Maracanau, Brazil - the scorpion

Well, this week wasn´t too eventful but there were a few good moments!

- Yesterday one of our investigators turned into..............a scorpion!! For those of you all who don´t know mission slang, a scorpion is a guy (for sisters) that we teach who starts to like one of us. For elders, they´re called snakes. Sooooo we met this guy on Thursday, and he was really great and we taught him and he said we could come back and when we passed by on Sunday, as we walked up to him he said, "I didn´t receive an answer yet because of her" referring to me. Which totally took me off guard so I was like, huh? So we talked a little bit with him and he went back to the prayer. We always leave invitations for people to pray about our message, if it´s true. So he said, and this time it was very straight to the point, "every time I tried to pray her face came into my mind. I never forgot your face" soooooooooooooooooooo at this point I was like uhhhhhhhhhh what the heck do I say lolol so my companion tried to compensate and said that it was an answer because I'm here representing Jesus Christ and the church and all lol which is true of course! But it was just really funny. She then asked him if next Sunday he´ll go to church and he said, "it all depends on her" LOLOL so I said "well, I'm here to invite you to church." and only that. Lololol so we´ll see how teaching him goes now....... 

- We had another game night this week. I cut up the box that Mom had send to make little boxes with holes on the top to play that game where you put balls in the box and wrap it around the waist of a person and they have to dance around to get all the balls out lolol so that was very entertaining! We had a few other games which was fun. This week I think we´ll give the teams a break and just put on Just Dance for everyone to relax until the big finale....in 2 weeks we´re going to have a TALENT SHOW!!!!!! I´m super excited! The members are already getting ready with decorations and preparing their talents! I´m excited! I´m not sure if I´ll do anything or not...we´ll see! 

- This week we had lunch in our house one day and we made a noodle and meat dish haha which turned out....pretty good....lolol but the dessert was great because I made my cake!! It was delicious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thanks Mom :)

- We had lunch with Tcharlly this week :) She´s the one who took us to the Tex-Mex restaurant. This week though lunch was in her house. After we were leaving she turned on her Netflix to start watching something and she said that she loves cops show and recommended I see "The Killing" so I told her she HAD to watch "The Killing"! Hahaha getting everyone hooked on movies and series here lol

WELL that´s about it for this week!

Love you all and I´m actually dying to see you all BUT pictures are helping me stay happy :) Thanks for the emails this week! 

LOVE AND KISSES!!

- Sister Parks

Maracanau, Brazil - May 23, 2016

Hello folks! It´s been one tiring week; I´m tired just writing this. I noted a few things that happened this week for y'all though.

Last Monday after I emailed y'all: I wrote a little more about the past week on paper to take a picture and send to y'all today but.... I forgot. So next week you´ll get a picture with more about last week. But one thing that I just have to tell you all: I'M OFFICIALLY A BRAZILIAN!!! Yup, all the Americans and Hispanics got a Brazilian social security number!! CPF is the name here for SSN. So, I can officially live in Brazil WOOH! But calmmmm family, I won´t ;) But yeah, I thought that was pretty cool.

We also went to the mission office and I picked up my package!!! I opened it and my companion documented every second! Wow I loved everything - THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! I´m waiting for the perfect moment to make the cake but maybe I´ll just make it one random day this week, light my candles and make a late birthday wish :) I've distributed some of the candy y'all send so I´m once again the most wanted person here in the ward currently hahaha even the bishop´s wife said she wants one of the happy birthday banners. 

This week!

Tuesday Gabriel was baptized!!! He´s this adorable 10-year-old who is literally so small he looks like he´s 7. But he's been going to church for weeks now and we had marked his baptism sooo many times but always had problems like the church didn't have water or our baptismal font was being rebuilt but this Tuesday it all worked out!!! He was baptized and was soo excited about it :) 

Wednesday we had our game night and it was great because we had a great turnout! A few weeks ago we started a game that would last for the whole transfer. There are two teams and every week we have games and races to gain more points and throughout the week they can go out on visits with us to gain more points and do other missionary work stuff to gain points and it was so cool because the first week barely had anyone and this past Wednesday it was packed!!! 

