Today marks two months in Brasil! Weirdo. Kind of feels like I’ve been here forever, but it feels like I just got here. We’ve got one week left of this transfer and I think they’ll be some definite changes. I tihnk I’ll stay here, but probably get a new companion. You never know though. But you always know that it is exactly the way it needs to be and exactly the way the Lord wants it.
We still have no baptisms here. Don’t know what is going on. It’s hard though because it really makes you doubt a lot. It’s like what are we not doing right, are we not working hard enough, what more can we be doing, where are those elect that the Lord is preparing? But I guess this is just a down time, which means we’ve got A LOT of good up ahead somewhere. There’s always lots of good ahead.
Portuguese, I love it of course. It amazes me a lot of times when I realize how much I’m understanding, especially at church. There’s still an endess amount of words I don’t know, but I can usually get the whole story pretty well. It is so nice not being so lost all the time. But it also amazes me a lot, when I realize how much I don’t understand, how much more there is to learn, and when my mind just draws a blank and I can’t express myself. Ups and downs, ups and downs. :)
I love Brasilians. These people and this culture and this land are fantastic. Trying to still get used to the deathly heat and humidity. It’s a struggle. But at least I’m in an area on the coast right now, with a nice little breeze, so it’s much less hot than other places. Adn it is so nice having sunshine all the time. :)
By the way I got 6 letters yesterday and it was so glorious! Mail is the best ever. Muita obrigada for sending me mail Carla and Cottam fam and Sashie and my fam and Sister Cahoon and Lilly! I love mail and all of the little joyful moments all throughout the day.
I’m so grateful to be here right now. I can’t imagine my life without this and without these experiences. Everyday is a blessing.
-Sister Owens
I love being on a mission. This is fantastico. Vitória, Brasil is the best ever.
My week started out extra extra supercalifragilisticexpialidocious because I got my Christmas box from home! It didn’t even take four weeks to get here! A Christmas miracle! So I was very very happy about that of course and getting all sorts of goodies and peanut butter. And I got lovely letters too! Mail is the best thing ever. Many mahalos to Carla, Sashie, and Lexxy and Lenny for the the wonderful cartas!
So we haven’t had any batismos yet since I’ve been here. Don’t know why. People are falling through. But we’ve got a couple solid dates marked for some lovely souls so hopefully I’ll have wonderful baptism news soon. It is so nice to see the fruits of your labors.
So some funnies from the week… we’ve met this lady who is kinda coo coo. Definitely a little crazy, but you just can’t help but love her. And she really loves Americans a lot and so she just loved us right from when she first saw us. We were at her house teaching her, and it was super wicked hot, like always, and then her super cool old school red phone rings. And she gets on and starts talking and is just randomly like, “Uma Americana da Alaska está aqui…” So basically like, “I can’t talk right now because an American girl from Alaska is here” and that was about all she said. Anyways, twas quite funny because she’s a bit crazy. But she comes to church on all her own and gets there super early, so tis wonderful.
Another funny, I asked a lady we were contacting if she was going to have a menino or a menina, asking her what she was pregnant with. And apparently she’s not having a boy or a girl, but she informed me just had just eaten a lot at the market. Oopsies! :)
We contacted a girl and her mom who were visiting frmo Rio. The girl was really excited to speak english with us and her mom videoed us all speaking english for like 10 mins. This girl later told the wonderful Sister Morales that she looked like Vanessa Anne Hudgens from High School Musical.
Last night we were talking with this older couple and the man had been baptized but fell away from the church. They were both pretty chatty people and were telling stories for a super long time which a couldn’t really follow. Anyway, the man eventually said that he thought the church needed to change its doctrine. So we just testified that the church definitely does not need to change its doctrine, because the doctrine is Christ’s. And he is at the head of this church. And it is lead through a prophet who speaks with God and directs the Church.
We meet lots of interesting people. I love it. And I’m so excited to meet more of those elect people out here! Ready to have the blessings of the restored gospel!
