WELL.
It has been a crazzzyyyy week!!
So, about my week I guess....
picking up from last pday....... After I wrote to you all last
monday, Sister Feistner and I and the elders in our district, Elder
Oliveira Souza and Elder Raleigh, all went to the chapel to have our
district activity.... So we got Big macs from Mcdonalds and brought some
goodies from the bakery and we all had lunch in the chapel. That was my
FIRST McDonalds in Brasil!!! woooo!! ha. BUT really, McD´s is WAY
expensive here....... people spend 16-18 reais on a meal! INSANE! One of
the members was joking that if you are dating in Brasil and you like
the girl, you take her to Mcdonalds, where as in the states, you take
her to McDonalds if you want to break up. hahah. But that big mac was
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good!!!! mmmmmmmm. Still really miss IN-N-OUT
though.... haha. Just a year left, just a year!
The plan for our activity was to play futbol (soccer!) on the nice
little soccer feild that they have at the chapel... It has GRASS and
everything!!!! But sadly, the elders didnt bring a ball...... So, after
we had lunch, we started searching the chapel to see if there was a ball
there...... We had brought a 2L bottle of coca-cola and we all
drank coke out of our water bottles at lunch.... Only problem ----
Sister Feistner is HYPER sensitive to the caffeine in coca-cola and goes
CRAZY after about two glasses...... Yep. If she drinks two cups of coke
at a members house at dinner time, she wont sleep at night.... So after
an entire water bottle of coke, she was WIRED. She was doing
cartwheels up and down the halls in the chapel as we were searching for a
soccer ball.... We probably spent a good 40 minutes just looking
through all of the cabinets and rooms in the chapel to try to find a
ball, but... no such luck. We were at the chapel to play soccer and we
had NO BALL. Sweet.
I wasnt too worried about it.... We had the violin and Elder
Oliveira brought a guitar, so we were just kind of jamming and chilling
in the Relief Society room. BUT, as I said before, Sister F. was wired,
and still pacing up and down... Elder Raleigh (we arrived from the CTM
together and have been in the same district ever since...) is a pretty
legit skateboarder and brought his skateboard to our activity. SO,
Sister F. decided the best use of her time would be to learn how to
skateboard.... She asked our district leader, Elder Oliveira if it was
okay if she skated, and we were all like "do what you want" and kept
playing violin and guitar.... There were also two sisters passing
through our area on monday (one of the sisters is going home next
transfer and so she asked to come back to Araras for the pday and say
goodbye to members and her converts here) and they came to the chapel
for a little bit before they left..... when Sister Feistner went to
start skateboarding one of the sisters was like "You arent really gonna
do that are you??? You´re gonna hurt yourself!".... The elders were just
like "nooooo, dont worry about it! she knows what she´s doing!!" hahah.
Just makes it so much BETTER what happened next.....
AND, so sister F. takes the skateboard and starts trying to figure
out how to stand on it.... and then starts skating around a little bit
there in the R.S. room (dont worry, its got tiled floors). About a
MINUTE later, she pushed herself off of the wall, lost her balance and
fell on her face. We all start to freak out, but she just gets back up
and is like "I´m good, I´m good, dont worry!!" and goes to gab the board
again.... Then, she realizes that her chin is bleeding and puts her
hand up to cover it and yells for me to come with her to the
bathroom...... We didnt even realize she was hurt until I was following
her out to the bathroom.
We get to the bathroom and she stands over the sink and starts
washing her chin off.... it is bleeding A LOT..... And because she was
washing it, the blood and water made it look even worse. OHHHHHH gosh...
So I started to get a little sick and had to sit on the floor in the
bathroom as she washed it off. hahahahahah. AWESOME companion, right???