Friday one of our moms here invited us over and we made tapioca which I looooove. It´s different here though.... I honestly don't remember what tapioca is in the United States though haha but here it´s great! We tried to make tapioca today though and....failed. Hahaha I took lots of videos which I'll try to send on dropbox.

Saturday we had Helping Hands!!! It was soo fun because it was with the whole stake and we all went to this other area nearby and split up into groups and passed out flyers about Dengue and how to prevent the growth of dengue in the house. It was super fun because we were with a group of youth in our ward and they´re all crazy hahaha. 

Today in a little bit we´re going to head over to the church to play volleyball with the youth! I´ll bring the football too and teach them how to throw it hahaha we´ll see how that goes. We may even play Uno too. 

Well, that´s about it! Thanks for all your love and prayers. I´m truly grateful for everyone´s support. I`m grateful for the time I have to be here and serve the wonderful people in Brazil. I love them with all my heart!!

Love and miss you all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Sister Parks

Maracanau, Brazil - #abencoado

or, in other words, like...English, #blessed

Soooo I had a few paragraphs written in Word and the guy who runs the lan house accidentally turned off my computer so I lost it all....

BUT here´s a few things that happened this week:

OH FIRST, THANK YOU ALL FOR THE BIRTHDAY WISHES!!!!!! I´m going to the mission office right after this to pick up my package!!! :))) Thank you thank you family!!!! I felt all your love and prayers on Saturday. I can´t believe I´m freaking 21.................. I´m so old..

BUT why #blessed? Because this week we were blessed with 3 baptisms!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You guys, this work is so great! It is the GREATEST feeling when you witness someone find true joy through the gospel and to help them take that step to be closer to Christ :) We baptized 2 twin girls - Isadora and Doralicy and a mom, Ana Lucia. They're both so great! 

AH MY BIRTHDAY WAS GREAT! I have to go!

- Sister Parks

Maracanau, Brazil - Long time no see!

Hey guys! Wow it was so good to see all your faces yesterday! Hilary, those two times that I accepted Trenton´s call at the very beginning, I saw you! But seriously, when I finally got to talk to you guys, the first thing I asked was where you were L I was DEVASTATED you had to go work….I´m so sorry if I had known you had to work I would have scheduled for earlier! But just know I missed your face and missed the chance I had to talk to you.

But the skype was soooo great!!! It´s still hard to believe that it´s May and yesterday was Mother´s Day and this Saturday I´ll be turning *gulp* 21…..?! How time flies!!!

Also an Elder we saw today in the mall said that he saw a package for me in the office! So your package made it! I´ll get it tomorrow and take lots of pics!! But thank you in advance!!!!! Best family award goes to yáll *insert Leonardo DiCaprio pic from Great Gatsby holding up his glass with fireworks behind him* lololol

This week was tough and also hilarious. Every day I looked at our calendar for lunch and was like…. Ah, lunch is with this sister in the ward…..who is this… lol because I only have 5 weeks here now! Haha so I was calling the RF president (who´s one of my mom´s here) and asked her who lunch was with and where they live and she just laughed every time hahaha but it all worked out in the end!

This week should be really great!

Today we went to the mall with the other sisters who are in the area next to us and one of them is from Texas too so we coordinated our outfits today haha so I´ll send yáll pic ;)

I LOVE YOU ALL SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!! MIS YÁLL A TON!!!!!!

