Letter #57 The Lord Protects Us

hey mommy
soo i went to the mission office and nothing.... basically brasil loves to go on strike when they dont want to work hah and welp the mail slash post office is on strike and no one in brasil well most of brasil anyway is receiveing mail... this started about a week ago so im not sure where my packages are right now. when did you send that package. relief society prodcast... unfortunately no... so the scoop on general conf is that we cant watch any of the sessions unless we have an investigator with us, and its in pampulha. so it will be rough to get to see all four but were praying that we have someone to take with us every sesh.
brenan passed hahahah good job bren hah. i cant imagine bren blessing the sacrament he is getting so old!
o and you can put what i said about byu in the letter on the blog!!! Go UTES!!! ha

welp this week was an eye opener to the blessings that i have in my life.. makelly our investigator for about a week now has gone through so much in her life i cant complain about anything...she is an example of someone that never gives up. im so happy to help her see the purpose of all her trials... oh dont worry mom we have protection. the other night we were walking down this neighborhood to visit rafaela and leo (a couple we are helping get married and the wife and children get baptised)... and ten min before on thier street somone was shot 10 times! and got away. i was like what he was shot 10 times!!! i was telling everyone hahah but to them its normal... "ya its normal" okay this is not normal but hey all i know is that the lord protects us wherever we go. lets seeeee ummm sunday was the day for adriana to get baptized. everyone was asking where she was. i had no idea why she hadnt showed up yet, i didnt stop calling her cell. after church we ran to her house and she came to the door and told us that her father had passed away... wow, okay, that is a good excuse. all i could do was give her a hug and try to comfort her. she is doing better but it is always hard to loose a loved one. good news was that jose and maria were confirmed and are excited to participate in everything. also learned a lesson that we have to invite everyone!!!!! even the people we dont think would everrrrrr accept. one night two weeks ago i invited this man on the street and he started to talk to me in english i just responded in portugues he said why arent you speaking in english and i said it was hard for me haha this past sunday he came to church surprisingly and we taught him last night and he accpeted! he said " this could be the true church..." yup yup. well it is. sister batista is changing ahah the first few days she would wake me up with a loud BOM DIA and me sitting on the bed "bom dia" exhausted out of my mind... and now she doesnt say a word she is so tired. we run everywhere she asked if she could bring tennis shoes during the day bc we run so much ha i said welp your gonna have to take that one up with the pres. im loving it. brasil is hot.the food is the same. and the people are amazing.
Te amo te amo demais(a song here that wont leave my head)
sister aubree corbin

ps dont worry- sitting there studying you know the usual and run into elder l. whitney claytons conference talk in 2007 ahahah eu te conheco.. a quote that he said " if we live in righteousness and look to purify our hearts we would become more close to heavenly father and to the spirit"
well said.

GO UTES!!!

woooooooooooooohooooooooooooooo YESSSSSSSSSS!!!!! hahaha

i was so excited to hear the news. too bad i wasn't there to cheer on my team-

uhhh yesss goo utes! hahaha

rise up more like rise down haha thanks for sharing

54-10 BAMMM!

