Batismo de Joires!!

Olá!

This week was pretty wonderful! The best part was Saturday evening, when Joires was baptized! Our ward mission leader had filled the font part way that morning but had to go to work, and when we went in the afternoon to finish up the water wasn't working for the font, so Sister Nascimento got to finish up with buckets. It was worth it though, she was so happy to be baptized! My favorite part was that she was baptized by her husband, Carlos, who was baptized a few months ago. It was such a special day! Another investigator, F, told us after the baptism that he really wants to be baptized too. He turns 80 in October and asked us "Will God forgive my sins if I repent and am baptized? Even the sins from the past 79 years of my life?" YES, FRANCISCO! YES YES YES! The Spirit was so strong when we testified that repentance and baptism wash away all our sins through the atoning sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Fun fact: this week at least four people didn't believe that I am American when I told them, they thought I was from São Paulo!! My American accent is going away! Woohoo! :D

Another neat experience: on Friday I got to spend the day with Sister Alcântara (companionship exchanges I think it is in English haha) and our last lesson of the day was with a family they had found a few days ago. We taught about the Restoration of the gospel and the father of the family basically slept through the whole lesson. The mother and son paid attention and accpeted the challenge to pray and ask if the message was true. When we invited them to be baptized the father paid attention for the first time and when we talked about the Book of Mormon he got really angry and started yelling that the book was a lie and he'd never read it and all sorts of stuff. The Spirit was gone as soon as he started yelling, but when I looked him and his wife in the eyes and started bearing my testimony that I knew the Book of Mormon was the word of God, he stopped talking (a miracle) and it was incredible to feel the Holy Ghost testify that what I was saying was true. I know the Book of Mormon is true not because my parents told me, because any pastor or bishop or anyone told me, but because I read and prayed asking God and the Holy Ghost testified to me of the vericity of the Book of Mormon and the Restored Gospel. I know that every single person who puts the promise in Moroni 10:4-5 to the test will receive an answer when they pray in faith, they too can know that God loves His children and that the Church of Jesus Christ is on the earth today, lead by a living prophet.

I hope you all have a marvelous week! 

Muito amor,

Sister Knapp

Muito amor de Sister Snape

Oi a todos!

So, the latest variations of my name (how much variety can you have in a one syllable last name? Apparantly a lot :) ) are Sister Snaps and Sister Snape. It cracks me up, and every time specific ward member calls me Sister Snape, Sister Alcântara starts singing "Snape, Snape, Severus Snape" from PotterPuppetPalls (a youtube video). I thought it was quite funny :)

Anyway, about the missionary work! This week was wonderful! The ward members in Maiobão are super excited with missionary work and we were able to have the majority of our lessons with members this last week and received a few references!! It is SO MUCH BETTER to work with members, and the investigators have immediate support in church and everything. I love love love this ward! :) This week we had a holiday and the ward had a churrascho (barbaque) and it was great! 

Another neat miracle is that Joires is excited for her baptism this saturday! She threw out all her coffee when she was interviewed for baptism, no minor miracle!! Carlos, her husband who was baptized a few months ago, is going to baptize her and he's super excited. We helped him memorize the baptismal prayer yesterday and it was such a special moment! 

Also, the sisters in our house (Sister Nascimento, Sister Espinola, Sister Alcântara and I) have decided to start Personal Progress (a program for young women in the church) and help the young women in the ward be more excited with it (there are only 2 young women). Its pretty great, I love doing it again but this time in Portuguese! :) 

This past week we had zone conference, and I was able to accompany the musical number. A couple of Elders sang Nearer My God To Thee and it was beautiful! The Spirit was so strong. I love being able to sing hymns (we've been singing a lot lately in our lessons too) and feel my Heavenly Father's love through the beautiful music and words. Even if we're not the greatest singers, we do our best and the Spirit does the rest. :)

Have a wonderful week! 

Muito amor,

Sister Knapp

Viaje, zica e outras aventuras

Oi a todos!

This week was quite full of adventures! We had a wonderful family home evening on Monday with our recent convert Carlos and his wife Joires (who is going to be baptized this month!) and we talked about tithing. Sister Nascimento gave Carlos 10 limes and he counted them and then without even asking he stopped at nine and said "No, this last one isn't mine, its the tithing lime!" And then when I bore my testimony about the blessings of tithing, Sister Nascimento handed him a cup of lemonade (well. limeade I guess) and he was so excited and wanted to share it with everyone :) Tithing blessings! 

Sister Nascimento and I also traveled with the zone leaders to Teresina for a leadership training, which was fun and we learned so much! Zone conference is tomorrow and we're excited to share all the great new things we learned and focus more on helping FAMILIES understand the importance of BAPTISM! It's pretty great :)

One not so fun adventure is that Sister Alcântara and I got sick (although it didn't last too long or interfere with the work). The virus is called zica here, and Sister Nascimento thinks its hilarious because where she's from "zica" means "bad luck". And it is! haha But we're better now and officially São Luis missionaries because apparantly most missionaries here get it at some point. :)

We are working with a new family this week, Francisco and Maria, and they are so great! They are friends with our ward mission leader and when we taught them the Restoration they loved it and are so excited to learn more. I love working with members, it makes everything so much better!

Last story: we had a ward activity where everyone was given ten talents (like the story in the New Testament) and you could buy food, play games etc and in one room you could earn more talents. In the end the amount of talents you had left determined which kingdom you ended up in, the telestial (which was a room in the church with the light off and no fan), Terrestrial (a room with a fan and a semi dim light) or the Celestial (the room with AC and all lit up and CHOCOLATE). Its kind of hard to explain by email, but it was a really neat activity and really made me think how our choices TODAY determine our destiny! Im so thankful for the Gospel of Christ that teaches us the path to follow so we can be in the Celestial kingdom with our families!

