WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Week two in Jundiaí has been successfully completed!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Firstly, THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE LETTERS, EMAILS AND PACKAGESSSSS THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It might take me a while to write back to everyone, but THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!
Alright. so about my week.
We worked our butts off this week. Really.
Last tuesday we did our planning session and everything. Which,
btw, doing a weekly planning session following "preach my gospel" is WAY
intense and can take HOURS...... And does take hours.......... Its
pretty painful. But, being dilligent little missionaries, we did it
anyways. Complete with our "companionship inventory" -- talking about
what we need to do to improve, making goals, and helping eachother know
what to work on and stuff.... Yep. It was intense.
BUTTTTT, point being, we planned out our week and made a bunch of
goals and Sister Feistner helped me set some good goals for myself to be
more talkative and outgoing and do my part in our companionship and as a
missionary. ANDDDD, it was awesome!!! Some goals like contributing more
to our lessons, not falling asleep while teaching or in people´s
houses(yep..... I´m ALWAYS tired.... so this has happened.... woops.)and
talking to everyone. Like, for example, we have some weekly goals for
numbers every week throughout the mission.... Our mission president set
standards for how many contacts, lessons, visitors at church, baptisms
marked, lessons with members and that kind of stuff... and they are just
a goal that we try to reach each week. For contacts, (telling someone
quickly about how we are missionaries and inviting them to church.... )
we have a mission goal of 140 contacts each week per companionship. So
in our weekly planning, Sister Feistner was just joking about how I need
to talk to EVERYONE and was like "okay, I´m only gonna do ten contacts
this week.... and you can do the rest"..... This was a BIG DEAL, cause
she likes to talk A LOT, and usually cant keep her mouth shut... and
since I dont, I just let her do most of the contacts..... I usually dont
even do half of the contacts every week.......... SO, I decided to
take her up on it, and made it one of my goals for the week---with the
purpose of getting over being scared to talk to people, and becoming
more talkative. WELL. It helped a TON. This week was AWESOME because of
that!!!!
Funny thing, we had a multi-zone conference the next day, and all
morning, they were talking about the importance of contacts..... and how
in Preach my Gospel, it says to talk with EVERYONE.... They talked
about how Elder Ballard spoke in Brazil, in our mission??? I´m not
sure... but he spoke about the importance of talking to everyone and
said that if every missionary would faithfully make at least 10 contacts
every day, the number of baptisms in the area would double. Well, I had
already decided to improve my contacts the day before, but this was
just another reason to boost our efforts!! Take him up on the promise of
more baptisms here!
SO.... we realized this week, that our area may not be awesome for
knocking doors... but we have a ROCKING area for contacts. There are so
many people in the streets in center during the day all week long!!!! IT
is crazy!!! This week, I worked way hard to meet all my goals
everyday..... and with contacts, I made 144 this week-- me alone!!!
WOOO. We also had an activity with the ward passing out pass-along
cards.... so our contacts for this week were INSANE.... 514 contacts for
this week!! We talked to a TON of people who didnt want to hear
anything about the church, but we also found a few people that we were
able to teach, and a few that we will be following up with over the next
week. WOOO!! And can I just say real quick that IT WAS SO FUN TO TALK
TO SO MANY PEOPLE THIS WEEK!!!!! yep. that´s all. It was just way fun
and I liked it a lot.
moving on to more important things.............
Last monday... we spent almost our ENTIRE pday walking......
Walking, walking, walking. We went to a lan house with the elders wayyyy
far away, then we got lost on the way back, and ended up walking
through almost our ENTIRE area..... hmmm. then by the time it was like
4oclock, we were starving for lunch, so we decided it would be a clever
idea to try to find a subway.... yep. So we walked some more.... Ended
up finding one.... and then getting home by the time pday was almost
over. So not worth it. hahah.
Tuesday, after I had made my resolve to talk to EVERYONE and just
talk and teach more, we had an awesome day. The ward always makes a list
of lunches for us, and if they cant actually have us over for lunch,
they give us money.... so we went to a little restaurant for lunch and
as we were leaving, I started talking to the waitress/cashier about the
church and stuff. She started talking about prayer and how important it
is to her and started CRYING right then and there.... It was a cool
experience and we got her number to be able to meet up with her
hopefully sometime this week!!
That night, we went to go teach Rodolfo (the ELEITO that sister F.
found last week...BTW, in brazil, you pronounce R´s at the beginning
of words like H´s... so its like "hodolfo"). His mom and brother were
there as well and they were all super nice and invited us in and gave us
some food and everything. Then we got to teach them the first lesson.
Since I had made my resolve to talk more, I DID, and the lesson went
really well!! There really is something important about having a
companionship of two missionaries and testifying of eachother and the
principles that we are teaching.... it went really well. And we were
able to switch off really comfortably (which can be hard for us
sometime). MAN. It was so cool!!! Towards the end of the lesson, they
werent really understanding the importance of authority and how
preisthood authority was RESTORED through the restoration and Joseph
Smith.... I started trying to explain it better, and it was really just
like the promise that says if you open your mouth, it will be filled
through the spirit. Wow. It was crazy. As I was talking, I just
remembered an example that a brazilian sister used in a lesson that we
taught together back in my second transfer.... I hardly spoke portuguese
at the time, and I had NEVER tried to explain this example in
portuguese before, but somehow, it worked perfectly! There was a cup
sitting on there table and I just grabbed it and explained how the
apostasy was as if the cup had fallen and shattered and many churches
were started each with a little peice of the cup, but we needed to have a
restoration to restore the cup entirely, unbroken.......... It was just
a simple thing, but somehow, it CLICKED with Rodolfo, and he got it
after that..... Then it made sense to him WHY we were inviting him to be
baptized again (since he had been baptized as a baby in the catholic
church) and why the message was important. It was way cool.
