From 7/25 - A bit slow in posting

Sometimes I don't know why the time passes so quickly on email and suddenly I end up reading a ton and only responding to a couple people, but thanks to both you Mom and Dad for the emails!!! How is life everyone? It was good to hear that Moms bday was a smash and the family got together to cause chaos as usual. Man! How I miss that chaos!!! I was thinking a lot this week about how truly blessed our family is and why, even with the difficulties and such, everyone is generally pretty dang happy. The other day in my personal study I read Alma 29:4-5 that talks about how God will always bless us according to our desires. If we want to have something and beg enough, even as He knows we will suffer because of that something, eventually He will let us have it. I always think about Joseph Smith and the lost pages of the Book of Mormon. God will grant us what we desire, be it salvation or eternal suffering-it is truly our choice and will always be our choice. 

Please always keep praying for our investigators, especially Marcela, Kelner, Paulo, and now Cristiano!!!!! The miracles this week is this man we met who is completely and so totally ready for baptism and has a baptismal date for the 13th of August. And he is British!!! he's been living in Brasil for a few years now, and already met members, but Sunday was his first time visiting the church. We teach him in Portuguese and English, so that he understands completley and I've discovered that now I have serious difficulties in carrying on a conversation in English, it was actually just embarrassing seeing as I almost couldnt remember some words in English and such. 

LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH AND MISS YOU ALL! Always remember that our blessings and happiness depend on our righteousness and how we keep the commandments!!!

Sister Neal

Looks like a birthday party to us!!

Alina with her District in Enseada, Brasil

Missions really are fun...

Alina with all the missionaries she lives with in

Enseada, Santos Mission

Reflecting on the massiveness of the ocean.  Betta not go in there.

July 18, 2016

Letter to Dad:

Yes I got my card! And right in the nick of time, because our lunch appointment with a member fell through and suddenly we didnt have time or money or food and we were far from our house, so I showed some love and bought for the four of us who work here in our area. Everyone loves to just use the american for her money! ;) hahaha jk, but thank you! And also, I'll be spending a good amount today just to buy shampoo and conditioner and makeup, because I'm legit out of everything!

I'm training Sister Gonçalo and it is amazing! She is super cute and eager and ready to learn, so it has been an amazing week. Not gonna lie, the last transfer was really hard because of various things, but I'm super happy now and we have 3 investigators who went to church this week who should all be baptized before the end of this month- MIRACLES AND BLESSING! Marcela and Kelner are a mother of like 35 years and her son who is 16 who we found about a month ago. I wrote about them, how she was praying for someone to help them and share "the word of God" and in that moment we knocked on their door. It took a while, because they were never home, but now we are truly teaching and even marked their baptismal interviews for this friday with our district leader, so pray for them that everything will go well. 

Also pray for Paulo! He is a 17 year old boy who is a son of two less-actives who havent been in the church for 15 years or something insane like that. He had a lot of questions about why there are so many churches if theres only one God and such, so immediately I was excited to teach him. He is every intelligent and like church a lot yesterday.

I'm short on time, but give everyone my love and tell Brock and Brit Congratulations!!!!

I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! And take Mom somewhere nice for her birthday;) 

Sister Neal 

Also, when you can, can you send me a recipe for cinnamon roles?

Letter to Mom:

HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAY ALL YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY I HAVENT FORGOTTEN YOU!!!!!! Okay, so when you see this it isn't going to be your birthday yet, but I didnt forget, well at least randomly I remembered yesterday that your bday would be this week, so thats the best I can do hahahaha! Honestly, I dont notice time passing and I've forgotten that everyone at home still has birthdays while I'm gone soooohahahhahaa its gonna be a struggle when I get home and realize that people changed and grew while I was gone! Also, today makes 11 months that I left the good ol USA, so truly where does the time go??? 

CONGRATULATIONS TO BROCK AND BRIT FOR THE NEW BABY!!!!! Tell dad to send me a printed picture of her asap to put in my foto album!!! YAY!!!! On Friday I turned to my companion when we were just walking in the street and said, "She was born! I'm feeling it! I just know it!" So I was pretty pretty sure there'd be some news today on that end. Woohoo!!! I love babies and nieces and nephews!!! 

So, this week was pretty great and I am LOVING my new comp Sister Gonçalo, she's pretty much just super sweet and cute, so it is fairly easy to work with her and "train" her. We have one woman and her son scheduled for baptism for this week so EVERYONE please pray for Marcela and Kelner! 

Please and thank you!!!! 

