CHRISTMAS FOI OTIMO!!!

Christmas was awesome!!!!!

But literally, last Tuesday I got to Skype my family, so I called and then all of a sudden someone added Jessica.......I TOTALLY THOUGHT I WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO SEE HER BECAUSE I WAS SKYPING THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS. Anywho miracle time. So apparently Jess was helping on a move all day Monday and didn´t email so she didn´t get my email saying I couldn´t Skype on Christmas with her. Then on Tuesday morning she called mom to ask what time I was Skyping the next day and mom said, um she´s calling in about an hour.....So Jess got to Skype with me!!! Other miracle. We were trying to decide when to Skype and Sister Rolim said that I could go first, but I had a feeling I should go second...Jess was calling Mom while Sister Rolim was Skyping...so pretty much Jessie and I were supposed to see each other! LIFE IS SO GOOD :)

So then on Christmas we all got on buses from our different areas and headed to Santos for Mission Devotional Conference thing. :) It was way good!! And all in Português and I surprisingly understood pretty much everything!! Yayyyy 

Sister Dalton and Sister Peterson singing

my homemade bracelets from my brothers :) 

Then after the devotional part we were eating lunch and the background music was David Archuletta singing Christmas songs with MoTab!! Ahhh so beautiful, and so in English :) can I say wonderful too much?? WONDERFUL Then we had a bunch of performances and my district sang Near My God to Thee, and Testimony!! Then at the end Sister Dalton and I sang Silent Night/Noite Feliz some in English and some in português. It went way well!! Other than my voice cracked a little at the end and i smiled :) oh well!!!! But it was way good!! then we went back to our apartment and I FINALLY got to open my Christmas present that I have been hauling around for a month!! THANK YOU EVERYONE!!! I loved everything. All the homemade things and the treats and the recipes :) yayyyyyy thank you bunches!!!!

So things this week, I experience my first "summer rain" where it POURS for about 10-30 minutes and then streets are all crazy flooded. And it´s super windy, reminds me a bit of home :D

Marir came to church again!! And we have a baptism set for Saturday!! She had a problem with smoking so we´re praying she doesn´t start again, cause she believes it´s all true and wants to get baptized!!!! We have 2 new investigators!!! Elãne and Maria!! They are understanding a lot and like everything!! Elãne is so smart and when we were talking about the restoration she understood everything and the purpose for everything it was wonderful!!!! We also are teaching a boy William who is 15 and he has already gone to church for 2 months so we´re trying to set a date for baptism :)

Some funny things :) SOoo there are two words in português perigoso(dangerous) and preguisoso(lazy). So I didn´t notice the difference, so when Sister Rolim would say that is perigoso, I´m always like, How is that lazy?? ohhh It was so much better once I fixed that confusion :) Also the phrase agente means us(nos) (idk if it´s a gente or agente) but gente means people and when you conjugate nos it´s -amos in the present and agente is -a its sooo weird. I´m trying to get used to all the phrases they useeee. Oh and we are in a different city today to have p-day and it was interesting they have these gyms that look like a playground but it´s like outdoor gym equipment, sooo weird!!!! hahahhhh

well love you all!!!

Sister Amanda Peterson

Sister Rolim on the left, and Sis Dalton!! yaya

Ohhh Sis Dalton :) and yay for new friends!!

My district/zone yayyyyy

TAYLOR WOODBERRY!! sooo we were in a study group together at school this year!! Soooo we were practically like besties :) yay for SANTOS!

LOOK AT THIS SWEET MARSHMELLOW TWRILLY THING :) I loveee marshmellows...my companion has never had a smore, i needa change this

So christmas presents involved lots of chocolate!!!

NEW POTS AND PANS!!!! oiiiii sooooo good!

so this is my everyday suncreen faceee :) yay for being protected!!!!

these are pictures of the houses hereeeee, so different i know

It´s pouring righht nowww!!!

SO this week was way good!!!!!

i found a big tree branch thingy that fell off :)

First off, I want to talk about some strange things haha. So many people here have shirts or shorts that have american flags or england flags!! It is soo funny!! And everyone listens to American music. Like when we are on the bus that is all I hear!!! it´s so funny!!!!!! Other thing, everyday there is a huge line for the lottery, it is so weird!! Hahahah other thing, houses here are sooo different from the houses back home, every house has a big wall or gate around it and the front is ALWAYS locked. I will send a picture once I take one :) but it´s cool!!!!

So this week we had an investigator named Maria come to church with us!! it was so awesome!!!! We were going to have a family come also but the mom had an asthma attack and had to go to the hospital :/ But she is already getting better which is way good!!!!

