Homecoming 11/23/2025

 

Boa tarde Irmãos e irmãs tudo bem com vocês?

 I am so excited to be speaking with you all today, a little nervous too. During my mission I only spoke in church once and it was in a branch of 15 people….. So, bear with me as I overcome some nerves and battle to speak somewhat good English. I recently just got back from serving in the Brazil Juiz de Fora mission…. My mission also got a little bit of Rio de Janeiro so I had the opportiunidade to serve in 2 really amazing and beautiful parts of Brazil. Brazil is one of the most incredible places I have ever been.   I am so grateful.  Which leads me to the topic ... I was asked to speak on today. “How can gratitude bring more peace into our lives??” I would like to share a few experiences I have had on my mission that have helped me truly understand and learn this principle.

Let's start from the beginning….. I was so excited to serve a mission.  It was nothing I had ever planned on doing my entire life.  I had some thoughts throughout high school ….” Oh, maybe I should serve a mission?” I was always going to do sports in college and that was just kind of my thing.

I feel like when you become a missionary you are so excited.  When you enter the field, you want to baptize everyone in sight, you want to talk to everyone and you want to have an amazing experience.    Honestly you want to have that kind of mind set. Those of you who have served missions or have kids serving missions, think the idea of serving a mission is so fun.   Then later a few months in, your bubble kind of gets popped and you realize that missions are just so hard. 

I was expecting the Rio film with the birds.  I quickly realized that Brazil was not like the film RIO The first 6-9 months of my mission was extremely hard for me. I was really struggling.  My tongue physically could not make the sounds needed to speak the language. I wasn’t understanding very well either. I tried so so hard!    My sweet trainer, Sister Rocha, was so patient with me.  I felt like a terrible missionary. I felt I was not fulfilling my purpose as a missionary and wasn’t truly helping or changing anyone’s life. I was very upset.  On top of language struggles I was having SOOO many other hardships that I didn’t think I would be having…..genuinely nothing was easy on a mission.  Our houses were constantly having problems, we would go days without water, when we did have water it would be brown, (Awesome—I am not drinking today)  I was struggling with stomach issues, fighting parasites, hair was falling out, got some skin infections and fungus due to sweating so bad in the heat and humidity, constantly fighting bed bugs and Lice throughout the mission, hiking through and over mountains in the jungle and hills all day long…. There were parts of my mission that were good areas, but parts were in the boonies.  Most of the time there was only one way to get to our areas and that was to hike.   It was so fun but also so hard.  I was just always in a state of constant discomfort. I often wished I could have a shower or sleep in my bed or have my mom cook me a nice lunch. 

 I was at an all-time low and was just so upset about everything…. I remember one night in prayer I was just literally ranting to God “how could you [God] let us missionaries, your servants, be going through this?? Of all times this should be the one time I should be feeling so much joy and peace, seeing miracles, and just feeling your love and spirit most, feeling like I am changing and progressing as a person…. I am not feeling any of that. I don’t know what I am doing wrong…. Please help me understand what I need to learn.   The spirit so strongly shortly after spoke to me saying “you need to let go “. I was left so confused and a little mad.  LET GO OF WHAT?? I felt I have left so much to be on my mission. So, I went to bed angry. However, my mom is the most spiritually attuned person I have ever met and she never has failed me. There were so many times my mom was my answered prayer on my mission. The very next morning she sent me a reel on messenger about a sister missionary in the Philippines going through some very similar experiences as me… The Sister Missionary talked about letting go and allowing Christ’s love and charity, being thankful for what we are going through, allowing the bigger picture of the mission to be the focus rather than the moment. After I watched the reels I spent my study hour making personal goals for myself, journaling and reflecting on how I can make these hard pointless situations into lessons the Lord was trying to teach me. I made a goal of starting a gratitude journal and every day I wrote how I saw God's hand in my life that day. I also made goals of starting to change my thinking. I did my best to always replace a negative thought no matter how big or small with 5 things I was grateful for. There was a night and day difference within myself after just a few weeks.  I truly was able to come home and feel blessed and grateful for the day I was having regardless of the hard living and mission situations happening. I felt more peace, and love of my savior. I started to feel happy.

