Week 2 of Transfer 5

My new companion, Sister Morais is just awesome. i can already tell we are going to have a great time together. Im pretty certain that she got transfered here specifically for me, I definately need her, she´d make the better senior companion than me. She´s from Paranaboko (spelling, I dont know...) Recife, but has been living in São Paulo. I´ve got two Recifians in the house! Currently I am once again in a Trio, sister Albuquerque´s companion is having visa problems and is waiting in the MTC provo. The other 2 Americans arrived timely, but sister Chatwin has yet to come. I hope she gets her visa in a jiffy, my comp. needs one less stressful thing in the final transfer of her mission. Today we are going to go to the house of Mídia, a recent convert who was less active, but now that her son has joined the church she has this drive to keep going and reading her scriptures. I love this woman, I struggle to understand her, heck brasilians struggle to understand her cuz she talks so fast and talks alot. But she has this happiness about her all the time. Anywho today we´re going to crash at her house, watch a church film and learn how to make her pão con canela. (cinnamon bread. it is so delicious!) and then tonight we will have a family home evening lesson with recent convert family Eduardo e Debora, along with Mídia e Ricardo. Vai ser muito fun. We had a lot of crazy things happening the past three days, remeber Marcia? the woman we taught 2 weeks back who accepted a date for baptism and then decided she couldnt give up coffee? well she decided she could, and was going to suprise her spouse for their anniversary by arranging the baptism for saturday, her there in the capella in white and him show up with the bishop for a ´´meeting´´ . well that all fell through when she decided to talk to him about it friday night. he told her she wasnt ready yet. AUGH! He´s been relentless with her about how he wants to be sealed to her, and when she finally gives up her coffee and says the Lord is calling her to do this (for a second time) why? I was very frustrated because all our time got robbed because of having to rearranging everything for her, my companion was pretty depressed and useless after the phone call on saturday. I just hope that we dont loose another future baptism we had set because of this. Its hard to have these emotional rollercoasters, esp on your last transfer. everything is a BIG DEAL. you are overly sensitive and think everyone is watching you. At least this is what im seeing from my companion. something to look forward to? But things always could be worse; our fans could break. Yes, that would be the worst thing ever! I would die. There has been more than one day this week that i´ve thought, Heavenly Father, are you trying to kill me? because this heat is cookn´ me. And then i had to reflect on the scripture that talks about the refiner´s fire. I guess for me that scripture is literal. the firey sun of Cuiabá. Im hoping i can load some pictures today! this mach. is alittle wacky.
stay strong ya´ll, youre in my prayers.
love
sister. smith.

transfer 5 week 1

WOOT!!!
NEW TRANSFER!
NEW GOALS!
NEW COMPANION!
SAME AREA!
Am I excited? yeshhh. I´ve been walking on the clouds today. I´ve been pretty happy the last few days, cuz, you know what, I have no reason NOT to be happy. I´ve got the restored Gospel in my life. I´ve got awesome friends and family who keep me updated in life and laughing. And I´ve got this great opportunity to leave life for a small while and share the great news of the gospel of Jesus Christ with other people.
And.......after serving together for two transfers and wading through the discouragement of not finding those who want the gospel, The last day of our transfer we had the amazing opportunity to see our irmão Ricardo be baptised!!!!!!!!
He is going to be such a great leader in the church, he has had so many experiences where the Lord truly has been guiding him. His mom is a recent convert, who hasnt been super active (I love Mídia like no other! but she is kinda flakey, you know, air head?) but I think they´ll be able to keep each other strong. He had already been keeping the word of wisdom. awesome.
So yep i´ll still be in Verdão, i´m guessing for at least one more transfer. Some people dont like Verdão, but I think its great. ITs not the area that is slow, its the missionaries, right?! This last week was a lot of running, Im looking forward to getting back to the apartment and just sleeping.....
Pictures attached:
baptism of Ricardo

oh mother, I have been very grateful for the 40% deet bug repelant....i havent actually been using it on my skin but on the infestation of formidas! err little ants! they are everywhere! I hate them......I pretend they are satan when I spray them.....
okay well...i thought I had some more awesomethings to say....fail...
love much,
sister smith

semana 6 transferencia 4

Tanto de coisas falar sobre este semana...

OKay I will start at the top of my list:

Friday I ate fish. Very tasty. This fish had teeth. I would have taken a photo, but it was in a the house of a member....that would be rude....but seriously! TEETH!

Friday will also met more crazies.

An old man, probably 60 yrs with no teeth (therefore I didnt understand him anyway...) was speaking in tounges and prophecying for my companion and I. He said he is 110 yrs old.

