a special moment for sister ward. after we all went to a burger place that i didn't know existed. i'm excited to be here in barbacena with sister flora i know that there are people here waiting to here the gospel from us.. i know the lord with bless us when we put all our trust in him and do our part. its a promise. i love you all! keep killing it out there sister corbin'


ps apparently obama was here? ha in brazil

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Letter #30 The Best Words


MOMmmy-
first off is everyone alive????? everyone in brazil was telling me that the tsnami was going to california and i was like great my fam just moved to the beach but it sounds like everything is good. i have a friend serving in japan sendai too thanks for the update sounds like the missionaries were not hit. well that me start off by saying this week was a week of blessings!! i dont even know where to begin. we changed our attitudes and got to work. i want to first start out by talking about a married couple we found last week names are osmane and iránis. we found them knocking doors and they were so prepared to hear the message. the next visit we challenged them to throw away thier coffee iránis hesitated for a sec and said what the heke got up and dumped in the trash two seconds later osmane said o wait i have a drink in the room ran the bedroom and dumped down the beer int he sink. everyday they want to learn more and osmane gets so excited to hear our message he dresses up all formal to greet us.iranis cant read so she cant start the bom yet but were working on getting cds for her. this week when we brought them to church osmane asked if he could start paying tithing that day so we explained where the tithing slips were and he took a few. this week we also tried to help celio, ronalds friend, he is the one that likes to steal chickens from his neighbors yard and eat them ahahah we had to teach him the commandment do not steal haha. he wasnt progressing much but he had a desire to talk to him one more time. at the end of the lesson i got a feeling to tell him to go to church with a question. i said i promise if you go to church with a question, whatever doubt you have right now, the lord will answer your prayers and you wont have any doubts anymore. idk where that came from i love when your teaching and all the sudden something comes into your head and your hearts starts pounding and you try to ignore but you have to open your mouth knowing that whatever you will say is from the spirit. after i bore my testimony and told him i was excited to see him at church ronald showed me the goosebumps on his arm from the spirit. this sunday was amazing! well celio didnt show up i think he is scared bc he knows its true... ronald got the aaronic preisthood and cant wait to pass the sacrament. we also managed to have 15 PEOPLE in church! que benção. ive never had that many people and almost all of them can be baptized the following sunday. then on monday we were in the middle of our planning and leonadro called. leonadro is a boyfreind of a member for the family wouldnt let us speak to him for weeks. we were kind of sad bc we wanted to start teaching him but the family wouldnt let us. he called and said " hello? is this the sisters my name is leondro i am not baptized in your church yet but i know i want this change in my life and i want to get baptized and fast can you make this happen?"...uh hello if thats not the best words you could ever hear as a missionary idk what is. then about 5 min later we got a call from presidente. hesitant we answered. sister corbin you will be become SENIOR AND GO TO BARBACENA....whattttttttt... i guess i cant say i was surprised to leave pampulha but i was a little nervous to hear the words senior. I love this area pampulha is so great and right when were reaping the blessings of the lord he moves us to another area. thats okay we told osmane and iranis to send pics of the baptism and leondro too. i have a new companion her name is sister flora she is a brazilian from fortaleza its her second transfer and i already love her. were going to barbacena which is supposedly all country and the land of the doidas (dumbos) there is a lot of mental hospitals down there or something ahah. its the coldest place in mg and is on the border of rio janiero. its about 3 1/2 hours from the center so it looks like i wont be getting alot of mail anytime soon. sister ward was there last she said she didnt have any baptisms for me or anyone really solid to teach. she handed me the keys and the phone and wished me luck. im a little nervous but i know this was inspired and im supposed to go to barbacena for a reason o and also she told me i will be giving a talk this sunday and its a little branch so i will prob be teaching the principles of the gospel everyweek.... ya im a little nervous, but good thing im with a brazilian right? this transfer i am really excited! my comp only has 5 weeks of experience in the field but were going to make it work. last night we left a family of 3 to get baptized too. they have been going to church for a few weeks now and wanted to take things slow so we have been slowly teaching them this past transfer and last night they said they wanted to stay in the church and when we told them we were leaving they were really sad and wanted us to stay and see them through. but they thanked us for teaching them the truth and that they would never forget their first missionaries. right now im in the center with sister rueckert and her companion, sister flora and i will sleep here tonight and go to a conference in the morning and leave around 6 in the afternoon tom and arrive in our area around 1230 am yay ha then get to wake up at 630 and get to work! well im excited for this week and cant wait to see barbacena they even told me there isnt any supermarkets this should be interested... running out of time love you all!sister corbin

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Letter #29 Work, Work, Work...