Utah vs. BYU

Letter #56 Welp It's Simple

wow where to begin, im soo happy that all worked out with ronald and you are all living it up at home. This week was another benção! sister batista is great, she is my child ahah its funny. she is always laughing and messing around and always looks for me for permission to do things. she has so much faith in people and the investigators we meet. im just starting to grasp this attribute. i dont worry too much about it anymore, i have faith that the lord will do his will. when we trust ourselves, be obedient, and follow the spirit things will happen, if and only IF its the will of the lord. so when things dont happen its not time for them to happen and i have no worries but as long as i did my part, tudo bem. this reminds me of a promise that is in the book of mormon 9:21 "i say unto you that whoso beliveth in christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the father in the name of christ it shall be granted him: and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth"
welp its simple, like i always say, but its true. why is it so hard to have faith, sometimes i ask myself... it seems to easy to ask,knowing you will get what you ask for. we just got to remember if we dont get our answer its because, we didnt ask right or its not our time to receive it yet this leads ot another attribute.patience. ha yup another hard one. "the ulitimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at time of challenge and adversity"...
im trying everyday to master these two attributes but im long from it.. this sunday we were privledged to have another baptism of maria aparecida. she is so great. she wants her whole family to join the church because of her expample. she not only is seeing the differences in her life but she feels the daily blessings that come from the gospel of christ. we are also helping two families get married! so they can get baptized but its such a long process here i hope i get to be apart of it when it actually happens.
really fast i want to share a story about what happened to us yesterday. a cute little grdma of a neighboring ward called us and told us she had an investigator for us to teach. we went to her house with hope. her name is markelly and she is passing through a lot of problems with her family and finacialy too. she has no direction and her husband told her two weeks ago he is gay..rough. so we got to her house and her sister in law came in, we invited her too to participate in the lesson she didnt seem too happy but the spirit will cheer her up.... we started the lesson and the spirit guided the whole thing! markelly shed a few tears and new this was the direction she was looking for, when we invited her to be baptized she accepted when it was christianes turn (sister inlaw) im not gonna lie wasnt sure if she was going to accept.. i invited her to follow the example of christ and be baptized inthe church of god she burst into tears and told us that this was answer to her prayers and that yesterday she prayed to heavenly father for something to happen.. the whole room was fullof the spirit and sister batista was balling, she had never been a part of something like that. i told her that this is exactly what the lord wants for you and that this no doubt was his answer. i was so happy to be apart of that moment in markelly and chirstianes lives. im even more excited to help them change the path they were living. this is what missionaries live for, its how we get up in the morning, knowing that someone is lookin for us and if were obedient the lord will guide our steps
the gospel is the best gift you can give to anyone, its a gift that lasts for all eternity.
im happy to be a deliever of this great news
te amo
sister corbin

Sister Ruckert's Heading Home

This is Sister Ruckert. (Gina) Her mission ended on September 1st. Aubree just loved her as a companion and will really miss her! Farewell Sister Ruckert...

Letter #55 Angels to My Door

yay im so happy you have sisters in your ward i want them to stay there so i can help them when i get back. good work mom hah i am proud of you.. there is nothing better then helping another understand the truth. you can litterally see the light in them remember the pre existence. as president parrella always says the mind forgot everything but the spirit remembers what it was like with our heavenly father and when you can get to that point, the spirit remembers and wants and litterally desires to do anything to keep the spirit with them.keep me posted on him pshhhh he can get baptized way sooner then oct! tell the sisters to invite him to be baptized next sunday. we dont need to fear to invite others to come unto christ. if there was a way to do it faster, we would do it. thats how amazing the blessings are when you decide to do what is right the blessings just come. speaking of blessings we had a ton this week! i love sister batista!!! she is so loving. she sees the potential in everyone. she reminds me of me when i first started, the best thing about her is that she follows the spirit! she does what she feels and doesnt hesitate. we had a training yesterday for trainers and leaders of the mission and we are always reminded who the true teacher is in all this work, well i can tell you, it is not us. the only perfect teacher of the truth is the spirit, without him, you cant feel the saviors love and confiction, with out that love in the conversion process there is no conversion. a big part of the conversion process is faith. faith is of itself a principle of power, without it jesus himself couldnt render miracles among the gentiles. this week was showed many times with our investigators the power of faith and obedience to the lords commandments.
this sunday josé dias was baptized! whoohoo he is soo great. earlier this week he was struggling with his work and wasnt making enough money so we taught him about tithing i gave him a tithing envelope and after only 3 days he said his phone wouldnt stop ringing he had so much work to do and that every night since he has set aside money for tithing has come home early because of exhaustion hahah i started to laugh and said well look at that the lord did his part haha i love how simple it is. he stayed strong everyday, stopped with smoking and drinking coffee and said "i will continue in this church for the rest of my life.i dont know what is happening but its changed everything". the power of the gospel can change lives without them even realizing it.
this week were working with another investigater her name is maria, that the lord litterally put her into our path. we walked passed this street that i told sister batista that i never knocked on and that i felt the need to go there later that day. earlier we found two potentials that accepted then we went down that street that i wanted and the second door was maria (who doesnt live there and happens to be the mom of the two that accpeted about an hour before)... what? she opened the door and said " yes the lord sent angels to my door, would you like to come to my house and teach me" um yess please.. we started on our way back and it happened to be where we were the lesson before where here children accpeted hah. i guess the lord has been preparing them for a while.
i read seans letter and it is true.. i have about a year in the mission and i feel like now im really starting to get to work.. why did it take so long to figure it out. sure im learning everyday every moment but the importance of the work seems to click and all you want to do is find families. they are def more hard to find but with the lords helps anything can happen. everything here is great here in good old brazil besides the weather at about 100 degrees if i could change anything it would be that okay okay and maybe take it easy on the rice and beans ha but im loving it i dont got much time left! got to work
love you all!!!!
sister corbin

luke 9:57-62 (Sister Dunlop in the blue shirt is Aubree's companion)