Boa semana para vocês!
Today marks two months in Brasil! Weirdo. Kind of feels like I’ve been here forever, but it feels like I just got here. We’ve got one week left of this transfer and I think they’ll be some definite changes. I tihnk I’ll stay here, but probably get a new companion. You never know though. But you always know that it is exactly the way it needs to be and exactly the way the Lord wants it.
We still have no baptisms here. Don’t know what is going on. It’s hard though because it really makes you doubt a lot. It’s like what are we not doing right, are we not working hard enough, what more can we be doing, where are those elect that the Lord is preparing? But I guess this is just a down time, which means we’ve got A LOT of good up ahead somewhere. There’s always lots of good ahead.
Portuguese, I love it of course. It amazes me a lot of times when I realize how much I’m understanding, especially at church. There’s still an endess amount of words I don’t know, but I can usually get the whole story pretty well. It is so nice not being so lost all the time. But it also amazes me a lot, when I realize how much I don’t understand, how much more there is to learn, and when my mind just draws a blank and I can’t express myself. Ups and downs, ups and downs. :)
I love Brasilians. These people and this culture and this land are fantastic. Trying to still get used to the deathly heat and humidity. It’s a struggle. But at least I’m in an area on the coast right now, with a nice little breeze, so it’s much less hot than other places. Adn it is so nice having sunshine all the time. :)
By the way I got 6 letters yesterday and it was so glorious! Mail is the best ever. Muita obrigada for sending me mail Carla and Cottam fam and Sashie and my fam and Sister Cahoon and Lilly! I love mail and all of the little joyful moments all throughout the day.
I’m so grateful to be here right now. I can’t imagine my life without this and without these experiences. Everyday is a blessing.
We still have no baptisms here. Don’t know what is going on. It’s hard though because it really makes you doubt a lot. It’s like what are we not doing right, are we not working hard enough, what more can we be doing, where are those elect that the Lord is preparing? But I guess this is just a down time, which means we’ve got A LOT of good up ahead somewhere. There’s always lots of good ahead.
Portuguese, I love it of course. It amazes me a lot of times when I realize how much I’m understanding, especially at church. There’s still an endess amount of words I don’t know, but I can usually get the whole story pretty well. It is so nice not being so lost all the time. But it also amazes me a lot, when I realize how much I don’t understand, how much more there is to learn, and when my mind just draws a blank and I can’t express myself. Ups and downs, ups and downs. :)
I love Brasilians. These people and this culture and this land are fantastic. Trying to still get used to the deathly heat and humidity. It’s a struggle. But at least I’m in an area on the coast right now, with a nice little breeze, so it’s much less hot than other places. Adn it is so nice having sunshine all the time. :)
By the way I got 6 letters yesterday and it was so glorious! Mail is the best ever. Muita obrigada for sending me mail Carla and Cottam fam and Sashie and my fam and Sister Cahoon and Lilly! I love mail and all of the little joyful moments all throughout the day.
I’m so grateful to be here right now. I can’t imagine my life without this and without these experiences. Everyday is a blessing.
I love minha família. I love being a missionary. I love Brasil. I love português. I love rice and beans. I love teaching people about the restored gospel. I love eating fruit off trees. I love seeing fruits of my labor. I love wearing skirts and a nametag every day. I love that I’m getting tanner. I love that I am understnading and speaking incredible amounts of portuguese. I love Jardim da Penha. I love my companion Sister Morales. I love finding families and people to baptize. I love the Sorvetes. I love my funny tanlines. I love MOQUECA (this fantastic capixaba fish stew from Espírito Santo). I love VW bugs. I love pretending I’m in a musical. I love the Mexican feast we had last week with Sister Pickett. I love this day of love. I kind of love everything right now.