hi, okay so much to say... about ronald im pretty sure he wants us to do them he keeps giving us names...love him. were going to his house thursday so ill try to get more details out of him but you have the go ahead to start with what you have the only prob is is that i wont be able to email for another week so if you want to wait idk and also transfers are next week! so i dont know if ill be here in pampulha next week. i cannot beileve brenan is getting his permit! i just got sister clements invite thats so crazy she is already married. they look cute together also got brenans letter today too so ill write him and send the card tomorrow
This week went by fast! this week is carnaval in brazil so its been pretty hard getting into houses to teach everyone is traveling. i swear its bigger then x mas here hah. i think it was friday.. the day was really slow and no one was letting us in. we came up to a door and i noticed i could open it from the outside.. i looked at sister r and said should i do it and she didnt say anything after waiting about 15 secs i said "doing it" i opened the door and started to walk in sis r was embarrassed and ran behind the door ha i turned the corner and it was this cute little g ma that was just taking forever to answer the door ahah i started to laugh and asked the g ma if we could come in and teach her a message about christ. she let us in and we taught her and her sisters they felt the spirit and wanted to visit the church prob was they dont leave the house cause they are like 90! i love that in brazil all the old people are still really active and want to do everything normal. this week has been hard to find new people to teach, right now we just have one solid investigator, regenaldo he was supposed to be baptized this past sunday but he dissappeared. it was fast sunday and sis r and i fasted all day for him , so that he could feel our love and know that he needs to get baptized. when we went to go look for him at his house he wasnt there. i was pretty bummed but we kept our heads up and ran to church. i bore my testimony for the first time since nov and wow was it different i could speak portugues... well better at least. im still working on the not crying part i hope that will pass ha. after church we found regenaldo and he told us that he didnt feel ready to be baptized but all saturday he couldnt stop thinking about it and that he even dreamed of his baptism. our fast worked! when we do our part the lord will do the rest. when you first come on the mission you think of three things 1) where you will sleep 2) what you will eat 3) and the work. ( a returned missionary in our ward gave a talk about this). after time your 3 priorities turn into work, work, work. this is so true. when you focus on the work everything falls into place. " the lord calls us in our weakness but qualifies us for our work". These past couple days ive gained a new vision if thats what you want to call it about the work its not about the number of baptisms or what posistions you have but the people you touch. like elder holland said this is the salvation of men.. were here to save. i want to teach people to give them the same opportuinty i have. a life with the gospel. when your obedient and do our part the blessings will follow. (mosiah 28:3)."the gospel of jc has all the answers to all our problems. the gospel is not a secret. it is not complicated or hidden. it can unlock the door to true happiness. it is not someones theory or proposition. in fact it does not come from man at all. it springs from the pure and everlasting waters of the creator of the universe, who knows truths we cannot even begin to comprehend. and with that knowledge he has given us the gospel- a divine gift, the ultimate formula for happiness and success"- elder uchdorflove this quote. we know the truth.. we know the answers to lives problems. im grateful to know the gospel is true and its the only way to everlasting happinessi love you all keep killing it out there for me]sister corbin

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Letter #28 Laugh & Enjoy

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOMMY!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!! CAN YOU BELIEVE ITS YOUR BIRTHDAY WOOOHOOO! i dont know how old you are but i guess thats a good thing age doesnt matter ahaha what are you going to do today??? will you eat golden spoon for me and ill eat açaí for you ta boa?well i just wanted to wish you a happy birthday and that i love you and will be thinking of you today! this past sunday i wanted to give you a hug for some reason.. tell brenan to give you a hug like i give you hugs.. o and i had two flans this week already! members made for dessert i thought my mom loves this cake thing hahaim. the two sisters i think are brazilian i know one is brazilian for sure. sister harris already left and sister ward leaves in two weeks. ya her mom is brazilian so she can come and get her no problem.
(this is Ronald in the picture)
okay mom here are some names that Ronald our recent convert gave us of people in his family that have passed away. he is so excited about the gospel he started searching for names for the temple right away. i have 8 names and so does sister rueckert. i told him that my family could do some names for him and he got really excited bc the temple is really far here and doesnt know when hell be able to go. what do you think.. can you do these names for him? he didnt have all the information on all of them but this is what he could do let me know what you think if you have time to do this

as for this week it was great! were working with this investigator named regenaldo he is hillarious. he went to church with the missionaries when he was 17 and he is now 31. he came to church with us this sunday and he was scared to take the sacrement i told him it was okay and later he said he never felt that warm feeling before. he was so exciting he participated in all the classes and told us he wants to be baptized were preparing him for this sunday. as a missionary you forget about all the wierd things that happen daily it becomes normal. the other day regenaldo was reanacting a story and he was jumping up and down and making funny sounds and i stopped for one moment and took myself out of the situation and realized how funny it was. sometimes you get so into the work you forget to laugh and enjoy the funny things along the way but the only bad part was taht i started to laugh and couldnt stop, sister rueckert didnt know why i was laughting and regenaldo was really confused later i told sister rueckert and she agreed...
Ronald had an interview with the bishop this past sunday and he said he can get the aaronic priesthood this sunday or next he is so excited he couldnt wait to tell us... he even started making the lists for the temple and calling all his relatives of people who passed away. i love ronald such an elect.
also this week sis r and i found out that for sure that brazil doesnt have sarcasm its a fact hha. we were at a members house which happened to have visiting teachers over at the time and sister rueckert loves to joke but in brazil they never get it so i told her to just stop bc it just doesnt make any sense to the brazilians so we were all sitting in there in the living room and sister rueckert said somthing serious then said just kidding and the room just became silent no one got her joke she was super embarrassed and just looked at me and i was just in the corner laughing then she started laughting and we couldnt stop. everyone was so confused why these two little americans were laughting at a joke that wasnt funny. we concluded that night that the humor here is completly different and sarcasm doesnt exist ha
well on the mission im learning to recognize the little miracles that happen daily. i wish i could tell you all... all the little details that happen. were always running into to people that say "i just prayed yesterday for the lord to show me what to do...or i prayed yesterday to find a church or i prayed to get help...." we run into these people all the time and its amazing how the lord knows exactly where to put us at exactly the right time. he gives his children opportuinities to choose the right but its thier responsibitly to take it. i love the work, i get excited to teach the people that are searching for the truth. that funny song comes into my head " keep a smile on your face and make a world a better place" haha its like a kids song or somthing but im loving it, still killing it...
love you all
sister corbin