LOVE AND MISS YOU TOO MUCH

you're so old;) ahhahaha

LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE

Sister Neal

Missionary Letters from 7/10/2016

Letter to Mom:

That monster fruit was from when I was in Areia Branca with Sister Rodrigues, I think our first transfer there together. Good times! hahahaha Also, that's Kawê playing the guitar, making emotional faces at the camera, so now everyone knows his face hahaha! Did you all post those videos on facebook??? 

As of now no rule or new changes, so we just keep living life as normal, as normal as life as a missionary is. Two days ago we had an activity in the ward, and Mom, I literally am such a Neal and was willing to do pretty much anything to entertain the crowd, so we made a skit which involved singing "Você quer ser batizado?" meaning, Do you want to be baptized? to the tune of music from Frozen, also I used a lot of clothes and clothing changes, including a those baptismal unitard things and we reeled our ward mission leader into singing and making a fool out of himself with us. His wife afterward was like, "Who knew he was so talented?! I'll have to take him with me to school to present for the kids I teach." hahaha! I'll try to send the video so you all can see exactly what we did. It was pretty ridiculous and we planned it and pulled it all together in only 1 day, so you guys will like it, even though its in Portuguese and you wont understand antyhign hhahaha! The activity was called "A Night in Zarahemla" so we did some Araby decorations and made fools of ourselves, all the things necessary for a good ward activity. Everyone actually love it and a couple members told me I have the gift of an actress and should go into that when I get home hahahahha we shall see! 

Funny story of the week: We had a reference and couldnt find where the street was and so we called the number this woman had given us and a man answered. He said that the woman I'd talked with was his cousin or something like that and that the street is in Santa Rosa (in our stake, but not in our ward, therefore not my area) and I was like, okay, thank you such and such and he said, "Wait, whats your name?" of course I didnt answer, but he started introducing himself and asking me what country I'm from and saying I could call to talk to him anytime and creepiness and such, so I just said thanks, bye and hung up. The next day he started sending text messages to our cell phone and the day after that he started trying to call us. This when on for like 3 days straight so  We talked to our zone leader and he said to tlak with our ward mission leader and the bishop first. So that night we talked with our LMA (ward mission leader) Joel. He is our LMA, lives in our building, and is also a fireman, who is part of the army and works also as a lifeguard here. He is a large man and super hilarious, but if he was mad I'd be scared haha. We told him abou the situation, he asked for the number that kept calling and said, "Don't worry, I'll have a chat with him." Lets just say that we havent received another message or call since, so shout out to the LMA's of the world who also work as our older brothers/fathers while we're out here on the mission. 

Pray for all of my investigators, but especially Kelner and Marcela!!! I love and miss you tons and I LOVED all of the photos as always! I'll send photos if I have time.

LOVE YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU 

Letter to Dad:

Hey Dad!!! Yep, my goal is to write a letter to each one of my nieces and nephews before I come home, needless to say, it's gonna take a while hahaha I've gotten Rich's family down and will be moving onto Beau's family one day soon, so send me his address when you get the chance. We had transfers today and my companion, Sister Alencar, was transferred and I will be training again! Woohoo! Actually, I really do like training, so I'm excited to get to know my new companion and move the work forward here in Enseada. Not many changes were made here in the mission, but I'm the only Sister training this transfer, so I do feel pretty honored, especially considering I don't know Presidente Obata at all. Should be cool to talk with him a little more tomorrow and see how he and Sister Obata do things. 

The work is going good, but toooo slloooowwwwlllyyy! Our investigators aren't going to church much and that means they aren't truly progressing, which makes things hard for us. We're trying to work more with members, because yeah, an investigator might leave you waiting for them for thirty min. in the rain and just sleep and not go to church, but if you say that someone special is coming to pick them up or someone thats not us, suddenly everyone goes to church! Thats something truly that we need more of, members that are willing and ready to give investigators rides (which is hard, because there are only a few families that have cars) or just pass by and walk with them to church. Pray for all of our investigators, but especially Kelner, that he'll feel the desire and we'll be able to find him at home enough so that he can be baptized this week!!! Pray especifically for this for me! And that my new companion is ready to go and cute hahahaha thats all I truly want from life lol! I hope all goes well and that you survive the summer! I cant beleive that I'm finishing 11 months of my mission soon....time goes by way too fast foreals. 

LOVE AND MISS YOU SO MUCH and I'll be going to the mission office tomorrow, so we'll see if there are shoes and a card waiting for me;) 

Tchau for now!