Letter #54 They Remember

Não acredito

Eu vou morrer em VENDA NOVA..... i stayed again!!! this will be my 5th transfer here in venda nova... presidente like always didnt call until late we got the call anxiously waiting at 730. he said and sister corbin you will stay in venda nova! i said me? and he said yes you ahah and you will train! o geese ha alright presdente.. sister dunlop will go to pampulha and will train also! only two sisters arrived and only me and sister dunlop are training and only one is leaving.. sister ruckeurt!!! i got to say goodbye to her for 5 secs im going to miss her. it was only yesterday we were together in pampulha with ronald trying to get him to stop smoking ha and now she is leaving and she prob will get married before i get home, she said she wont but who knows.
so my new companion is from curitiba her name is sister batista and i love her!! she is 22 and has 6 years in the church. so basically there is a new training program that was sent out about a year ago but arrived in brazil this month.. we as trainers train the new ones for three months straight so looks like ill stay with her for 2 transfers i dont know if that means the same area but at least 12 weeks ill train her unitl she is legitmate like me haha kidding. but its going to be great im a little nervous bc it feels like yesterday i was in her shoes. venda nova was my first area and now im training someone else in the same place. feels wierd. but im excited there is a reason im still here my work isnt done yet.
well this past week was great, lots of work and not enough time.. sometimes we get home and i feel like my legs are going to fall off. sister dunlop and i were talking the other day that were just going to keep getting more and more tired until the day we get home. p day= no rest, sunday=work and everyday is race to find the next elect of our heavenly father. i love this work, its how i get up in the morning but wow im tired. this sunday was another proof that the enemy doesnt sleep. geovane was baptized a 12 year old freind of a member that loves the church. his mom said he could get baptized but her boyfriend didnt aproove. this sunday he was preparing to leave for church and the "step dad" didnt want him to leave... he said "i cnat miss today its my baptism". the step dad got angry with him and said your not going. his mom was at work and told him he could go, he left alone and arrived at church for his day. he was so happy and was glad to follow the example of the savior. another miracle is jefferson a 19 year old we found bc of a contact on the street. sister dunlop and i were reflecting on the story on how we met up with jefferson. it was the end of a thursday or weds night.. it wasnt the best day, we got rejected alot and some of our investigators fell i wasnt too cheery to make any contacts on the street on our way home but that didnt stop dunlop... as we were walking home a girl said to us "what church do you guys go to?" we told her but it was sister d that asked for the address..we went there the next day and the girl that stopped us wasnt too interested but it was her brother that was searching for the truth, jefferson. i love how the lord works through other people and tests us to our limits. if we hadnt had the energy to talk to this girl and hadnt had the atitude to ask for another reference after a hard day we wouldnt have found jefferson. love it.
i was reading in jesus the christ the other day and it was talking about that when jesus was sad after getting rejected (the son of god, just a reminder,rejected,cant imagine) he prayed to our heavenly father and THANKED him for the humble and meek he was finding to hear the truth... this is when he said that famous qoute "come all ye that are heaven layden...." because those are the ones that are ready to hear the truth those are the ones that will accept and in the same respect, we as missionaries are doing the same thing. after we get rejected we got to thank our heavenly father for the humble and meek he has put in our path, its those that will inherit the kingdom of god.
ill be doing alot of praying this transfer. im not going to lie im a little nervous but i know the lord is with us and ill help sister batista be the best missionary in BH!
love you all]
com amor
sister corbin

cool story
tuesday we were walking home after a district meeting a lttle far from home and a teenager called to us and said which one of you is sister corbin? i looked back and said huh? im sister corbin... he said you dont remember me? he came closer and it was a son of a family we were teaching in pampulha over 6 months ago.. they never ended up getting baptized bc the mom wasnt obeying a few commandments but her kids were so great. he said " why didnt you guys come back?" i told him i left pampulha to go to other areas he was sad and i told him to go to church this sunday and passed his address to dunlop to go visit. its amazing to me that even the people we dont baptized, we have an impact on thier lives, they remember the sweet spirit that was left in thier home when we taught about the everlasting gospel. i guess we will never know how many lives we will touch until after this life...