Muito amor e boa semana para vocês!

Sister Knapp

7 meses de missão!

Oi! Feliz segunda-feira!

This week just flew by, just like the past 7 months. Seriously, time flies when youre busy! And being Sister Training Leader sure takes up lots of time. But its wonderful! We've been working a lot with the wonderful sisters of our zone (typo from last week, its only 10 sisters including ourselves) and life is great :)

Last week I started giving music lessons and our first lesson was great! The recent convert who said the closing prayer said "Thank you for sending Sister Knapp to teach us piano and music" and I almost cried. Its such a blessing to be able to share something I love with others. And teaching the gospel and piano at the same time is perfect :)

We had a neat miracle this week: we have a mission goal of 5 lessons with investigators a day, but its usually hard to find families together. But this week we had a day with all 5 of our lessons with FAMILIES! And a few of them were not all member families. It was quite wonderful :) We are trying to find and teach new families closer to the church too because our area is really big. 

Funny story: my wonderful mommy sent me rach dressing mix, so the other night I was making ranch to eat with some carrots and the 3 other sisters of our house (sister Espinola from Peru, Sister Alcantara from Brazil and my companion Sister Nascimento) looked at me like I was crazy. "What is that? Eww!" But they tried it and now our house is OBSESSED with carrot sticks and ranch :) hahaha Gotta love American food!

I hope you all have a lovely week! A scripture of the week (shared by our zone leaders) is Jacob 3:1-2 in the Book of Mormon :)

Muito amor,

Sister Knapp

Sister Knapp em São Luis!

Olá!!

So for the first time in my mission I was TRANSFERED! I love love love the time I had in Cidade Jardim and I am excited to get to know and love a new area too, which happens to be Maiobão in São Luis, Maranhão! Its pretty awesome here, close to the ocean (so it smells like fish sometimes) and there are lots of shops and people and its great. Its really windy and there are bakeries all over the place, so it smells like bread all the time (which is wonderful!) My companion is Sister Nascimento, who was in my room at the MTC in São Paulo! And we are Sister Training Leaders for the awesome sisters of Zona São Luis (total of 18 sisters including ourselves). 

This week was a lot of finding new investigators closer to the church (which is located on the street nicknamed "the church street" because there are literally like 10 different churches :) ) Our house is funny too, theres a bathroom we call Narnia because you enter through a wardrobe (not even kidding :D ) and the wall of our room has seashells in the plaster of the wall. I already love the area, the ward and the amazing missionaries of my zone. Super excited to see many new miracles! I know that Heavenly Father has so many wonderful blessings in store for each of us, and I love the scripture in Mosiah 2:41 that those who keep the commandments are HAPPY! Life is so good!

Have a wonderful week! 

Sister Knapp

Eu amo Cidade Jardim!

Olá todos!

Final week of the transfer and we had so many neat miracles!! On Saturday Maria and Reginaldo got married (Sister Ferragi and I were witnesses so thats pretty legit :) ) and on Sunday they were baptized and confirmed! Along with the confirmations of the three who were baptized last Sunday, we had FIVE confirmations in sacrament meeting! WOOHOO! Miracles! We also had tons of our less active ward members come to church and when I told the sisters "All we need is for this certain investigator to show up, then I'll cry!"... Guess who came to church? Said investigator!! His wife and daughter are members and they were soooo excited to have their whole family in church. And yes, I cried :) Sister Ferragi and I also gave talks yesterday about missionary work. And I got to skype my wonderful family, so seriously life is so good. 

Transfers are today and everyone says that I don't escape this time, so we'll see :) 

Have a wonderful week! The gospel is wonderful! Smile and be happy, because the gospel of Jesus Christ is on the earth! :)

Muito amor,

SIster Knapp

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Baptism and ... dogs?

Olá!

This week was wonderful, and yesterday was... extremely eventful. :) So first of all, we had zone conference on Friday, which was lovely as usual. We learned a ton, especially about just being happy! We watched a video about a dog who started out dragging himself on his two front legs, the music was sad and we all felt so sad for him, but then he started using his back leg and in like 4 seconds he was rnning normal and the music was all happy. Silly dog! haha It was a great application because sometimes as missionaries and members we drag ourselves around "ahhh.... scripture study...." and such, but we are perfectly capable of working hard and truly being happy! It was neat, just live the gospel with joy. Life is really good :)

Another funny story about dogs, we met a man outside of his house and he told us he names his 3 dogs after "bad Bible people". So thats the story of how we got chased by Herod. :) hahaha

And the ultimate dog story of the week: Bright and early Sunday morning we had a baptism planned for 3 awesome girls (Isabely, our investigator, and Juliana and Vanessa, of the other sisters). We went into the church and found the hall all wet and... why does it smell like wet dog? Juliana and Vanessa had gotten to the church and went into the bathroom, and their dog had followed them (even though theyd gone by car). They heard a giant splash, and turns out he had somehow gotten into the font, ran out splashing water everywhere, and back out of the church. Silly dog, you cant be baptized! :) Soooo the water was dirty and we had to empty the font and refill it during church, but the water was gone for a few hours so it only filled 1/3 of the way, so we had to come back after lunch and fill the rest of the font by bucket. Adventures! But everything worked out and Juliana and Vanessa and Isabely were baptized!!! It was a great moment, and Isabely said to us "Wow, this is so great!!" :)

Seriously, I am so grateful to be a missionary in the Brazil Teresina Mission and be learning and seeing so many things and miracles. I know that Heavenly Father always hears our prayers and that His will is only what is best for us. I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of LatterDay Saints is truly Christ's church, that we are guided by living prophets and that God speaks to His children today! 

Have a wonderful week! Life is great!

Love,

Sister Knapp

NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message.