WE ARE READY TO WORK - we had to put all the old investigators in order because our area is pretty big so to make better use of our time we visit the people who live near each other the same day!! yayyyy for being productive!

We are also teaching an inactive!! Gustavo, he´s 19 and has a ´wife` who is less-active, but they aren´t married. He is improving a lot though!! That is actually a big problem here!! There are so many families, that have 3, 5 kids and have been living together for years and call each other husband and wife, but they have never actually been married. It´s hard because they have to want to get baptized and then they have to want to get married also. It´s also crazy because so many people have children very very young. There are a ton of teens that have children and families!!! But it´s different because the mom and Dad always stay together and raise the family! It is just a way different culture here!!! 

So last night!!! We went to the stake center for the Christmas program!! I had planned to just play the piano for 1 song. I ended up singing in 2 groups, and playing the piano for 2 groups. Oh the joy of Christmas!! It was awesome though!!!

I am so excited for Christmas!! I love this season of joy and remembering the Savior. It is weird that it´s so hot for Christmas, but I love it here! Everything is different, but it is a good experience!

Love you all!!

.this one is our first set of roomies at the CTM!!

Sister Peterson

Sister Peterson & Elder Caleb!!!

part of my district in CTM and elder johnson and i saw some birds....ha

Me and Sister Dalton :)

MY CTM DISTRICT!! LOVE THEM

Santos friends from the CTM

First Week In the Field!!!! wowzers!!!

CTM District

Sooo I´m going to start with the last couple days in the CTM. On Saturday we did blessings for everyone in the District!! It was literally amazing :) loved it so much!!!! And we also all wrote letters to each other!! It was really touching!!! Then on Sunday all the sisters at the CTM got together and the ones leaving bore their testimonies (in Portuguese of course)!! It was so cool. I got to play the piano for "God be With you Till we Meet Again." I think because I was focusing on playing and it was in a different language I didn´t cry as much!! But it was awesome! I loved the CTM!!! We sang so much on Sunday!! Because we sang with the departing group (EFY medley in Portuguese and English, and I got to lead!!), the normal choir, we sang a special musical number ("Be still my soul") with just my district, and we sang Christmas carols at night!! We counted...about 30 songs. SOOO much my voice was shot afterwards!!! Orientation was all day but it was cool!! All in Portuguese!!! 10 hours of instruction in Portuguese was hard but way good!!! 

We had to be in the parking lot at 7 am to leave for Santos!!! The drive was sooo beautiful, mountains and SOOO green!!! 

Then in Santos we were at the house of President Cabral and we had a little orientation thing and lunch and snacks and such. President Cabral asked if I could play White Christmas on the piano for him, so I went and figured it out hahahahahah Then!!! he made Sister Dalton and I sing it in front of all the trainers that showed up!!! It was awesome but kind of nerve racking!! Haha so awesome!!! It was good :)

So the next day we had mission conference (all in Portuguese as well) for the whole day and it was way good!!! We talked a lot about the changes being made and about our areas and we had practices!!!

My companion is Sister Rolim!!!! She is from Curitiba originally but she has lived in Paraguay for the last 7 years so she speaks Spanish and Portuguese. She knows a little bit of English and I am helping her learn while she is helping me learn Portuguese!! It´s way good!!!

Our area is Mongaguá and the whole thing is beach!! It's way cool!! and Pretty too!! So we both we´re sent to this area as newbies. So we didn´t really know much. But we have been figuring things out!!! We found a lady named Maria who said we are an answer to her prayers!! And we also found a family Maria, Claudio, and their son Gabriel. They have 2 younger children as well and they seeem golden!! It is way exciting!!!

Church was yesterday and no one plays the piano!! So I was dubbed to play! I now wish that I had practiced the hymns when I was younger...I struggle a bit, but it´s better than nothing!!!!

We go running every morning near the beach (cause we can´t go on the sand) and its way pretty and breezy!!! I have a little bit of sunburn, but it doesn´t hurt and it´s not bad so it´s all good!!! yayyyyy We have to take the bus everyday because the area is really long and to get to where our investigators are would take more than an hour to walk!!! It´s crazy!!! 

It´s so different here!! But it is wayy good!!! Oh something way different, all the houses have gates in front so to ´knock doors´ we clap. It is so funny! But i´m getting used to it!!

Love you all!!!!

Sister Peterson

Sister Peterson has arrived!

President & Sister Cabral with Sister Peterson

Dear Brother & Sister Peterson,

We were so excited to welcome your beautiful daughter to our mission last Tuesday! We are so glad to have your daughter serving here in Santos. We will keep you updated periodically on how she is doing. We will do our best to take extra good care of her. We hope that you have a great Christmas and New Year's.

