TO ALL!!

First I have to say that it was my beautiful companion, Sister Winters´ birthday last tuesday and I forgot to mention that in my email! Just so everyone knows, she is amazing and I love her!

We had a fun party last week on Pday with our zone. We played volleyball, monopoly deal, and had chocolate brownies and fun times! I also tried my first Açaí! Its a fruit that is amazing and its in icee/milkshake form when you buy it. I had it with granola and bananas and I LOVED it...so good!

Update on the work--Here's the email I sent to President:

We had a good week! We are struggling getting investigators to church though. Everyone seems to be traveling ALL the time or other things come up. We did have a family this last weekend though. The mom hadn´t wanted to come but then I think she liked it most of everyone! It was her, her husband, and their son who is already grown up (about 26 years old). I think they liked it, but we stopped by again after wards and just as we got their, her niece and niece´s family showed up so she told us this week wouldn't work since they were going to have family in town. We dropped off an invite for conference though, so we will see.

Also, last week we contacted a reference of a young boy in our ward. Its a friend of his, Sarah, and her mom, Selena. The first lesson went really well with them and they accepted baptismal dates. The next time we went (this week), the other daughter, Andrea, was there too so we taught her too. Last time we went we taught the Word of Wisdom and they already keep it! They don't even drink coffee! It was awesome! We talked to the daughter a lot about authority too because she was already baptized evangelical, but she seemed interested in finding out for her self if she needs to be baptized again. I hope she prays!

We have a lot of people we are teaching who have so much potential. One lady and her son are progressing well, but she still doesn´t want to set a baptismal date. She bore her testimony to her family (siblings and mom) the other day without even being asked when we taught them all together, but she still said she needs more time to think. We have high hopes for her though and are saying lots of prayers on her behalf. She is going to come to conference, so I hope something there can help her make the decision!

Mom, the man I told you about in the email I sent is this last woman´s brother in law. I am hoping we can eventually teach a lot of her family. She has I think 6 sisters and 2 brothers. I love them all! Oh and this woman is the one I talked about in my last email too about the son who let us in. Its all very miraculous! I love it!

The mission is amazing. We have ups and downs, but the ups make everything else absolutely worth it! I love my Heavenly Father and Savior SO MUCH. And I am sooooooooooo excited for conference this weekend!! I get to watch it in English thank goodness so I will get a lot more out of it!!

I am sending pics so I hope they work...sorry no descriptions yet!

Love you so much!!

Sister Knudsen

Pictures I hope!!

OI!!!!

So I´m trying to send pictures but that means I might not be able to write a lot if its slow and takes the rest of the time...so I´m just going to say a few things really fast:

The Atonement is amazing and we all need to take more time thinking about the amazing plan God has for us. It is COMPLETELY 100% about love. He loves us so much and He sent His Son Jesus Christ to suffer for us, so that we can become like God and have joy forever with them and our families. Its amazing. I am so deeply humbled when I take the time to really think about this. I need to think about it more though, and not get distracted by all the phsical day to day things. If I could fully understand the Atonement and the Love they have for us, I would have a lot more power and convicition in my teaching. But everyday we learn more and more, right?!

Here is the letter I sent to my president for a little more update about the cute family with the little handicapped boy and another woman we taught:

[[[[[Dear President,

The family is still doing good, but they went through a phase of being really busy and not letting us come back. We went back and told them we know they are busy, but that the day we met them was definitely a miracle and that our purpose here is important. We told them we will be coming back and teaching them in short lessons since they don´t have a lot of time. It is hard because the mom teaches english classes in her home and doesn´t have a regular schedule with her students so she never reallys knows when she will have a class. Once we talked to her about how important the gospel is and how we don´t want to put it off, they were more understanding. We have gone back pretty frequently since then, but they haven´t been home every time. We will keep trying though. They are a very special family!

We taught a woman a couple days ago where everything she said led into the next principle we wanted to teach. It was so perfect! She has been to many different churches but doesn´t agree with a lot of their doctrines or customs, so she hasn´t been baptized in any church yet. She is excited to read the Book of Mormon and pray. We are going back tomorrow to follow up with her. I keep praying for all our investigators that they will have the faith and open heart to receive the response God is so ready and willing to give to us.