Finally, she washes it out and the bleeding slows down and we can
see what happened. She had a giant HOLE in her chin!!! haha. Okay, maybe
not giant, but definitely a hole. At this point, I am still feeling a
little queesy, so I had to go sit on the floor in the hallway and play
the violin to ignore it..... hahah. But the elders started looking at
it, and figured that she probably needed to go get stitches...... So, we
called up Irmã Fatima, and she and Natalia came to take us to the
hospital, we broke up the party, and Sis. F and I went to go get
stitches in her face.... hahah.
AND, I had to be with her for the whole thing.... EVEN though I was
already a little queesy and dont, dont, DONT like needles... So, I
found the best solution for the situation and waited outside the open
door. =] hahaha. Once again, best companion EVER award!! hahah.
She ended up justing getting two little stitches on her chin, and
through the whole thing, she was more concerned about the giant bruise
on her leg from where she fell on the cell phone that was in her pocket
than the hole in her face!! hahah.
Anyways.... made for an interesting pday..... and the entire week
afterwards as everyone we talked to would suddenly get distracted by the
stitches in Sis. F´s chin... hahah.
It was also PERFECT timing, because the NEXT DAY, we had a
multi-zone conference with President and Sister Perrotti as well as
Elder Mezzagardi (an area seventy) and his wife..... hahah. And Sister
Feistner had stitches in her face. Sweet. =]
Tuesday, we had the Multi-Zone with Elder Mezzagardi. That was
INTENSE...... It started off fairly normal... you know, song,( and I had
to lead the music!!!) prayer, announcements, Pres. and Sister Perrotti
spoke real quick and then Sister Mezzagardi spoke.... but then Elder
Mezzagardi spoke for the rest of the day. We got there at about 7 in the
morning... the meeting started at 9/9:30?? and went until we had a
break for lunch, then again until 3 or 4 in the afternoon. And he was
INTENSE. Man. He burned us real good!!! hahah. oh gosh. But he is a
really good speaker......he could just keep going, all day!! and
everytime he thought we were all getting too sleepy, he would make us
all standup and stretch. just to make sure he really had our attention.
=] haha.
This week, we started teaching a woman named Luciana who moved here
about a month ago from Rio Claro (a city close by...). The Elders in
Rio Claro taught her and her family, and her three oldest sons were
baptized several months ago.... She wanted to get baptized as well, but
didnt end up getting baptized before she moved here. We werent able to
get in touch with her until week before last.... But that sunday she and
her sons all came to church and she told us that she is preparing to
get baptized. The elders had taught her all the lessons and been working
with her super hard to get baptized, but it never worked out... They
had a lot of problems with her ex-husband who is a drug dealer and
addict, and she had to move here out of emergency so that he wouldnt be
able to find her or her five kids... But she really wants to be
baptized, and since she moved here, she stopped smoking all on her own
with the intent of getting baptized by the end of the year! Wooohooo!!
She is the sweetest lady and has had such a hard life..... Now,
they are living in this little room in the back of a soccer training
house where about 35 boys live and train to play soccer.... She is the
cooking and cleaning person for this training house and works all day
with her little 3 year old boy and her little 8 month?? old girl. They
have absolutely NOTHING because her ex-husband took and sold everything
that they had to buy drugs..... Her kids have about one pair of clothes
each, they dont have a stove to cook, and they didnt even have a fan in
the one hot room where they all live together until some members got
them one.
We are working with her this week and planning to have her baptism
this saturday!!!! It was so great talking with her and hearing her
testimony and experiences with learning from the elders, the book of
mormon and how the gospel has blessed her family already. Her oldest son
is 16 and he is already excited about going on a mission in a couple
years!! =]
I´m excited to help their family and excited to see the efforts of
the ward to help them have the things they need and make them feel
welcome here...
ANDDDDD most exciting news!!! IT RAINED THIS WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!
It has been ISANELY hot and dry here lately.... it hasnt rained for
more than five minutes in the past two and a half months!! But thursday
this week it started to cool off and got pretty windy, and that night
the rain finally came! Friday it poured ALL day!! So great!!! Not so
much for working in the rain.... but it all worked outfor the best....