After that we stopped by the house of some less actives and my companion about strangled one member, he was wanting us to go with him to a house of a friend who is aflicted by an evil spirit, he says. He wanted us to go and make prayers and give a blessing.

Ricardo.....let us explain again.....we dont have the priesthood......

In the mix of that one of their neighboors who is short a fuse or two, came over and starting talking about everything under the sun. She said I was a lier because she didnt believe I was American. And when I spoke english to her (´´speak english, I know englihs´´) she said i have to be french. she wanted to get in a fight with my companion, called us prositutes. Sorry, we dont have time to play games ma´am.

Friday was rather depressing because we were planning on going to our ward activity, we had invited a bunch of investigaters there and a lot of our members were bringing non memeber friends. Great opportunity, no? But president called and said we couldnt....so when it was time for dinner break, i wanted icecream. (i was really dissapointed, okay) so maybe I ate r$8 worth of chocolate icecream. my comp was shocked becase im such a tight wad usually. and after i had consumed that tasty goodnesss, I was so happy.

But the sad thing was that night we had arrranged for our leader of missionary work to pick up an investigator, whom on tuesday said that he knew if he came to church with us he´d be baptised.....elect....well, somehow he didnt get picked up and he called us at 930 livid. He didnt want to hear from us again. he went out drinking with his friend instead. Low of Lows. But we made a cake and a card and droped off at his work, he didnt show up the whole weekened for work. I hope he forgives us. yo your salvation is on it friend! But after this saturday, an old investigator told her husband she wanted to be baptised. So of course we suprised her at her home. She accepted a date for ysterday, but she has to give up coffee so hopefully next week we´ll be hearing that I finally was able to participate in a baptism here in brasil! We are working with a few people for baptism, i pray that we can be effective in helping them.

Ive felt a lot of dissapointment here in my mission in brasil, but I have had a lot to learn from the dissapointment. And im super greatful for the good experiences I had in Louisiana that bring some sun in the rain! This week is going to be awesome, we are going to end this transfer with a kick!

and yes, its cold in cuiabá.;

im wearing my winter clothes.

love

sis. smith

semana 5 trasferencia 4

Where to start.....This week has definately been wholesome. We´ve been working alot with part member families and less actives. This sunday we had 7 less active members at church! Its nice to see that our work is actually worth while; it can be easy to get discouraged but discouragement comes from satan. I loathe satan, he tries to ruin our lives. and the saddest thing is when people openly embrace him. Hello folks, he´s going to chain you to him and drag you down to that endless pit of misery and woe!! And then after that, he will point and laugh at you, and rub dirt in your face. and then after that, laugh again, hey sucker! you thought my promises of chocolate houses and golden streets were legit?! fail!I´ve been studying in Helmã this past week; seeing how pride destroys people. I couldnt help but think about the problems we see in these latter days, how people are so decieved; reject what is good and accept any flattering words for truth. I heard that New York has legalized gay marriage. my first thought was, agghh! my country! we are going to be destroyed if we keep this up. My graditude for the knowledge of the gospel in my life increases everyday, why was I so lucky as to come from a line of people who have the restored gospel, and yet so many don´t? I´ve also been thinking about the kind of missionary I am, and what kind of member of the church I want to be. Will I be like those people I read about, who get so full of pride that they loose sight of the end goal, life eternal with Heavenly Father? I really dont want to be cast out; eternity with satan doesnt sound too fanastic. I think i used to be afraid to tell people they need to repent, ya know, dont want to offend them- pshhh you gotta repent to be worthy of the celestial kingdom and eternal bliss! I want to be like our missionaries in the book of mormon, taught with power and conviction. Maybe i´ll get a corner stand and start my discourse with ``ARREPENDER-SE!!!!!`` just kidding. but seriously, we need to repent. i need to everyday all day. im pretty weak sauce. I believe that is a side-effect of mortality. Thank goodness for the Atonement.hope all is well, bethany said grandma had hip replaced, and the outlook is good. Bring some kisses to her for me! and no more falling!loves. smith

