Week 38💌

 Oii bom dia queridos! Bem-vindos à semana 38!! Bora começar, né?

Segunda: Today was the longest day ever! (She says as she slept through 90% of it). We spent our ENTIRE pday on the bus. We left Imperatriz yesterday at 22:15. The bus broke down at around midnight, and we were stuck on the broken bus until 03:30, when we switched busses. (I was peacefully sleeping and blissfully unaware during all of this). I did end up getting super car sick and throwing up right before lunch. I didn't have anything in my system, so it was just water. Bleh.

We got to Teresina at 19h, over an hour after pday ended. Wahoo! I slept pretty much from 22:15-18h. The last hour of the bus ride, I was awake and playing truth or dare with the other sisteres and our ex LZ. After arriving, we went to McDonald's and I got their chicken salad. Would recommend actually. Then, I went to Uruguai with Sister Dawson to do a divisão there while we waited to receive our filhas.

Terça: Today was a lot of fun! It was really weird being back in Uruguai, not going to lie. We had lunch with Irmã Silvania, the lady who crocheted a steering wheel cover for me. I had no idea that 4 people could talk for 15 minutes about fruit. I almost considered talking about the weather...

After lunch, I worked on making a planejamento for minha filha. Guys, I am so nervous!! After that, we headed out to visit people. Mario said that he wasn't going to be home today, but said "Eu adoro você 😘". Okay, anyways... I did get to visit João Henrique! He is still active in the church, and he is even reading Doctrine and Covenants right now. He had a lot of questions, per usual. 

After visiting João, we went to visit irmão Nelson. He made me a cake! It was nice getting to visit with him again. Tia Marlene called an Uber so that we could visit Jamilly. On our way there, we saw Maísa on a date with RM Eld Howard. Elder Howard died the day that I arrived, and Uruguai was his last area. He came back to visit the missão...and his girlfriend. Of course the three of us (Eu, Sis Dawson and Jamilly) went to crash their date. After visiting Jamilly, we went and got açai with the other sisteres and then cleaned the house. 

Quarta: Well, today's the day! Elder Messias had told Sister Dawson that we had to be to the escritório at 0800. We both hate being late, so we showed up at 0730, before the APs and Presidente. Everyone seemed really shocked we were there. When Eld Messias asked why we were there, we told him because he said to be! His response was oops, my bad. The training for new trainers doesn't start until 10:00. 

Dude. Oh well. We made a pit-stop at a bakery and I bought a coke. We then sat and waited for 2 hours for the other trainers to arrive. There are not a lot of missionaries arriving this transfer, just 2 sisteres and 3 elderes. All are Brazilian. Once everyone was there, we passed through a treinamento. It helped me to relax a little, getting a better idea of what I'm supposed to do. I watched the same treinamento through Zoom with Sister Ferraz, but the internet quality left much to be desired, and so I missed half the treinamento. 

My new companion is Sister Barbosa! She is from São Paulo, and she is the sweetest person ever. She was converted to the church when she was 9 years old. We ate lunch together, and then we sat through the newbie treinamento. Not going to lie, it was a good refresher. There were definitely a couple of things on there that I have zero recollection of learning. 

After that, I got to pick up my packages! Unfortunately I dropped my Dr. Pepper and one of them exploded. Then, I donated 2 to the escritório and 2 to Presidente. 5 Dr Peppers down...but it's okay. Maybe someday I will get an oven!! A girl can dream... Presidente drove us to the bank to set up Sister Barbosa's credit card, and then he took us to the casa de apoio. 

Once there, I did my best to explain things in a little more depth. I walked her through our Pregar and the Drive. I showed her the approved apps, and walked her through what is not approved. After that, she called her family and then I did my scripture study for the day.

Quinta: Today was incredibly unremarkable. Our bus was supposed to leave at 10am, it left at 11:30. I did my best to sleep the whole time, and more or less succeeded. It wasn't the best sleep of my life, but it was fine.

Sexta: we got home at 0400, brutal. I decided to not go to sleep, because I knew that I would NOT wake up in the morning. I kept myself busy by journaling, doing laundry and exercising. 

Side note, sister barbosa is so cute. She asks my permission before doing ANYTHING. It's adorable. She is going to be a really great missionary! We did our comp study and got ready to go to lunch. We had lunch at Irmã Tina's restaurant and then went to the supermercado to buy groceries. And no mom, I am not a fubeca. Calma mulher.

