February 24, 2010

Familia,
So I finally made it to Rio verde yesterday night and I am excited, my companion is a little sick and the house was a mess, but I am here, cleaned it up, went to district meeting this morning, and visited a couple of members here. We are excited to work the elders are helping to get everything ready in our house. We don´t have anything, but last night when we got there we bought a bunch of stuff to clean, and stuff to eat that we don´t need to cook or refrigerate. I had no idea that this category is so limited. Presidente Tobias will be coming next week to bring us several things for our house a washer, dishes, micrwave, stove i think, tomorrow our refrigerater gets here. I am excited I am a little overwhelmed because this has never happened before and I am having to rely on the Lord 100% and the area book of the elders that were here.

Oh, but the news that is most important, or at least the most beautiful was that Sunday we had 2 baptisms. Silvia and a woman named Gilvania. I know I have already mentioned Silvia because last week I realized that I was in Parque Amazonias because I needed to baptise Silvia. I have felt this a time or two where it was sister JUdd that needed to be the person to help baptise, but this time was by far the strongest feeling of this that I have had. Perhaps because she too felt this. She said when I went to say good bye to her you came back to Parque Amazonias to baptise me ànd now your task is complete and you can calmly go to your new area knowing that God´s purpose was completed. I too know that this is true. When I began to get impatient about being in an area that wasnt mine anymore, I asked Heavenly Father why I was still there and immediately I thought about Silvia. She needed me. SHe was ready to give up and had prayed so many times, received a lot of answers, but not the answer that she wanted. I know that I had to excercise a lot of faith, but because of our prayers and one prayer in particular that she said with us that she decieded to be baptised. The spirit was so strong and she began to cry a lot and she knew. She was baptised sunday and hte service was beautiful. She had already been baptised 3 times, but I loved what she said after her baptism. She said This is true happiness. Gilvania said wow I feel soo good. I don´t know Gilvania as well, but she is super special adn the elect! I love the mission. I know Heavenly Father will help us here in Rio Verde!
Love you all.
Jenny... YOu need to send me measurements exact. Please send them asap all body measurements for the dress. in cm okay.

February 16, 2010

Familia,
Jenny saved you all this week because she was the only one that e-mailed, yes i am calling you all to repentance. I loved receiving all your letters the last couple of weeks. They help me so much! I love you all so much and hope that all of you are happy.
Mom, I sure do love you
Dad you too!
I love you all, we are still working here in Goiania, and we will continue to work here until the transfer. I am excited to go and baptise more!
I am loving working with my new companion greenie, she will help me work hard until the end.
Wow I sure hope the desire to come back home will grow in me, I am trying to get used to the idea already because it will break my heart, I need to be mentally ready for it. I love home and all the comforts that I have there, but there are oh so many things that I will miss about Brasil! And especially about being a missionary. This is an experience of LIFETIME!I have loved every minute of it!
I have better details in my journals. Love you all and ask for your prayers!
Jens, I feel so happy for you. Yes, the temple is the only choice! Keep that in your heart and mind! It is the house of the lord and the most important thing you could hope and wait for! I can´t describe the sacredness of the temple, but you will surely feel it when you get there.But not everything ends with the temple we have to keep going to learn what more we must do... There is more! Heavenly Father has so much for you! I won´t even think about htat you talked about going to the temple with him. Love you
SIster Judd

February 9, 2010

Familia,
This week I had a great surprise and truly it was great. the lord blessed us tremendously and answered our prayers and 4 of our missionaries that have been waiting for three months in the mtc in provo got their visas, they got here thursday and I have the great opportunity and the Lord has put his trust in me to train SIster Riggs from Dallas Texas. I am so excited, but what is huge as well is that we will be goign to Rio VErde to open a new area for sisters! I am stoked. Everyone on the mission always talks like rio verde is the best ever! I am very excited when Presidente told me I was with the assistents Elder Casey and Elder Viera, and I was on high heaven. It is a great place to baptise, It is a place like Hidrolandia, the church is starting there, but they want to be able to make the first stake there this april, so I will go and do what the Lord has commanded! I know that I will need HIs help. We are just waiting until they have the house there ready adn we will be moving out. We are just working with the sisteres in Goiania until everthign is taken care of. What a priviledge teh lord has given me! I am happy as a lark! A little anxious as well!
Love you all and pray for you all everyday!