I also got sick this week. yay. hahaha. Started feeling a little
iffy on thursday.... we went to Izabel´s house that night to have a
lesson... Turned out to be her BIRTHDAY, and so she started making up
some food for us to eat... As we were sitting there eating salgados
(little fried appetizer things?) I started to get super hot, and my face
got all red. So then Sister F. and Izabel got all worried about me,
although I was fine.... and it ruined the party and we had to go home
early. Shoot. hahah.
But the next day, I felt worse, got up to study and ended up just
sleeping on the couch.... Our neighbors knocked to say hi, and got all
worried that I was sick (just with a super sore throat and I dont even
know what else)... So when we went to leave for lunch, they offered to
drive us since it was pouring rain and we would have had to walk about
40 minutes in the rain.... ahhhh. Such niceys. AND, they kept checking
on me that day, and the next to make sure we were all okay... and went
and got me halls and offered us food and everything.... Our neighbors
are the best.
lunch didnt really help me to feel any better.... kind of the
opposite.... So we ended up trying to teach a little, and then just
walking back home, and I slept the rest of the afternoon/evening. hahah.
Ohhhhhh gosh. Staying at home days are the worst!!
Saturday night we had a missionary activity with the ward.....
Sadly, none of the people we invited came..... but it was still good! We
gave a little lesson (super scary speaking in portuguese to a room full
of people!), and we had hot dogs..... But the brazilian view of "hot
dogs" is wayyyy different.... The ones we had were basically chunky
tomato soup/not spicy chili, with peices of hot dogs in it, slapped
inside a roll. Yep. hahaha. Costco hot dogs are SOOOOOO much better!!!
Last miracle of the week....
We have been fairly discouraged lately because we have been working
hard without many results.... and looking back to a lot of the miracles
we were having my first couple transfers, it was a bit depressing.....
BUT sunday, we went out to teach a reference from the Temple.... We had
tried to pass this family before, but the lady-- Debora, works a TON and
was never home and they told us that the only day we would be able to
find them was sundays...
Just before we went to their house, Sis. F and I went and said a
prayer on the street behind a big truck... And in the prayer, I asked
that we could have the spirit with us as we taught her, that we could
find people prepared to hear our message and that we could have miracles
in our work here..... Well. They were a MIRACLE family!!
It was just Debora there when we got there but she was SOOO excited
to see us!! She had been straightening her hair before we got there, so
Sister F. offered to do it for her... it was the perfect thing because
she just got talking without it being weird at all.... She started
telling us her whole life story.... she has had a pretty hard life...
and about her uncontrolable desire to serve the Lord and find out about
our church! She drove by the temple in Campinas and just wanted to go in
SO BADLY. So she went and talked to the people at the little visitors
center there, and they gave us her information.... Because of how she
felt the spirit there, she told us that she wants to join our church and
find out everything she needs to in order to be baptized!! She also
wants her eleven year old daughter Gabrielle and her husband João Carlos
to join her in finding out about the church and getting baptized. HOLY
COW!!! She is sooooo prepared!!! We didnt even really teach a "lesson",
because she was just asking so many questions.... we talked about
temples, the book of mormon, missions, baptism and how she would like to
serve a mission someday..... Wow.
As we started explaining about the book of mormon, she was sooo
interested and would ask questions before Sister Feistner could even
explain! haha. Then she was like "well, read me part of it!" So we read a
little section of 2 Nephi 31 with her and her family, and then prayed
with them. They felt the spirit and showed such real interest! ahhh. I´m
so excited for them!!
Sadly, we can only teach them on sundays because of her super busy
schedule...someone in the family smokes a lot..... and I´ll probably
be transferred before they are able to be baptized.... ahhhhg.
But, in conclusion... it was such a strong answer to our prayers
teaching their family..... As she started talking when Sis. F was
straightening her hair, we were just in shock. Amazing.
Anyways.
I´m out of time!!
love you all and hope you have the best week!!
hopefully some pictures to come next week!!!
love
Sister Ward
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