Until next week!
- Sister Parks

Maracanau, Brazil - The countdown begins

Until Mother´s Day! And then my birthday! The best month has arrived. So we haven´t heard anything about Mother´s Day yet………. but we´ll more than likely get to call you guys a day or two before to mark when we´ll Skype. I think it´ll be the same time that we Skyped on Christmas. I think it was 6 pm here? 4 pm there. But I´ll call you guys to let you know! I´ll try the home phone first, then Mom's cell, then Dad's. So… be prepaaaaaaaaared! :)

Well, transfers happened. And… Sister Carvalho was transferred! :( You guys, I only have 4 weeks here!!!!!! I arrived a week into the transfer because of an emergency and the transfer was only 5 weeks long! I´m a bit nervous to be taking the area over and showing my new companion, Sister Costa, the ropes but it should be good. We´re teaching so many great people and have lots of great things coming up. Sister Costa is from Acre (north Brasil) and is pretty new on the mission! She only has 4 months and this is her second area. She´s been in her first area until now. She was super sad to leave, of course, but I hope she´ll learn to love this area as I've come to.

Sooo a few things that I forgot about in last week's email:

We had a game night thing in the church last Wednesday and it was pie in the face..? That´s the exact translation but I know the name in the English is different…. I just can´t remember it right now. But yeah, we had questions and whoever answered first and got it right smashed a “pie” in the face of the other. It wasn't actually pie though, just whipped cream on a small plate haha but it was fun! I only got a pie in my face one time haha the other times I won ;)

Last week I made pancakes for me and Sister Carvalho and ate them with maple syrup that I still have. It´s heaven. Thank you a million times. :)

Annnd last Sunday (not yesterday) I had some friends from Messejana visit me!! A sister in our ward, Boneca. Tamile, a “youth” (she´s 22), and my recent convert, Rodrigo!! He said that Leko, Adeline, and Aizaki all really want to see me and that they all really miss me. :) I love those guys!!

Now onto this week:

This week for game night in the church we had a movie night! We watched The Errand of Angels and everyone loved it! It captures the mission life pretty well haha

This week we had lunch with Tcharlly and Lindenburg and they took us to eat….

TEX-MEX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You guys, when I entered the restaurant I turned into a little girl. They had a wall that had a map of Texas and Mexico and there was written, Austin!!!! They also had other maps of Texas before parts of it were sold to Oklahoma and whatnot. We ate QUESADILLAS and SHRIMP TACOS!!! Yup, I ate every bit of the shrimp tacos and it. was. heaven. Do y'all know how long it´s been since I've eaten tortillas?? TOO LONG! It was so great and I loved every minute of it! Then they took us to this cookie store that literally has the best cookies I've ever tasted!!!!! The chocolate is so melty like when you bite into a pizza and the cheese…. drags? How do I describe that? I don´t know. But yeah, the chocolate in these cookies does the same thing! I asked how many stores they have and they said, just this one!!!! JUST ONE!!! It´s literally the cutest little store. We took pics on Sister Carvalho´s camera so I don´t have them :( but look up Cookie Mania! Fortaleza on google. It´s adorable. I told them I´m from the United States and that these are the best cookies I've ever tasted!

Also I´m collecting the Olympic coins here. There are 17 total and I have 12 as of now! The last 5 are the rarest so... I hope I´ll be able to find them!! I´ll send y'all a pic of my collection.

Other than that it´s been a great week with even more miracles. I´m loving this time I have to be a missionary, to spread our message with everyone I come in contact with :) Thanks for all y'all's support, love, prayers, thoughts, and know that I pray for you all as well!!!! 

Until Sunday!!!! I´m so excited to see your beautiful faces!!!!!!

Love and miss you all!!!!!

- Sister Parks

Maracanau, Brazil - families are eternal

To my lovely family,

Guess what?? I got some mail this week!! I received 2 packages from MissionTies that Dad sent! Thanks sooooo much omg the cookies are amazing! Everyone always talks about those cookies because it´s across the street from the MTC in Sao Paulo and so all the missionaries know it and have talked about how great the cookies are there but I never went to the MTC there so I never had the chance to taste them! BUT I had that chance all this past week and ohhhh man are they good!! I told my companion, I want my dad to send cookies every week BUT I don´t want to get fat hahaha so yes, we´ve been enjoying them and the other goodies :) Also I´m pretty sure that the actual package yáll sent I´ll get tomorrow. If it left Rio last week then I´m sure it arrived in the mission office that week. I also got a letter from my favorite bishop/other dad John! Thank you so much for the time you spent writing me a letter – I loved it!