...

I am writing more, I thought my time was up, but I wanted to write we are learing about confidence and how important the confidence of the lord is. This work is all about confidence and i feel as though the lord has put a lot of confidence in me to do this work.
I have loved working with Sister Olsen and we cried a few times knowing the great blessings we received here and that the Lord has a different errand for us now! I will miss her a lot, she is a great friend. I feel like we achieved a lot of unity. I hope that I will be able to feel this unity with my new companion as well!
I will miss many here in Parque Amazonias, but I am ready for a new adventure! I hope sincerely that a few we are working with will be baptised, Silvia for exemple. She cried a lot when she found out I would be leaving. I believe Worley Genildes and Paublinny will be the family that sister Olsen and Sister Chaves will baptise! i love them so much, I cried a little this area required a lot from me. I love the lord in HIm my soul delights!
SIster Judd

February 2, 2010

Mãe Pai e familia,
Wow this was an interesting week. I worked in Setor Universatario, which is a different area because some of the sisters were needing some help to baptize. I learned a lot while there. I am sure that the Lord loves me and that he desires that I help his children here. I love Brasil so much and I already miss it and I haven´t even left it yet. But just the thought sometimes is sad.
But I am happy as a lark here. Worried and everything because Everything is not perfect in Zion, but than again I have to help this happen.
I love the Lord In him my soul delights.
This week we ran literally after our baptism, but like what sometimes happens you do all of your part and sometimes free agency of others doesn´t permit a miracle from happening. But I feel hopeful for the sisters there, we found some good new investigators.
I feel happy to have received a letter from VErle today it was the first that I have received, but eu fiquei bem feliz! Thank you! Thank you for your prayers your support and everything else. I also received a package with some goodies thanks mom! Love you lots1
Sister JUdd

January 26, 2010

Family!
This is a week of miracles! Seriously! I love the mission. I just spent a bunch of money buying a new outfit for conference with Presidente tomorrow! I actually felt proud of myself. All my clothes were getting sooo old, so it will feel good to go in something beautiful.
So this week we baptized an excellent man named Iris! he is so awesome and it was an answer to many prayers we are doing something super neat as a mission we are all praying for the missionaries who have not baptised this month, by name and a miracle is happening. I was on the list, but we baptised, thanks to heavenly father and all the other prayers of the missionaries here, but right now we still have a week and there are only 5 companionships who have not baptised, one companionship of sisteres and I will leave tomorrow to work with them this week while my companion works in my area with Sister Chaves and We baptise this weekend with sister Almeida and Sister Romero! I will go with lots of prayers in my heart! I am so super excited with these miracles!
I love life I just received some really good news. I am super happy! It´s rough, tough and amazing!
Sister Judd