Our Pregar is super disorganized, so I tried to clean it a little bit today. That meant that we picked a neighborhood and visited all of the dots to see if those people actually lived there or not. Spoiler alert: about half of them didn't. We were able to find 2 novos though!

Sabado: dia de milagres! I woke up and did my exercises (milagre #1). We then did our personal study and then did comp study (miracle #2, I am so bad at comp study usually). Training is really forcing me to be obedient to a T! Presidente responded to the weekly email that I sent him (I sent it late, per usual) and he told me that he isn't worried about me being a bad trainer which helped calm me down.

We had lunch with Irmã Iracema hoje. She spent 2 hours telling us that we have to do our exercises every single day. 2 hours. But it was fun talking to her. Her son's job requires a lot of traveling, so she gets a little lonely. After lunch, we started a jejum for our area, that our friends could go to church tomorrow. 

We got to visit the people that I met during my divisão com Sister Sanabria. Some of them were still interested, others weren’t. We also did a lot of door to door. Our goal for the week was 5 novos because we were missing half the week, we ended up finding 11 in total!! Sister Barbosa is such a good missionary, it's very easy to see that she loves everyone around her. And she loves horror movies, so we got to bond about that. My list just keeps getting longer!!

One lady that we talked to was so sweet. She takes care of her husband who has dementia, and she was showing us photos of her netos. We also talked to a lady who's dog has pig tails and bows in its hair/ears? Sei lá. We arrived home super super tired and everyone just crashed.

Domingo: GUYS! OUR FAST FREAKING WORKED!! João came to church!! He arrived a little late, but that is because the endereço was wrong. He said that he liked it because people here don't scream. He liked that it 2as tranquil. Turns out that he is friends with Aldair. He told Aldair that I am a very persistent young woman. I've been messaging every other day with scriptures and then I invited him to church yesterday and reminded him 3x yesterday and 1x today. And hey, it worked! I genuinely can't tell if he is a scorpion or gay though. Anyways!

The ward gave us some breakast treats to celebrate dia das mulheres. It's like actually a big deal here. João told me happy Dia das mulheres também. After church, we had lunch with Benjamin's family. It was super good. Then we came home and everyone zonked out. This week was so taxing.

Later, we cleaned the house and sister Gomez and I tried our best to make air fryer cookies. It was more like a flat sugary pancake. And I tried to make frosting but it was just too sweet. I ate enough frosting and batter to make myself sick though. I did 50 jumping jacks to try and get the food to settle and then floor rotted. It was a good day!

Spiritual Thought: Alma 26:6

6 Yea, they shall not be beaten down by the storm at the last day; yea, neither shall they be harrowed up by the whirlwinds; but when the storm cometh they shall be gathered together in their place, that the storm cannot penetrate to them; yea, neither shall they be driven with fierce winds whithersoever the enemy listeth to carry them.

I was studying in Alma this week, and came across this scripture. It really stuck out to me for a couple of reasons. As a church, we are instructed to make our family units secure. We are invited to pray daily and hold family scripture study together. We are invited to hold family home evening weekly.

Our families are like our panic room. If our family unit is tight, when we feel threatened, we have a home base to return to. If we unite our family members with love, kindness, patience and empathy, we can create an air-tight environment. So that when the storms of the last days come, we won't be affected. We will be safe in our little panic room. 

We live in tumultuous times. It was prophized that in the last days there would be wars and rumors of wars. However, in this scripture, the Lord promises that we will not be beaten down by the storms at the last day when we are gathered together in our homes as a family. Families are the foundation of the gospel.

I promise you all that if you work on nurturing familiar relationships, you will see fruits. You will feel closer to your loved ones. Mending bridges takes effort and it takes humility, but it will be worth it in the end.

Bem, é isso por esta semana! Amo vocês, beijos!!

Photos: So I actually forgot to take like any photos this week...sorry. I am an overwhelmed single mom of 2 now!! But here is what I've got:

1. Throwback Tuesday!

2. Waiting with Sis Dawson to meet our filhas

3. Meet Sister Barbosa!! She is so cute! (Also, I have a horrible tan line from my sling bag, that isn't a shadow on chest.)

4. 💙⛪️

5. Eu amo minha filha fofinha

6. Our cookie thing and the frosting stuff