Transfer 6 week 6

so we had our p day today because our zone got to have an acitivity day! woot woot! we got to go to the zoological today and see the animals. I will try and send photos next week, if i can. I dont have a lot of time because we arrived back late this day has been super crazy, sister De Oliveira sprained her foot on tuesday and so she snt to walk on it for 15 days. so we are doing splits, already were with her and sister warken being sick a lot. Will be a bit stressful, with trying to have a lot of baptism for conference. We are hoping to commit two more people this week for baptism for sunday, we already have been working with 29 yr old warlen. He actually stopped us in the street to ask what we were doing. he´d seen missionaries before but never spoke with any. HE is always excited to learn more and meet with us. He has been throug a lot of experrinece difficult that lead him to lean on the lord and search the truth. Its looking like i will be heading south, so next email i will be telling you eree in the south im headed, as president called to see how i was doing and i had great referrals from sister warken. So letes see what happens. Loveo you all,

kristin

Transfer 6 week 5

Dear family;
This week I had quite the experience of faith and diligence.
Our president had challenged us to find someone who´d already attended a church meeting and baptize them. To be honest, I never thought I could be one of those missionaries that have one of those faith building experiences. But, when in district meeting, my district and zone leader both felt like we would have a baptism, i started to think about what I could be doing more, what I could be doing better. I decided to accept the challenge. It was a really hard week, with both my companion and sister warken falling ill, and myself not too good either, it was rough, but we worked até o pó. every single day we had some sort of challenge of faith, if we could REALLY find someone. While on a division, I left the chore of praying and prayfully studying the area book to Sister Morais. I had to have the faith that she would find someone. and she did. The following day we were in the house of 82 year old João, and taught him the plan of salvation. (his wife died just after accepting the convite to be baptized. his niece did her work in the temple already.) The spirit was so strong as we invited him for baptism the following sunday, and his grandson, a less active was so supportive about it (the rest of the family kinda ignore granpa, he will probably die in a few months, his health isnt good). that night my zone leader called me and challenged me to find another person. That was another stretch, could we really? we keept searching. The next day João said that he wont be bpatised sunday, but wouldnt give another reason other than it was too miuch work for other people. The following day the elders were with us (as we were accompaning them for a enterview for the other companionship, sis. warken being ill) and we decided to visit joao e see if we couldnt help him still. he still wants to be bpatised but, only tjhrouigh Elder De Oliveira talking with him one and one did he reveal how poor of health he has. we willl pray for his health to improve that he can be baptized. I think he will be strong eough to baptise and depois, die. anyhow that was satuyrday afternoon. 24 hours to find someone befoire the stake conference. I didnt know what to do, but we did a lot of praying and pondering and we continued working. We sought the help of a member for references of friends already done a visit. What is amazing is that by doing this, we found one of her friends that we tought two times whos heart was realyl closed, is now open. She said to us, this is the church of juesus christ, huh. YES! but she didnt accept the date of baptsm. Nos vamos proximo domingo. :) so we worked all sunday and caught the bus at 430 for conference. With no prospects but still faith that the Lord would provide someone. During the conference i pondered on who i knew that was in the church more thna 2 times, and the two people i remembered didnt seem very likely but i was willing to do whatever was required. in the middle of the conference the intermiedo hymn, i looked behind me and young man waved excitedly at me. In that momoment i knew who it was that we were to baptize. Douglas. A young man, we tuaght him the past transfer but he wasnt open yet to making the cnhanges. His aunt is a member in anopther ward and he´s been frequenting for some time now. AFter the meeting we saught him out and asked to talk to him privately. He smiled and quickly followed our lead. In the front on the chapel we invited him to be baptised, clearing his doubts and he accepted to be baptized that night. 1 hour later, he entered the convennt of baptism. We still had to have faith to the very end, that he would passs the enterview, as his aunt and uncle were very scepticle to his preparedness. We are excited to work with him. he is a good young man, in the interview he said that he´d been waiting for someone to invite him to be baptised, that he wanted but was embarassaed to ask.
Oh how the Lord works. I know that if we´d had someone else to baptise, we wouldnt have invited him that night.
I learned so much about faith and work, and that I can work harder than I thought I could.
Love you all,
kristin

Transfer 6 week 4

Hello familia, all is well?

I hope the answer is yes yes yes!