This week, we taught Rodolfo every day.... we also marked baptism
with him for the 28th. And he is awesome!! He read everything we marked
for him in the book of mormon.... a chapter everday!! AND, he kept
asking for us to mark MORE chapters at a time!! And he was trying really
hard to pray as well........ that is giving him a harder time.....
ahhh. BUT, this weekend, I´m not sure what happened, but seems like
something came up..... he hadnt read OR prayed when we passed
Saturday.... and Sunday when we came to pick him up in the morning for
church, he just never got up and came to the door..... and when we came
by again in the evening, he never answered the door..... ahhh. It is the
WORST when investigators bail on us for church!!! But, hopefully we can
get back in touch with him this week and keep working with him...
Wow. a lot of cool stuff happened this week (in the midst of all
the rude people/tons of walking up and down hills/appointments falling
through/members never wanting to help us/and all the usual...) but I
dont have time for all the stories............. so just a couple more.
Talking to EVERYONE really does bring some blessings......... we
found a cool couple that we taught this week..... the wife is baptist
and very firm in her church, but the husband is very lost and looking
for something in his life. We´re hoping we can help him out with that!!
He talked to us for a longgg time about his life, and a lot of hard
stuff that has happened..... and he really just seems like he is lost,
looking for something (he doesnt know what...) and just has a broken
heart. PERFECT. So, we werent able to teach much, but we left him with a
book of mormon and hopefully this is HIS time to find the
truth...........
In the experience of trying to talk to EVERYONE this week, I
realized that in the hundreds of people we talk to each week that dont
even take the time to listen to us.... in the midst of all that, there
are a few people that we will be able to teach and help. And hopefully, a
few people that are really prepared and will accept the gospel......
We´ll see how it goes.
OH yeah. and we had the pass-along card activity with the ward this
week........... It was cool... but also a little dissappointing... our
ward is pretty big here, but only 6 people showed up for the
activity.......... it was pretty sad. But, we were able to all go out
and pass-out about 250 cards in about an hour. It was way good for the
people that were there, everyone enjoyed it and they were all excited
about missionary work........ but we could have had a TON more people
there and done a lot more...... This ward is gonna be hard. Everyone is
very nice to us and soooooo good about making sure we have food and
everything....... but no one is helping the missionary work here... If
any of you out there having any genius ideas on how we can get our ward
more excited, they would be appreciated.
OH. And sunday....... we have been working with a man who was
baptized the week before we got here, but after his baptism, he kind of
fell away and when he came to church the next week, he ran away before
sacrament meeting started so that he wouldnt recieve the holy ghost and
be confirmed...... So, we´ve been trying to help him and get him back to
church for sunday so he could receive the holy ghost (which will help
him soooo much with the stuff he is going through). Well. That day we
were fasting for him to come to church and to know how to help him
better..... Sadly, he still didnt go to church..... And none of our
investigators came. Which is always frustrating. So sitting in sacrament
meeting, I was kind of frustrated and upset..... What more can we do
here???! But, I guess Heavenly Father had some other blessings in
mind.... After the meeting, the members introduced us to another
investigator. He had come to church a few times when the other sisters
were here, but they had never been able to teach him because he lives in
a type of boarding house with only guys... AND his name wasnt in the
area book.... BUT, he seems WAY cool and is very interested about
learning all about the gospel.... We were able to give him a book of
mormon while at church and mark to meet with him this week!! As I was
marking a chapter in the book of mormon for him, Sister Feistner was
talking to him about baptism and everything..... He didnt accept to be
baptized yet, but I feel like he will. He just started coming to church
out of his own desire because he feels like it will bless his life!!!
Anyways.... I´m hoping for big things for him.... His name is Fernando.
oh yeah. And another thing............... We seem to have great
luck with our showers here.......... our little shower head/water heater
in araras broke TWICE while we were there......... this week, our
shower heater here broke as well. SWEET. I LOVE COLD SHOWERS. not.
hahhaha. We´ll see if we can actually find someone in the ward to come
fix it.......... the family we had lunch with saturday offered to, but
then they marked twice to come by, and then never did.......
hmmmmmmmmmmm. I guess we are just going to be little ice-cubes this
week.
OHHHHHHHHHHH and pigeons!!! Remember how much I hate them????????
oh yeah, well it gets better!! I forgot to tell youall last week........
but when we were sitting in Araras with all our luggage at the
Rodaviária waiting for our bus to leave, a pigeon wayyyyy up in the
rafters about 40, 50 feet above us decided to poop and it landed RIGHT
on my foot. Right on the part of my foot NOT inside my
shoe..............
Then, this week, we have been walking up and down the main street
where the chapel is a TON doing contacts and talking with people on the
road and at the bus stop. Above the sidewalk going down that entire
block, there is a stretch of telephone wires where about a hundred
pigeons love to sit ALL day long........ Yep. you called it. I have
BARELY escaped having pigeon poop on my HEAD about 5 times already, and
got some on my foot again........... ugh. I just wish we had a machine
gun so we could shoot the whole line of them down really quick! hahahah.
Or pull back the wires really far and shoot them all off. hahaha. Like
that little pixar short film with alll the birds sitting on the
telephone wires..... (if you dont know what I´m talking about, go find
it..... sooo funny.) I think of that little short film every day.
hahahahaha.
Well.
Love you all so much!!!!!!!!!!!
Hope you have the best week!!!!!!
thanks so much again for all the emails, letters, love, prayers and support!!! you all are the best!!!!!!!
love
Sister Ward
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