Transfer 4 week 4

you know what I really miss? HAVING MY OWN COMPUTER. okay so i just was getting pretty frustrated at the lan house here....first computer was frozen, and then this one, the mouse is acting up. like it took me three mins just to get to click on the box to type in this fanatistic letter home!rude.so today has already been quite the adventure, my comp and i met up with a menos activo Meídia, and we walked to the centro of Cuiaba together, except we went a different way and got pretty lost. but hey it was fun. so we are really behind our usual schedule of things but whatever, i saw new stuff. like this awesome hotel, i will hopefully be able to add to this week´s letter.We´ve had some interesting experiences as we´ve been finding people on the streets this week, as the norm, 80% of the people we contact dont live in our area. But last night we contacted two inactive members, a youngster who we are going to track down next sunday for church, and a woman who just got married a few months back. (amazing! they are legally married! RAREITY!) Its really sad to meet people who´ve lost sight of the iron rod, but its not like they are lost forever, we can help them out! so yeah, im trying to think of creavitve ways we can help this ward grow, help the members see the vision of missionary work, so we can have our own chapel. That would be awesome.
(so the pictures this week are kinda random, i borrowed my comps camera, she takes more pictures than me....)
So yeah, i´ve got new plans and ideas rolling in my head, its funny, i´ve been having this idea of what a ´´good missionary´´ is. took a couple of letters from friends and a lot of praying and pondering to realize, i dont need to be anybody else but me to be an effective missionary. Duh. hello! im trying to utlize what talents that i have- i came up with an idea for an activity with our youth to get them to come out with us to do street contactiing and lessons. I think it willl be pretty awesome, if i do say so myself. Im excited to try and make changes in this area, get excited about this work, becase it is great. what other time in our lives do we have the chance to spend our whole day helping others?
Love ya´ll, thanks for all the letters of support! I am just so lucky.
love sister smmmeeech

week 3 transfer 4

This week was awesome!!!! we had mission tour and Elder Massagaurdi (im pretty sure I just slaughtered his name) our Area authority was the speaker. I didnt understand totaly of what he said, but i got a lot of inspiration for what I need to do in this area of my mission and this time in my life as a missionary. We finally have someone with a marked date for baptism, a gal named Raquel, a friend of one of our recent converts, debra and edwardo. I love Debra, she reminds me of Hayley in some ways.
So I have a story to share:
The Miracle of the Map

One day two missionaries were working in the City of Cuiaba, bairro Jardim Cuiaba, a fair distance from the rest of the missionaries area. The senior companion had finally decided to let the jr. companion be the map carrier, for she had proven herself capable of finding the places they wanted to go. After placing in mind where to head to next to visit a less active member, the junior companion put the map in the side pocket of her backpack, one without a zipper. Easily accesable, she thought. Not certain it was a secure location, but not wanting to change its place, she chose instead to check every few mins to see if it would move. After doing this a dozen times, she deemed it secure. half a mile later, the junior companion decied to check the map again. To her chagrin, the map was not there. THE ONE AND ONLY MAP THAT AREA VERDÃO OWNS, WAS GONE!
quickly retracing their steps and praying for success, the dupla stopped at the last place the junuior companion remembered checking for the map. Nothing was there. the wind surely had blown the map to a place they´d never find. But in the mind of the junior companion was a place just a little bit futher up the rua, she said to her disgruntled companion, um pouco mais! um pouco mais, there in a pothole in the side walk was the map, in perfect condition.
MIRACLES happen, ya´ll. God answers your prayers, even when it comes down to as simple as a map.
and yes, i was the careless junior companion.
Other crazy thing, I think im starting to forget my english. I contacted a man in the street and we got to talking, he´d lived in florida for 5 years and so he was trying his english out on me. I had to think about my response to respond in enlglish, it wasnt automatic to say something in english. Not that my portuges is great, its kinda like being a baby not knowing how to speak at all.... but hey, its progress. And president said to get me ready to really know this area, im probably going to be training next transfer. yikes!
love ya´ll,
s. smith

week 2 transfer 4

this past week just flew by!Said goodbye to 2 sisters here and my Sister Randall (down south to Campo Grande) Its looking like I´ll be here in Cuiabá for another transfer after this one; we have 5 new sisters coming in next month! That is exciting, because sisters kick butt. I´m starting to actually enjoy reading my scriptures in portugese since I´ve been banned from them in english during personal study. Ive been reading the last few chapters in Alma. I just love the war chapters. I get to almost watch a movie in my head; and you learn so much about the people, and how you can relate stratagems to your own life. Im just very grateful to have the scriptures; they are always such a source of comfort and peace, and of direction. Its just so amazing how the Book of Mormon just answers every question-no other book could possibly do that. My testimony of the Book of Mormon is bem simples, ITS TRUE! I dont know how anyone could read this book and not know that it is of God. Past tuesday Sister Randall and I got to go with the other new elders and the departing missionaries to have lunch with president and sister Oliviera. Oh my gosh, food, AMAZING! Honestly after living here, i will never cook rice the same. it was a great experience as a newbie to hear the testimonies of those who have completed their missions here, and sooner than I will realize, it will be myself and sister randall saying goodbye. Pres. Oliviera will be finishing his mission the same time as we will. got to run, my comp is going to vomit......until next week!
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