Spiders, Stressful Baptism, & Companion Love

Oi Everyone!

Alright here is the lovely deal with my companion. I love her and she is a great trainer. Too good! Two sister trainers are going home this transfer, which means next week two more will be called, and a rumor is going around that it is going to be my companion sister Ramos because when Presidente asked Sister Lima (one of the trainers) who would be a good replacement, she said Sister Ramos.  We get the phone call next Sunday to see what the transfer will be. Haha, I don't want to have had 3 trainers!! I'm only halfway done! But tudo bem, I think that the fact that I don't want her to be a Sister Trainer means she would be a really good one haha. 

So here’s the deal with the rain. I was so excited because I love rain, but little did I know what would happen after the rain. Oh yeah, lots of spiders. And I don't mean like little spiders, I can handle those no big deal. But these are thick boys. I don't have any photos but one of the elders was like picking it up and stuff.  I was not about to get close enough to take a picture. And then my companion assumed I would be scared of snakes cause I'm scared of spiders. We had a dead snake in our backyard and she was trying to scare me with it, but failed haha. Its stopped raining so I guess I'm okay with that because no more spiders, but it's really heating up here. 

So we had a baptism this week, which is good news.   It was the baptism of Nicole and Lucimar, which is awesome!! However, it was pretty stressful.  Basically our LMA (Ward mission leader) is 'new' to his calling and hasn't really figure out what to do, so the responsibility rests on us to do his calling, and our work. This is super hard because we usually get 25-35 new investigators every week. We are stressed  because we haven't met with him yet. Anyways, he is supposed to plan the baptism because our job is to get them ready. We worked so hard on getting them ready, fasting, visiting every day, etc. This was super important to us because when we first started teaching, Lucimar was not really interested in our message and we ended up just teaching her daughter. Throughout these past few weeks we have seen her grow so much.  She looks forward to our visits, refers to the members as "we" (she said "we don't drink coffee" when someone asked about it), etc. It's just awesome! Unfortunately, our LMA didn't prepare for the baptism. We went two hours early to check on the font and it was not full so we started hauling buckets of water - but it's not doing much. Some members popped in and just watched us and then left haha.  Then the LMA shows up and tells us to just move the baptism. We say no because that would reflect badly on the church if we aren't prepared, and our LD said that we could baptize them lying down as long as they are submersed. At this point we are super stressed because we are late to go pick them up. We run to their house, and we end up waiting on Nicole who hasn't returned. Both Sister Ramos and I realize that since our LMA didn't plan the service, we are going to have to do that now. We start planning a musical number and the talks we are going to give.  I call every member on the list, asking them if they could come because we want them to feel loved and supported. I reach the bishop and he asks "oh that's still happening?" The LMA had started letting everyone know he cancelled the baptism. So then I realize we won’t have any witnesses so I start calling trying to find members willing to come. We show up to the church and the water is fine, they just have to lie down but tudo bem because it's not about how weird it is it's about the covenant right? Apparently not, the witnesses and the priesthood holder who would baptize say they don't feel comfortable with this.   

So we have to walk Lucimar and Nicole home and tell them it's not going to happen today. We got home and just cried and screamed we were so frustrated! But, it kinda turned into a good thing. We baptized them the next day on Sunday (which presidente doesn't like because then they have to wait a week to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost) but the blessing was that almost all the ward attended because it was after sacrament meeting. The Relief Society president spoke and the YW president too so that was a blessing because they had a lot of support. Definitely turned out better than expected, but shouldn't have been a problem in the first place. We have decided to have a meeting with our LMA next week because we think the only problem is he isn't sure what he is supposed to do with his calling and since this area is super ready for a lot of baptisms, we need to help him. 

Besides that whole stressful thing, this week was good! We worked really hard to make up for the week I was sick, and at first everyone was refusing us, which is super abnormal for this area.  We usually have no trouble talking to people. Sister Ramos said a prayer and we surpassed all of our goals and then some! 

It's really heating up here and the tan lines are beginning to happen. This week will be hard to work because we don't know about the transfer until the night before it will happen! Whatever happens will be for the best, but I really like Sister Ramos! She's from the Philippines and is 24 years old, and has already finished college in chemical engineering! She's super smart, and was a trainer the first transfer out of training.

Things are good here, we are just gonna have to work harder on getting help from the ward.

Love, 

Sister Cecil

Okay So For The Week...Or Lack Thereof.

Glad you had a good Bday and glad you got my email! It’s also nice to hear about what other people say about my emails haha thank you.

A new racquet, YAY!! And I cant believe Log is leaving already, he is still a baby I feel like. 

We always offer to do service in our area but no one has needed it yet. I email the mission president every week, and we interview with him at zone conferences and we can call him whenever we want but we don’t usually do that because he’s super busy. He and his wife are really good, they’re really good workers. And yeah they come to every zone conference which is once every transfer. We have district meetings every week which are always pretty fun. I’m glad you did something for the missionaries in your ward, that’s so awesome, you really can’t give them enough love haha.