I am doing fantastic, as I am super animado for this week. It was a rough past week for myself and sister Morais,as we were doing everything we were ever trained or ever thought to help our investigators. in the end, I burned the field. ``Sister Morais, we only have two more weeks togheter in this transfer. We can´t spend any more time on people who dont want commitments. We are cutting our investigators and starting at zero again.`` I have hopes for one man still, Paulo. He is such a great man, well read in the scriptures. He believes in the doctrine of christ, yet we didnt quite get him to understand authority. We are going to go back this week to teach him about authority. The more I study the scriptures, the more obvious it becomes to me that this is the gospel of jesus christ, this is his church.

I totaly wore red white and blue yesterday for sept 11. My heart is very sad for people who lost a loved one in that tragic event, and am even more disturbed when people believe in consipiracy theories and say our govenment set it up. Im pretty sure USA no is quite on the level of genocide, and i dont believe the tsunami in japan was done by america. Okay lets just say that we had a investigator going off about this. Needless to say being the only american in this area did not make me feel very welcome, and this is why we dont talk polotics as missionaries. wasnot very pleased with the man.

I have to say drunk people are funny, but sometimes they are downright scary. My companion is scared of just about anything,so i think its quite fitting that we are togheter because i usuallyfind things laughable in the moment i should be scared. last night we had a drunk man, compeltely wasted who wanted us to teach him. we were walking past the chapel and i said, well, here is the church come here sunday and we will teach you, and webegan to walk faster. and so did he. he was pretty wild and shouting things that i dont even know but pretty bad,my comp was rattled and quite offended as we ran to escape him. I seriously thought he was going to start hitting us. we hid in our apartment building untilhe passed. when we thought our drunken problems were over, we went to a house of a less active. ERRR wrong again! the non memeber daughter asked us to give her and her nusband a blessing, uh we cant,we dont have that authority, but we can all say a prayer togher. I knew she´d had a few drinks,but didnt know how much. Well,in the middle of the prayer she completely fell over and passed out. yesh. needless to say we got outta there pretty quick, a bunch of drunks and missionaries just dont mix. My companion was not very pleased, she was certain a spirit had entered in the poorwoman. Well,if youre willing to drink, thats your consequence.

moralof the story, dont visit less actives on a sunday night who live close to a bar.

Praying for you all,

kristin

transfer 6 week 3

JUST FOR THE HEADS UP

I hit the day of birth of the mission, 9 months. I thought I was running already, but im feeling the push to run even faster in this work. I feel like i have such little time to do many things. Sister Morais and I definately are learning alot about faith, hope and patience this transfer, as we have been starting with very little to work with. Something we have been seeing alot of is people do not want obligations, they dont want to have expections or responsiblity. Its always, well, I wont say that I will go to church because maybe I wont make it there. Or, IF GOD WANTS IT TO BE. Hello, of course God wants you to be at church on sunday, thats why Christ established a church, thats why the Lord called for the Sabbath Day in the first place. We were talking with one of our members about this, Irma Rosalia. She is so awesome, she needs to serve a mission. She has such a testimony, and conviction of this gospel. Its such a priveldge to have members so strong who understand their role in this life, who are member missionaries. anyway, we were talking about this lack of responislibity in people. Rosalia brought up that our church is one of the few that do missionary work, but why are so many people flocking to other churches? Its because other churches dont ask anything of people. Come when you want, leave when you want. Don´t have to do anything. To be a follower of Christ requires work and sacrifice. I guess something im learning alot about here in this work is just that, the perserving when things dont look too hopeful. We´ve just got to do it. I often think to myself, when I just want to go home, when I just want to sleep on the side of the road, when i want to give up--I think Kristin, if you can´t do this little thing for 18 months, how will you be able to anything more the Lord asks in the rest of your life? We have to show the Lord that we are willing to do anything he asks of us, this is the only way we can truely come unto him. We have been doing a sort of race with our ward here, each week the different orginazations have to do some sort of missionary work, and each category of work they gain points. This ward is SOOO EXCITED. The class principles of the gospel is in the lead, our investigators and new members are kicking butt. The young men are trying to catch up and the relief society is on fire to get a head of principle of the gospel. ITs so awesome, we are getting alot of good work in, members going with us for lessons. Now we are just praying to meet people who are ready. I know they are out there somewhere waiting for sister morais and I to interrupt their train of thought with our ever so awkward yet amazing approaches to conacting people in the street.

