My Week (Dec. 10)

Happy monday everyone!!!!

 

Hope you all had a great week.

  

This week was a tough one. Some of you probably remember that I have great talent for worrying about things excessively........... well. Lets just say that this was one of those kind of weeks. My last companion, Sister Feistner was SUPER sick all last week and in the hospital for most of the week..... And I may or may not have become a giant bundle of stress and worry all week long. Poor Sister Paixão has definitely had some hard times trying to calm me down and take care of me.

Thankfully, Sister Feistner left the hospital last thursday and is doing a LOT better now. She went into the hospital super sick because of an intestine infection. But they had to do a lot of tests and discovered that she has a kind of auto immune sickness that will affect her for her whole life. Right now she is on a ton of strong medicine that is messing with her and making her super tired, so it is going to take her a while to recover..... She and her companion will have to stay home and take it easy for a while. Possibly a very very long while. The mission doctors are monitoring and discussing her case to know what needs to be done to help her most in the long run, but I dont know that they´ve come to any for sure decisions yet.

 

I really dont have much other news from the week............. Basically we got up and studied in the morning, I would be fine while we read our scriptures, and then sometime before we left our house to go work, I would be stressing again and have a break down. Working was hard cause I tried to concentrate but just kept worrying about Sister F. in the hospital and all the doctors trying to figure out what the heck she had.... And coming home at night I´d be a wreck again before going to bed. Yep. Great fun. President authorized for us to call and talk with her almost every day, so we got to know more or less what was going on.

ALSO, he authorized for us to come out to Jundiaí today to visit her! So we are all in Jundiaí right now, and get to spend the pday together! WOOOOOO. Sister F. is still pretty tired  and sick, so we wont being doing much of anything exciting, but I´m SOOOOOOOOOO GLAD to be able to see her and talk to her and find out how she is doing.

 

Something I learned this week........... I feel like everytime that I pray for "mountains to climb" as Elder Eyring put it, the Lord gives the mountains to my family, my friends, the people I love. SO NOT FAIR. hahaha. I think there is a lesson that I am supposed to be learning here, but I havent figured it out yet. I am REALLY good about stressing and worrying about the people I love when stuff like this happens..... SO GOOD, that I make myself a mess..... So I think that one of the lessons is to figure out how to get rid of all my stress and worrying, so I can concentrate on the work I´m doing. Concentrate on the needs of the people here, the people we are teaching and trying to serve.

Also I am learning a little bit about the importance of time. We really dont have much time in our lives to do all the important things we need to do..... We have to take advantage of every moment. Things are always changing in our lives, and we never know when we will have the opportunity to do whatever it is that we are doing at the time again...... As for a full time mission, this opportunity is one that we have right now. ONLY. So I´ve been thinking a lot about how I need to use my time here better and take advantage of every moment. Learning how to concentrate in the middle of challenges is a big part of that..... that I need to learn.

 

I am hoping that this coming week will be a lot better. It should be! We talked with President Perrotti yesterday and he promised that we will start to see more miracles in our area. THANK GOODNESS. All of our investigators have been either falling off the face of the planet, ignoring us, become to busy for us, or stopped progressing.  So I really hope we have some miracles this week. ALSO, this week I will hit the 9 month mark!!! WOOOOOOOOO!!!

ANDDDDD Saturday, all the missionaries in the zones closest to Campinas will be singing in a choir at the temple! They will have a Christmas program at the temple grounds, and we have been inviting investigators like crazy. There will be a lot of choirs and groups singing, and the missionary choir will be the finale. WOO! We had a practice for it last week and I got to see Sister Pedersen, Elder Raleigh and a bunch of people  that are serving in the zones close to here right now. SO great.

 

OTHER GOOD NEWS-

This week we received references of two awesome families! WOOOO!!! We tried super hard, but we didnt get them to come to church..... ahhhhhh. But I am hoping that the will keep progressing and around Christmas or New years time we will have some family baptisms!! WOO!

   

Well, I dont have much more to say today.

Some scriptures for the week=

1 Cor. 10:13 (Link)

and one of my faves. Isaiah 41:10/13 (link)

I know that the Lord will help us in whatever challenges we have to face....... He is really there to "take us by the hand" and lead us through our hardest times. He never will give us a challenge that we are not able to conquer with his help. And how it says in Alma 7:11-13, (link) He suffered EVERYTHING for us..... to know how to help us in these hard times. I know He will help each and every one of us as we strive to come closer to Him and ask for His help.

 

I love you all so much!!!

miss you all and am SO JEALOUS of your lovely cold temperatures, snow, christmas preparations and everything!!

 

have the best week!

 

Sister Ward