I feel like its really hard to express myself in portuguese still, but Sister Winters and I are talking more in portuguese and I´m trying to trust in the Lord more that if I open my mouth, the Spirit will take over. Its a process, but I´m learning!]]]]]

I think it only attached one...of all of us that received our visas within two days of each other...im trying to send more. it takes forever!! next week! sorry!

I LOVE YOU ALL!!

Sister Knudsen

I am almost at 4 months already....WHAT!??

Hello my beautiful family (and friends)!

So my companion thinks I´m a little bit crazy because I didn´t die the first
week we got here. And now that I have talked to some more people about it, I
think I am a bit abnormal. Don´t get me wrong, I for sure had moments when
I thought ´how in the world am I going to do this for the next 15 months´
and ´i just don't want to walk ever again!´ But they were fleeting and I just
went forward. I was really tired, but I wasn´t dead exhausted like most
other people describe themselves being during the first weeks. I can only
guess that its because you guys pray so much for me, or because I
internalize too much and will have a break down in a few weeks or
months....I´m going to hope for the first one!

So yeah. I´m doing good! I haven´t gotten too discouraged even though I know
I have LOTS (aka TONS & TONS) of things to learn. That's what the journey is
for, right?

Anyway, this email is going to be a bit more about cool and different things
in Brazil than the work, but I wanted to give you some interesting facts!

1. Ants here are amazing! Maybe this happens in the US too but I´ve never
seen it before! The ants here carry HUGE objects with them back to their
hills! Big leaves and sticks! Things more than 25 times their size....is
that not amazing or what?! I´m going to take a picture next time I see it
because the first time I didn´t have my camera with me and I was in awe.
Seriously...super ants!

2. Oranges here aren´t orange. They have a little orange but are mostly
green. Its very different but they still taste good!

3. For lots of inexpensive delicious fruit, Sao Paulo is NOT the place to
go. This made me very very sad! We do get delicious papaya and mangos, but
the North and the South have the fruit that is just growing on trees as you
walk by and can just grab them off and eat them. Not the case here. The
fruit is a little expensive here and they don´t have all the yummy exotic
types for me to eat. I really want to travel all around Brazil after the
mission and have all the fruit!

4. Weather: So the first day I got here was deathly hot. I thought I might
die and I got a pretty bad sunburn. I just assumed that was how Sorocaba
was since I heard it was hotter in the interior than the city. Sister
Winters didn´t know either since we were both new to the area so we weren´t
too excited about the heat! LUCKILY, we found out that that first weekend
was record breaking abnormal heat for the area! THANK GOODNESS!! Then we
were blessed with the past week which has been sooooooooo beautiful! It has
been cloudy and breezy and cool! So perfect for the work. We´ve gotten some
beautiful rain too. It has been amazing. I hope it stays this way! Its
gorgeous! Oh and I learned that I have to be a little bit careful telling
people a LOVE rain storms because they are really dangerous here. Since the
houses in the city are built one on top of another in very in stable ways,
there are lots of slides when it rains and a lot of times houses fall and
people die when it rains hard...so most people here are very afraid of big
rain storms. Crazy, eh?

Anyway, thats some interesting facts for you.

Other small world info: One of my zone leaders is Elder Gratil. He is from
Gilbert and graduated a year after me from Gilbert High! His best friend is
Tanner Dahl who I was friends with and took to Morp when we had the cowboy
theme! So funny! Elder Gratil and I like to reminisce about the amazing
restaurants we miss and especially the Mexican food!

I love the food here though. Its delicious! We always have beans and rice
at lunch, and then usually fried chicken, or stroganoff, or a lasagna or
pasta thing. Oh and salads here are just lettuce and tomatoes usually.
Different but still good! Its yummy. I love it! Our ward is really great to
us! I love them all!

Oh and last thing: We finally met with our Ward Mission Leader and the
counselor in the bishopric that is over the ward mission plan and they are
awesome! The leader was just called last Sunday but they both have great
ideas and plans and really want to work. I´m so excited to work with them!

Alright, times up but I love you all SOOOOOOOO much!!

Sister Knudsen