One thing I do not love… the giant ant-y wasp-y freaky bug infestation we had in our kitchen this week. Oh my goodness it was so awful. Like horror movie status. Ewww. We fetched our landlord and he came over with a can of raid and we were all swatting bugs like mad. Didn’t get to sleep until 12, but nice going to sleep with most of those freaky weirdo creepo bugs gone, and not with hundreds of them in your house.
But yes, I love most other things.
This past week we’ve been focusing on learning from our trials and challenges, realizing that through our trials, and through our times of discouragement and despondency, we can become so much closer to our Heavenly Father and learn so much more about the Atonement.
Christ suffered every single mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual suffereing we have ever suffered, and as we go through trials and down times, we cen become more grateful to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for the atonement. It depends greatly on our attitude, and how we accept and grow through our challenges. Just rely on the Lord. Conversar com nosso Pai Celestial.
And we really do need opposition in all things. Those hard times make the good times so much better! Yippee skippee!
So basically, the mission has lots of hard times. Heat, cockroaches and ants :), new languages, lots and lots of hard work… People promising they’ll come to church on Sunday, then you get ready early, get a member with a car, and go out to pick people up for church, then no one is home or they’re sleeping, and you have no investigators at church with you, when you had lots of people committing to go the day before. Discouraging. But then it is so fantástico when you find those golden elect people, those who have been hungering for the gospel, and those who come to church and baptismal services!
This week was good in the hood, like always. I went on my first division! And I only ahve 6 weeks here! Ahhh. I was a bit nervous to be going out all day without my companion and with a member instead, but it was such a fantastic day. We taught coolio peeps, talked with lots of people, and had much much fun of course. And yes yes, ofcourse I grew muchly.
I’m just learning and loving lots out here. There’s no where else I’d rather be right now, adn this is where I need to be. Despite the fact that I had a cockroach crawl on my foot this morning as I was doing my laundry, everything is great. And the rice and beans are getting more and more delicious everyday. :) And it’s actually time for me to go eat some rice and beans now with our favorite Sorvete family now!
Boa sorte e bom dia também! Amo vocês, claro!
-Sister Owens
My first transfer just finished with much success and goodness! And now transfer number two has commmenced. I1m with Sister Morales still (yay!) and we’re in the lovely Jardim da Penha on the lovely isle of Vitória.
This transfer shall be an excellent 6 weeks. We have some really great people we’re teachign right now and I love them so much. It is such a blessing being an instrument in the Lord’s hands bringing the gospel and the spirit to these elect people!
Missionary work is so fun these days. Portuguese is improving on a daily basis, thank goodness, an dI love meeting these wonderful people and just how good they are. People are really good and Christian here. In fact the other day we were teaching this one super nice lady, Ivane, who we contacted one rainy day in the rain rain, and as missionaries, we get a bit tired at times. And Sister Morales had yawned and the lady asked if she wanted to go take a nap on her bed. They’re just so nice and welcoming. Although of course, we don’t usually take naps at people’s houses.
But funny story, the other week we were teaching this cool lady who makes rainbow jello and gives us delicious mango juice, and I was pretty much falling asleep in the lesson. Both of my companions were doing most of the teaching and I was sitting there, perhaps dozing off, fighting so hard to keep my eyes open. Soooo funny. If there’s a part of the lesson where I don’t talk for a while, it becomes a bit on the difficult side to keep my heavy eyelids up. :)
I’m so happy I’m here. Missionary work is defintely work though. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so tired. Never worked so hard in my life. :) We walk and talk all day long. And we laugh all day long too. Just having soooo much funny and so many funny things are happening.
Lots of funny things with Portuguese too. I’m learning the small differences in some words that make big changes in the meaning. Such as “com ela” (with her) and “comi ela” (I ate her). Now I’m focusing a bit more on saying “with her” instead of telling people about some other people I ate. I don’t like to eat people.
PS Many mahalos to Elena and Alexis and Hayley and Crystal for the lovely mail I got. Mail makes me like the happiest earthling ever. Obrigadão!