January 12, 2010

Familia,
This week was super awesome, but super different as well, I went to Uberlandia like I said and was able to visit some of my recent converts, including the milton, and andrea family. They are as beautiful as ever. They started not coming to church because of a few things that happened in the ward with some of their really good friends and leaders in the ward, but they have resolved to come back into full activity and want to actively prepare for the temple. They will go to the temple in São Paulo in Feb. to check it out and I think that will help them out a bunch. I love them so much.
But, we also had another miracle as we helped the Sisters there. It had been a good while since they had baptised and we added our faith to theirs and helped them teach and close a baptism. He was baptised the day we left! It was really neat. I also found out yesterday that SIster Gonçalves and Sister Wells baptised Maria the cassio´s mother and wife to Antonio, my first baptism in Hidrolandia, I was so happy for her. I think I invited her a thousand times to be baptised and actually I had a split in Dec. with sister Gonçalves and invited and pretty much told her that she would be baptised the first week in Jan. and she was!!!! What a blessing! Now it is just about a complete family that can more actively prepare for the temple. Wow we worked so much with her! I think I also wrote about another baptism Irmã Iracie. She is a wife of a recent convert as well who we worked a ton with. I am happy to have pictures with both of them. Lots of work, prayer, love and help from heavenly father! Fruits of our labors even after we leave the area.
I know I have already written about MAria before, nad that grandma wrote saying that she needs to know that she can´t wait too long to be baptised and that Grandma was praying for her. I told her that too. She is so special and even said to sister Gonçalves... Sister Judd will be so happy to know that i got baptised. It is true! I am happy as a lark! We are helping a young man named william prepare to be baptised this weekend. he is really neat! and received an answer about J. Smith and the book of mormon.
So yesterday was transfers and not too much changed, well that is not true pretty much everything changed, but nothing with my companionship. But now there will now be 2 sets of missionaries here in Parque Amazonias, and it will be sister Chaves and a missionary that will serve for two months because we are uneven right now. Sister Wells stayed the night with us and sister Gonçalves and sister chaves as well. We had a great adventure on the bus because we helped sister chaves and sister almeida move their stuff, but it was crazy because in one terminal sister chaves and i got off the bus just to help the sisters a second and the bus left with out us and with sister olsen my american companion. It was so crazy sister and I started running after the bus screaming for the bus driver to stop, we ran for two bus stops and a guy on a motorcycle asked us why we were running we told him to stop the bus, he asked what it had on it and sister chaves yelled breathlessly Americana! he totally stopped the bus and yelled who is the american woman on the bus? He saveed us and a young man helped her and then paid for another bus pass for us and we returned home safe and sound, but it was a good adventure. I am grateful that heavenly father sent angels to help us last night. WE presented him with a book of mormon and all of us wrote in it to our angel that helped my companion. He willlbe baptised adn said he would come to church next sunday!
P]What you won´t do for a missionary experience!
Sister Judd

January 5, 2010

Yesterday I had the unique opportunity to be invited by Presidente to a cousel. It was with all of the Zone Leaders and a few district leaders. It was amazing, but a little weird since the only sisters there were me and my companion sister olsen. Presidente asked me to come with her because we reviewed a lot of information about the mission and he taught a few things that he would like me to pass to the other sisters. It was really great to be with great leaders, even missionary leaders, but who you know will be great leaders returning home as well.
Something kinda interesting is that elder Casey, chad casey, is one of the assistants to the President. It is fun working with them. I love the mission it´s in my blood. This week Renata and ROberto were confirmed, it was beautiful, and another lady who has been less active for about 7 years who wwe have worked with came to church. it was great!
Another thing that President asked me to do was to go to Uberlandia, my first area to work with the sisters here sister hatch and sister santos. They are both great sisters and I will be visiting some really beloved people in the next couple of days. I am hoping to visit my recent converts tonight, I am not sure how it will be, but I am positive it will be wonderful! So this morning i took the long 6-7 hour busride to uberlandia to work for 2-3 days. I am hoping that all will go well in my area.
We left an investigator named Fransisco. He came to church for the first time last sunday and enjoyed it. Our 2nd visit to him before he came to church he gave sister and I a present a box of chocolate bon bons! It was so sweet of him. He truly believes that it was the lord that put us in his life and surely it was!
I am so grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. It has changed my life. I have learned some really great things and a couple I think I will share with all of you all. I don´t usually do this, but I think it will be something different that you might enjoy.
just some food for thought about adam and eve. Yesterday an elder asked why did GOd give adam and eve commandments that couldn´t be kept? when in Corinthians i believe 10:13 it says that GOd will provide an escape before the temptation. I had already asked this question and thought of a few really neat things in the temple. I believe that it is true there was no other way that adam and eve could have children with out partaking of the fruit, but who´s to say that they had to partake when satan offered it to them. Eve asked of satan a question very interesting and he gave one lie and a truth, you´ll remember. there must be oposition in all things, this is something that I have learned well on the mission, but if eve had not partaken of the fruit, perhaps like what happened with Abraham and Isaac could have taken, and in my mind most certainly would have happened. WHo did she ask the question so important is there no other way? Satan and what did the father of lies tell her?
Well, just some food for thought. I read moses today on the busride! My love has grown for the scriptures and the ensign words of the prophets. I challenge all of you to take better care of the scriptures, don´t put them on the ground, they are sacred. I have learned some other very personal things that show our respect for the things that GOd has given us and for the temple! I love you all and hope that all is going well! I feel sad because I was so excitedto have received letters last week and then I left them in GOiania. Oh well! We have transfers next week I will let you all konw what happens.
Sister Judd