Okay so for the week...or lack thereof.

Influenza hit me like a truck this week so we stayed inside for the most part, but made exceptions for the investigators who need a lot of help. Everyone is telling me it was influenza but i’m not sure because i didn’t have a fever. It was rough though, and then this morning at 4 am I woke up to the worse earache in the world.   So we called Sister Cooper and told her what was going on. She said that we should go to the hospital in Brasilia. So we had a member drive us there and they told me (just to top it all off) that i had an ear infection. I was super frustrated this week because our schedule is so full and we have so many investigators and we couldn’t do any work. We have such a full schedule, and we get about 25 new investigators every week. 

But for reals, thank goodness for members. The bishop doesn’t really work with us, but to get to the hospital we called one of his counselors and he was totally willing to take us to the hospital which is like 40 minutes away, wait for us, and then drive us around until we found a pharmacy. He wouldn’t even let us pay for gas. Then we have this other member who lives really far away, but has a family (we baptized Caio, who's a part of this family) that we are teaching. The parents are trying hard to get married but it takes a while here, but they’re ready for baptism for the most part. Anyways, he is probably living in one of the more humble houses in the ward, but he drives us to their house every week so we can teach them, and every sunday he brings his family to church, and then goes back and gets the other family and brings them to church. Truly an amazing member, and he never lets us pay for gas. The members were pretty mad at us this week because we didn’t really visit a lot of them so that was sad because sometimes I don’t think they understand that we are people too haha and that we can’t just work 100% of the time. We get sick too!! 

I hope this week will be better, I still have a cough and congestion in my chest but on the upside I am learning new medical terms haha

And i miss peanut butter tbh haha. Uhm idk what else i want in the package...i will think more about it this week.

Love youu

And today it rained!!! The best thing ever because it’s so dirty here and I think that is making my cough worse. So that’s a blessing. Everyone told me that it never rains here and to just get use to the 90 degree weather, but jokes on them because it rained today!!

HIPPY BIRTHDAY MOM

Olá eu estou mandando isso para os dois de vocês just in case. Use Google translate or natalie or bro burnham because it is really hard to do inglês on a phone with autocorrect haha. Então, eu estou usando o celular de um amigo para falar boa aniversário para você, mãe!!!! Eu te amo. Você e um mulher e mãe incrível. Muito obrigada por todos as coisas que você faz para mim e para nossa família. Eu tenho saudade para você hoje por causa de seu aniversario más eu estou feliz também. Eu te amo e eu espero que seu dia foi bom!! Te amo muito muito muito. Eu tenho a mais TOP mãe do mundo. 

Muito amor

Sister Cecil

The Google Translation

Hi, I'm sending this to both of you (meaning dad also) just in case. Use Google translate or Natalie or Bro Burnham because it is really hard to do english on a phone with autocorrect haha. So, I'm using a friend's cell phone to say good birthday to you, Mom !!!! I love you. You're an incredible woman and mother. Thank you so much for all the things you do for me and our family. I miss you today because of your bad birthday, I'm happy too. I love you and I hope your day was good !! I love you very very very much I have the most TOP mother in the world.

Much love

THE DRAIN

So first of all, the answers to moms questions:

The City (Cities) I am in is super big and we have to try to cover all of it,  but unfortunately we can’t because it is so big! The people are really open to accepting us. Almost all of them frequent a church and so it's nice because we can just tell them to pray about it and if they receive an answer (Which we know they will) then we will keep working with them! The members have a schedule for lunches so we usually make breakfast (sometimes) like eggs and couscous and fruit, then we eat a huge lunch for like 2 hours and then proselyte, or however the heck that is spelled, for the rest of the day, usually getting fed at every house we show up at. The ward is decent sized, probably a little smaller than K1 id say, and i am the official ward pianist I guess! kinda just show up and attempt to play whatever songs they have chosen. Yes we have a water filter, and pretty much everyone does who we talk to because they're in the city. The more out we go the more unsure we get about that.

 

 

Okay so first, the reason for the subject. I had some experiences with bugs this week. I now understand why we keep the drain closed, something I used to be confused about because it takes a while to drain when you shower. So i had it open and a while later I saw it. The barata. I screamed so loud because it was too big for my liking, but we threw some tupperware over it and scooted it outside where it will remain until the next pair of sisters come through and decide to lift it up haha. So then later I was showering and i just saw baratas climbing out of the drain and that wasn't a good experience for me so lets just say, it remains shut.