Here is some information about our mission:

We welcomed 17 new missionaries to the Brazil Santos Mission this past Tuesday -- 9 elders and 8 sisters! They received training, were interviewed by President Cabral and had dinner at the Mission House. Transfers were that evening and the missionaries met their trainers and took a bus out to their new areas. Sister Peterson will be trained by Sister Rolim. She has been assigned to serve in the Mongaguá Ward  of the Belas Artes zone. I attached some photos of your missionary.

We were very impressed with how dedicated and prepared this new group of missionaries is. We know that they will do a terrific job building up the kingdom of God here in Santos. We will do our best to take great care of them. We have our own missionaries son and youngest daughter who are serving in Tennesse Knoxville Mission and Panama, Panama City Misison, so we know how you are feeling.

If you want to follow the mission Facebook group, you must accept my invitation to our group (Missão Brasil Santos). I try to update it every time I'm with the missionaries with new photos. The p-day in our mission is on Mondays, so you should be getting your first email from your missionary then. If you wish to send letters or packages, the mailing address for the mission is:

Sister Peterson with trainer Sister Rolim

Amanda Jean Peterson
Missão Brasil Santos
Av. Dona Ana Costa, 414 - sala 24 - Gonzaga
Santos - SP - Brasil
11060-002


We are very blessed to be in Santos to help build up the Lord's kingdom. We thank you for sending us such prepared, worthy and dedicated missionary. We pray that your family will be blessed while you have a missionary serving full-time for the Lord.

I LEAVE IN 4 DAYS!!

Oi!

I can't believe I'm leaving the CTM in 4 days! I seriously feel like I just got here!! It has been an amazing expereince and I love all the people here that have helped me learn Portuguese and how to teach better!!! It is amazing to think that we can teach lessons and have conversations in Portuguese after just 6 weeks!!! I love it though. I am so excited to go out and serve!!!

So this week!!! Was a pretty basic week at the CTM, but the highlights were pretty great :)

So last p-day at night we all got together in the courtyard, sang christmas carols and counted down to light up the christmas lights :) It was so amazing!!! I love it SO MUCH!!!! So we have 2 fake investigators that we were teaching during the time here at the CTM and Gabriel got "baptized" yesterday and Diana got "baptized" on Sunday!! Yay we felt so good about it, it makes me so excited to go to the field and be able to teach people the joy of the gospel!!! Then BEST LESSON YET, we have TRC on Monday and that's where we teach a random "investigator" that we haven't met before and it's our first lesson with them. We had a guy Marcello and his wife who was a member just passed away, but we taught him and he understood everything we said, and we understood everything he said, and we just had an amazing

lesson!! The spirit was definitely guiding us because somehow we knew what to say the entire time!! Then afterwards, we invited him to be baptized and he said YES!!! Ohhh such a great feeling, because 1 the spirit was so strong and 2 I can't wait to do this for real in the field and see the joy that people can receive!! It's going to be amazing.

Soooo on Sunday, we I was practicing the piano for a song I was accompanying in devotional and then while we were playing 2 of our Brazilian Sister Friends came in to sing with us. Then Sister Gomes asked if I knew any other songs?? So I started playing "I'll find you there my friend," then she started singing in Portuguese!!! Ahh it was so exciting!! So we sang together, her in Portuguese and me in English and I sang harmony and it was way pretty!!! Then later that day at choir practice (where I was playing the piano) they were in the group that was singing!! Sooo, Sister Oliveria went up to Sister Degn (Presidents wife) and was like, they need to sing this tonight because we are leaving on Tuesday, and sister Degn says OKAY. I was sooo surprised, so between choir practice and the choir practice with everyone, we practiced and then we sang it for postlude!! Ah it went really well!!! ANDDDD people told me my voice sound like the girl from Tangled :) LIFE MADE!!! It was so exciting!!!

ALSO I've been working on pull ups since I got here and I did 3 on Tuesday!!! THE MOST I'VE DONE EVER!!! Soooo exciting i know  :)

Something I failed to mention a couple weeks ago is that everyone in Brazil does this finger snap thing, and I learned how to do it a couple weeks ago! It was so exciting! And it gets louder and better everyday!!! WAY GOOD!!!!

The temple this morning was amazing!! Sad that I won't be able to go for a while, I don't know the rules in my mission but the temple is about 45 min away from my mission so I may or may not be able to go within the next year and a half!!! I love it though, we all stood as a district together :) I'm gonna miss them all a lot they are amazing and they have made such a big difference on my life!! WE are all going to be in 

Utah after our missions, so REUNION!!! HURRAY!!!

Lots of Love, Muito Amor, Stay Cool

Sister Peterson :)