One of my favorite quotes by President Russel M Nelson is “The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives”. I learned how to let go of the negative and seek the positive, I chose to have a grateful heart and to love…. I have reflected a lot during this time of my mission. I had to go through the struggle of learning the language more than others because that was what God was needing me to learn. I needed to learn how to be truly humble.  I am a type A personality. I was always trying to be the best.    It was hard on me to not be good at all in the things on my mission.  I needed to learn how to be humble.  I needed to learn how to be more dependent on my Savior, and the Holy Ghost.   I would have never understood the powerful lesson of relying on the spirit. I learned how to be more charitable and loving towards people for who they are and where they are at in life.  I was being refined as a missionary, God was helping me become a more service-oriented doer missionary rather than just a teaching missionary. We can all teach and all speak to people, but if there is no love or action behind words, our teaching mean nothing. I made a point to make everyone I met feel loved and important with what I could do. And God gave me the amazing opportunity to grow those talents through all the other crazy hardships. I learned how to have joy through hard. I learned how to laugh about things.  It helped me become mentally strong through out the rest of my mission. Because unfortunately the living and health situation never really got better. But I gained a sense of confidence in myself that I have never had before. God was helping me become a more mentally sounded missionary. I can look back on all the hard moments and truly say having a heart full of love and gratitude helped me make it through my mission happy.

The best example I can think of in the scriptures is the story of Nephi and his brothers Laman and Lemuel. Nephi chose to have faith, to have a heart full of love and gratitude towards the Lord. While Laman and Lemuel chose to be victims with a heart full of pride. It is our choice to decide what will bring us peace into our lives. My mission has taught me we can find peace and even joy in some of the most uncomfortable moments. I would now like to change gears and talk about my favorite part of my mission which is the people. The people are incredible! They give you everything they have when most have nothing to give. I have said it so many times through my weekly emails but truly I was not called to my mission because the people needed me… I was called there because I needed them. I needed to learn and see first-hand what it truly means to love your neighbor. I never felt love like I have in Brazil. Everywhere we went we were openly armed and greeted. I am forever grateful for the example of faith and sacrifices from the members of my mission. One that comes to my mind is Irma ZeZe, she lived in a house the size of a typical Americans person's front room. She would always help us with the obra missionaria, she would cram about 40 people each week for institutes with all kinds of good food, she was always looking after us.

There was a cute little catholic lady who became our grandma in this area.  We always went to her house and left a message and she would always feed us. One day when we came to her house, she knew we would be transferred soon, so she gets a bag and starts going though her house and gave us some of her most special things.  That is how the people are.  If you walk into a house, and you are hungry then they feed you.   “What is mine is yours!”  

I have so many stories I could share about members carrying the missionaries, institutes, English classes, and everything else that they did with zero resources just a willing heart! I would like to talk about a few of my friends and their conversion stories. This is one of the parts of my mission where i have so much gratitude! Being able to watch the spirit change people and see them take hold of the gospel and have the spirit in their hearts is amazing!!!

I learned from these people that the mission is about loving people and not just about baptism.  Jesus went about loving people not baptizing people.  I wanted people to know this is a church of love and the Church of Jesus Christ.

There are really tender stories of members that saved for years to go to the temple.  They had to sell their cars and live off of beans and rice to seal their family.  Going to the temple was so important to them.  

People loved the missionaries so much that they would give us their food.  They literally did not have food to eat but they would share with us.  I am forever changed by their sacrifices. Their sacrifices truly made me more converted as a missionary and a member of the church. 

I would like to share 2 stories.   These two people are people that I helped baptized.  They are so tender to my heart.  