 

 

This week we had zone conferences where I basically was the zone conference because I was the newbie. JK, but I did have to do a lot.   I played the piano, did the theme, bore my testimony, talked, and was tested on my training, etc. Then we went on diviçoes with the sister trainers that night so Sister Campos and I went back to Sao Sebastiao for the night and the day after. Unfortunately, all of our appointments fell through. But then the  next day with sister Ramos, all of our appointments stayed! She says that's the first time she's taught every lesson in the homes of the investigators! And this sunday we had 9 of them come to church, which is super awesome. We are working super hard on Nicole and the brother of Caio (Caio was baptized last week ) cause mom i wanna baptism for you haha Happy early birthday btw!! but we will see, they're having trouble with their commitments but they did come to church which is a good step.  

 

 

So the missionary manual says that sundays and holidays are best for our work, but that is NOT true here. I experienced their Independence Day and like no one was on the streets. Then on Sundays everyone goes to church and then sleeps the whole rest of the day so we basically can't do any work but weekly planning. |And i have to give a talk next sunday, good thing I have time to prepare. haha

 

 

So last Pday I met Britt’s trainer!!  I don't remember her name haha but she sure loves Britt. I mean Sister Olsen, oops

 

 

This Pday we went to some waterfalls that were like 3 hours away but they were super cool. I saw a spider bigger than my hand and that was also cool. Not really, kinda wanted to cry, but i didn’t. It was like a really big spider, just sunbathing. Like so big.

 

 

This was a good week more or less. Next week Sister Ramos said she isn't going to say anything unless I need help during the lessons because I have trouble actually attempting to talk so this will be a rough week, but tudo bem, i need to try to talk more. 

 

 

I'm almost done with the BoM in english and I've just started it in Portuguese! Our mission president promises us that if we read it in portuguese we will be fluent before we finish so here's hopin.....

 

 

Love You!

Sister Cecil

I hit 2 months today... and.... 

References and members help are so important - get to know the missionaries in your ward. Seriously, members are so important. 

 

 

Baptism, Baptism, Baptism…

Oi!

This week was hard at the start, but things are slowly going up. SLOWLY, but they are improving. 

Best news of the week, we had a baptism on saturday!! And probably the next and the next!! Mom I am baptizing the week of your birthday (Saturday the 15th) as your present haha. Hopefully it will be Nicole, she is 15 and we are hoping that her family will want to be baptized with her too. Our baptism saturday was Caio.  He is 13 and I think they've been working on this family for a while. We are hoping his parents will follow his example and get married so they can be baptized, but the dad (he doesn't drink right now) wants to have the option to drink in the future so he doesn't really want to commit. A little strange, but we are working on it.

The font is literally a kiddie pool with a ladder and the church building is rented so it doesn't have a steeple and kinda just looks like a warehouse. A little funky haha. The people are super nice in the ward and the feed us so well, holy cow. The issue with the food is that I have a small stomach and I eat super fast. This is an issue because they are always giving you more and you aren't allowed to refuse it.  So, I am working on eating as slow as possible so I don't keep having to eat and eat and eat until there's nothing left in the kitchen lol. I think every meal has rice and beans, it'd be like not drinking water for us. I like it though. And the juice here is SOOO good, their fruits are amazing.

I'm still figuring how to upload photos so sorry about that

Since I was transferred a lot of people are wondering why around here and my companion tells them it was cause I needed a companion who spoke english. So then they assume I can't speak Portuguese lol,  but tudo bem because I don't even remember the last time my companion and I spoke english to each other. And apparently I don't have an accent, I'm not sure how... Anyways, my companion's name is Sister Ramos from the Philippines and she's tiny, but full of energy. We are having fun here for the most part...We kinda got a little food poisoning from some Stroganoff. I didn't eat very much so i didn't throw up, thank goodness, but she did. We were laying around for about two days so this week hasn't been super normal and most of our appointments have fallen through. It's easy to get new investigators here because everyone is super open. I think 9/10 usually let us come to their house to share a message.  It's super rare to have someone just say no they aren't interested, even though almost all of them attend church. 

A lot of sister missionaries are going home and so while our area would normally have 6, there's only us - so our house is really big and really empty. We need more missionaries! The apartment is nice for Brazil standards, kinda dirty and stuff but we are working on that, we just have so much room for only two of us.

On the downside I don't even have a tan yet, not sure how because it's kinda toasty here and we walk a lot because we have the whole town to cover. This is alos because I religiously put on sunscreen haha 

I got to see my old companion from my first week and her new companion is in her second transfer on the mission and she says i speak better than she does lol but i don’t think so.

OMG okay so another reason this week wasn't normal was because I had to get a vaccine for the flu. We got to go into Brasilia which was so cool and I got to see everything! I didn't have my camera but the member who took us took photos on his so I think he will email those to me. It was super fun so we basically had a p'day that day too haha 

Oh and also this week we have zone conference tomorrow, and then the sister trainers are coming and we are going on splits for that night and the day after. I have yet to have just a normal day here.  

Have a good week! I think I will try to email later next monday, but today we are gonna go to a park or something.

Sister Cecil