So remember the couple we met last Sunday? He´s a less active returning to church and she´s very interested in the church. And they have an adorable baby girl, Yasmin :) So we stopped by last Tuesday to see how they were doing/if she read the  pamphlet and what does she tell us right as we arrive? She read and felt that it was true and when she prayed, the Spirit confirmed her answer! We were like….. "OMG that´s wonderful! We´re so happy to hear that!" So they also need to get married before she can be baptized and the first time we met them on Sunday, she told us that he never planned on getting married. So I left with them a pamphlet that talks about the blessings we receive when we get married and how our families and home are blessed and the next time we passed by, they told us that they want to get married! We also stopped by on Saturday and invited them to couples class that the ward is holding and they totally got ready in that instant and went! It´s so cute to see how excited they are about everything! They were also ready to go when we stopped on Sunday to walk with them. We´re so excited to help them become an eternal family :)
Another investigator of ours was waiting outside her house to walk with us to church when we turned onto her street AND she had hurt her knee really bad this week from a bad fall and she lives far from the church but she walked all the way there arm in arm with my companion! She´s a fighter!

So remember the little girl, Kilvia, who was baptized last week and her siblings who all live in our ward? Well, I love their family! They remind me soo much of me and my siblings!! Sunday we had lunch with all of them and it reminded me of dinners in Elgin with our family gathered together! Tcharly´s husband reminds me of Matt soo much! He loves to joke around, especially about other people haha but not in a bad way, he just did it in the same way that Matt jokes and laughs. He really likes to make Mexican food and he even KNEW about Tex-Mex! This week we have lunch with them and they´re going to take us to a Tex-Mex restaurant here!! I nearly passed out - I couldn´t believe one actually exists! He showed me pictures and it looks pretty legit and very Mexican haha so I´ll take lots of pictures for you guys! He also said that if he had enough money he´d buy a food truck and sell Mexican/Tex-Mex food! He´s even looked into it which reminded me of Matt when he was looking into opening up a Taco Cabana in Utah haha!

This week is the last week of the transfer because it´s only 5 weeks long and we're super nervous! We want to stay together!!

Well, love yáll lots and miss yáll a ton but it won´t be long until we get to talk via skype!!!!! So excited!!


TE  AMO!

- Sister Parks

Maracanau, Brazil - Miracles are REAL!!!!

FAMILY!!!!!!!!!!!

Wowowowowowow this week was SO GREAT (SO GREAT!*)! It was filled with miracles!! ! Yáll are going to love this week´s email!

First, some random things:

-          There´s a cookie factory near my area so the area ALWAYS SMELLS LIKE COOKIES! It´s the greatest thing ever. But also the worst when we´re hungry….or fasting.

-          Last P-day we went to the malllllllllll which is great because I always feel at home in the mall lolol we ate Burger King because it´s a big deal here. Which is so funny to me because…who likes Burger King in the United States??? Lol but it was good. After I finished my meal I bought a chocolate shake. Because I´m weak when it comes to chocolate. And ice cream. Milkshakes are my weaknesses. Missin my chocolate shakes at Amy´s man….

-           Speaking of ice cream, there´s this really good ice cream place in my area lolol and it´s kinda like our frozen yogurt places in the U.S. where it´s self serve. So on Friday we make a few visits with a boy in our ward, Emerson. He needed to go back home at 3 to do some homework so we dropped him off then passed by the Bishop´s house to remind him about the game nights we´re going to have in the next few weeks. While we were there, Bishop mentioned that the day before was Emerson´s birthday!!! So when we left we were like "omg we have to do something!" And the Bishop just so happens to live on the same street at the ice cream place so as we passed by, we both knew what to do *smirk emoji face* so we went to Emerson´s house and said that we needed him for one more lesson and he was nice enough to go buuuuuut we surprised him with ice cream!!!!!! So we ate ice cream with him which he enjoyed :) 

-          Yesterday I watched the woman´s conference again because the stake here never showed it until now! So my companion hadn´t watched it yet so I got to see it again last night :) It was just as wonderful as I remembered. I just love Eyring.