Let's start with Lucas. Lucas was a 11-year-old boy. My comp Sister Hancock found him before I got to the area. He was the cutest kid! He lived with his mom and sister. His mom unfortunately worked most Sundays and so he was alone. He lived pretty far from the church like 4-5 miles. When I met him and started doing discussions and visits with him, we challenged him to go to church and he would ride his bike in his best Sunday clothes. He would get ready and come all by himself! It just made me so proud of him!!! I cried the happiest tears that first Sunday when he came rolling up on his bike and was ready and here for church. He loved the gospel and did his absolute best to live it, really live it!!! He was such a good example! Once he heard the message, he was so happy!! His example made his mom want what he had. She too was taking the discussions but it never penetrated her heart like it did Lucas. We had Lucas and his mom on date for baptism. His mom backed out a few days before and said she needed more time. I sadly was transferred. I was so excited when I got the news and a picture of Lucas in his whites on his baptism day. He did it!!!!

I would like to talk about my friend Leandro   I remember Sister Sandin and I were knocking doors and I looked up the street and I said, “we need to knock these doors.” Sister Sandin said, “We knocked this road last week and no one was interested”.  I said, “well lets do it again!” So we went and knocked and we found this cute old lady named Maria.   Maria let us in and we taught her a lesson from the Book of Mormon.  Maria said, “Sisters I will not come to your church but I love to read the scriptures with you so you may come again. So we went back to Maria, and we gave her a powerful lesson on the Book of Mormon and the Restoration.   Maria told us of her son Leandro.  She said that Leandro had gone to the Church of Jesus Christ earlier and he really liked it.   Maria wanted us to teach Leandro.  Leandro was struggling with many bad things.   I asked for Leandro’s number and just as I did Leandro came into the room.   Leandro said that he had a dream about visiting with the missionaries.   God told Leandro that the sisters would help him. At that very moment, we taught him about prayer, and the scriptures, atonement and Joseph Smith.  From that moment on Leandro changed!  He stopped doing drugs, coffee etc.  He did everything we asked him to do.  He started going to church and the activities.  He was later baptized.   This helped me to have a humble heart as I watched Leandro.  Leandro left everything on the alter for Christ.   Christ asks us to have a broken heart and contrite spirit.  As we give that to Christ, He has the ability to make us into incredible people.   I saw this everyday on my mission. I am so grateful for my mission. 

I am so blessed to have gone on a mission.  It was the best choice for myself for me and for my future family.  I am so blessed to be home and to have my amazing family and to have the support that I have.  I have an amazing family and ward family always rooting for me.

I would like to end with my testimony:

I am forever converted to my Savior, Jesus Christ.  I know that this is His church and His gospel. We are His children and He loves us and He has a plan for us. If we have these moments in our lives every day, we can become perfect through him. 

My favorite scripture is Moroni 10:32-33

 32 Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

33 And again, if ye by the grace of God are perfect in Christ, and deny not his power, then are ye sanctified in Christ by the grace of God, through the shedding of the blood of Christ, which is in the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins, that ye become holy, without spot.

It is always because of Christ that we can become perfect and become truly purified.  Everything is because of Christ.  I know this is the true church and I know that this is the restored church, this is the church of Christ.  This is His church. The only true church.  I am so grateful for the Book of Mormon and for the power that it brought to me throughout my mission.  I know it is a book of truth a book of answers.  One of my favorite quotes of President Nelson “ If we read the Book of Mormon every day, we make better decisions every day.  I totally saw that on my mission.  I read the Book of Mormon cover to cover on my mission for the first time.  I can’t believe I missed out on the power of the Book of Mormon my whole life.   It’s ok--- I learned!  Now, I am forever on the path!  I will never miss a day of not reading my scriptures.  The Book of Mormon is just that powerful to me.  I know that through the atonement we can all come back…there is always hope.   I am so thankful for that knowledge that I received.

Closes with her testimony in Portuguese