Its been super hot and dry here, im drying to stay hydrated, but i know im sweating off more than im intaking. Didnt think i´d be using a lot of lotion here in brasil but i was much mistaken. trying to stay white too, dont want any cancer, especially on this lovely face of mine. ha.

Love yall

sister smith

Transfer 6 week 2

This week has been quite the joy!
As I am now the grandma of Verdão, Sister Morais and I are no longer working in área B, but now área A.
This is a great advantage, because our chapel is in área A. and closer to house. Im glad because my feet
and legs havent been too happy with the long walk to arrive in area B. Unfortunately we havent had much
sucess in this area yet, not a lot has been done in this part of Verdão for a good while. But we know that
there are people waiting to here the gospel, we just havent found them yet.
Funny stories for the week:
alright, i think it was sunday or munday night, sister warken´s suitcase arrived (when she had to go home because of the foot problems she left a suit case in the house of her area in camp grande and so she had to wait for someone to be coming up north) sister albuqurque and s warken left the house to get them from the assistants. I was making cookies and sister morais was reading or eating. Okay dont judge too much, but i was just in a t shirt and garments because its sooooo hot all day and all night! anyway we were doing our stuff and i say to s morais, você esta ouvindo vozes de homems? Are you hearing the voices of men? and we start freaking out, oh my gosh the asssistants are carring the suitcase to our apartment! I dont have pants on! sister morais: I dont have a bra on! so we run to the other room to get clothes, and I realize i have dough all over my hands. so sister morais helped me put my shorts on and she pulled them way up high. when the door opened, it was only the sisters with this look of, what the heck is going on, and sister warken starts to laugh nice shorts sister.
this thursday, my contacting were complete failures.
the first three, all I said was bom dia e tudo bem, nos somos miss..... ``so forget it.`` ``already have my church`` and ``sorry dont have time, next time maybe.``
this was the theme of the day. i didnt have not even one person let me get their address for a visit. (mind you, this is pretty easy to get from people) so reject me, what ever! it was a great day even with the rejection!
yesterday was bem interesting too.
one contact, the man studys socialogy and was making a bunch of questions that were leaving my companion confuddled. After I had to explain to her that he was just trying to see how she´d react, he wasnt trying to force her to agree with his opnions. I found it rather entertaining watchin him get her all flustered. I guess i knew how to handle the situation because of a investigator i had in Lousiana who was the same way. The type of person who asks WHY and HOW about everything. And then that night we were trying to find a recent convert, he lives in an area that has a bunch of young men so we dont really enter the alley because, well, young men, darkness, two young women, not smart. an ex investigator immerged and so my companion decides to share a message with him. which draws the attention of the others.. one we´d contacted in the street i think 2 transfers ago remebered me and was set on offering us refriderante, we said no, but he wouldnt take no for an answer. IT wasnt until after we started to talk about the gospel that I realize why he was overly friendly. definatley had more than one beer. we wrapped up that lesson real quick and he tried to kiss my hand. yuck. thats one thing I will NOT miss, those hand kissers.
weell, gota go
love ya!
sister smith

Transfer 6 week 1

yes you may be wondering why i didnt send an email yesterday. Well yesterday was a crazy very crazy P day. With S. Albuquerque leaving for home, ysterday she got to go with president and other mission finalists pra the waterfalls outside of Cuiabá. (the thing to look forward to when your mission ends here) Sister Warken had an appt. with the neurologist because she has had a migrane everyday since she arrived here in Cuiabá, we had to do splits so I was with her and that took a lot of time. By the end of the day we´d walked probably more than we do on a normal day and all the lan houses we encontramos were fechado. Entao, we didnt have time or chance. Dont have much time now cuz we got to run back home to be there for when sister a. returns, and sister warken will go to pick up her flegling. Verdão is going to have sucess de mais this transfer! we are all super excited to reap the harvest here.

Bom, as for transfer calls,

*drumroll*

Sister Smith & Sister Morais : VERDÃO!

yes, we get to stay together another transfer! que sorte! This is good, because I just had a feeling last transfer we had a lot to do together still, and we need more time to accomplish this work in this part of the vineyard.

Praying for you all,

sister smith