-          Last P-day we went to a member´s house, the first counselor because I hadn't met him yet and they had just adopted a newborn baby so we had to go see!! And he told me that everyone in the ward was saying how sweet I am and that I don´t even look or act like an American and that they´re all loving me already! I´m also the first American sister ever here!!! So that made me SO happy because it´s always a missionary´s fear arriving in a new area and taking the place of another sister who everyone loved, but it´s going great! I´m LOVING everyone here and it´s good to know they´re liking me as well :)

Sooo this week we met 2 families that are part member families! In both cases, the husband is a less active and the wife isn´t a member. One couple went to church yesterday because they had moved into our area a year ago and never knew where the church was and yesterday they saw one and went! It wasn´t our ward but the elders there called us and gave us their address and names and we stopped by their house and introduced ourselves. He´s been wanting to return to church and the wife really enjoyed the church, too!!! Miracles!! The other couple traveled this weekend but they´re really great, too. The husband is less active and kind of got into bad habits but his family is the center of his life. We talked one night with them and she said that she always told him if he returned to church, she would go with him, be baptized and everything! So like…. WOW! We're now planning to work with him to help him back and help her learn more about the church :)

And now…..THE BEST PART!!!!! Sunday! Sunday was probably the best day of all because…………………. we had a miracle baptism! So there´s this adorable mother in our ward, Tcharlly. Her husband was the old bishop, but they´re both super young. They both served missions. Tcharlly actually served in the mission of my companion and she reactivated Sister Carvalho´s parents!!! And now Sister Carvalho is serving in the ward she's living in!!! It´s the cutest story ever. SOOOO she has a few sisters and a brother. Her brother is the 1^st counselor in our ward, one sister is on a mission, and the other is a youth in our ward. The other sister is Kilvia. Kilvia is 8 years old. She basically grew up in the church because of her siblings. Oh, and their parents were never baptized. Most of them were baptized in secret because their mom and dad never really liked the church back in the day. Their parents are now divorced and his dad is dating another woman, Marcia, who we're teaching. So Sunday…..they all showed up at church – her non member dad and Marcia, too. Tcharlly calls us out to the foyer and says, "Kilvia wants to be baptized. You can baptize her TODAY." So we were like…."WHAT OMG WOW WHAT SO MANY EMOTIONS!!!"  So we called our zone leaders and they rushed over and interviewed her, she passed, her dad signed the baptismal form, her brother baptized her, we called President and asked for permission for the family to confirm her (because normally recent converts have to be confirmed the next Sunday) and turns out it´s our bishop who authorizes the confirmation, which he obviously allowed, and so she was confirmed right after! Wow! It was a very happy day for them! I really felt like we did nothing! It didn´t even feel like our baptism even though it counts as ours because her parents aren´t members haha. She was truly a present given to us from God because we worked super hard this week and were super obedient! Our numbers this week were really great (because as missionaries we always have to have our goals in mind) and we exceeded all of our goals and for that, we were given this wonderful gift all wrapped up and ready! She is SUCH a great little girl, we talked with her a bit before the elders talked with her and she knew everything and is SOO smart. We asked her to give the prayer at the end and it was the cutest thing!!!! I´m so excited to get to know her more :)

So THAT was my week, family!!! Things are going really great! I love my companion, Sister Carvalho; she´s super sweet and loving and loves to have fun so we´re having a blast together J This place is already starting to feel like home! 

I love you all with my whole heart!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TE AMO!

- Sister Parks