No More Peanut Butter *Broken Heart Emoji*

I would like to announce that i no longer have peanut butter because i have consumed it all so that has been rather devastating. rip

There was a re election because the first election was too close and everyone had to go vote on Sunday so that meant we had very few people show up to church which was kind of disappointing. On the upside i ate chicken heart this week and it was quite good actually, not what i would have expected. Not like Tucanos at all. 

For the first time ever we had an investigator tell us she didn't want us to come back to her house again. This has never happened to me, but she was really nice, just really dedicated to her religion. Usually the people here are too nice to straight up say they dont want us to come back haha, at first it was nice cause we never get rejected but it ends up being pretty difficult to have firm investigators because no one keeps their commitments. They just agree to because they dont want to be rude! 

The package that i got actually was from you mom haha but dont worry!! I am not opening it until Christmas, or close to Christmas. Maybe a little before (or a lot before). I cant believe it only took 2 weeks to get here... you are now the package sending expert.

So im kinda sad because this week will be Halloween and I loveeee Halloween but cant really celebrate it. They kinda celebrate it here, but not as much as Americans. 

So this week I went to the foot doctor and turns out 80% of my toes have ingrown toenails so that was really fun to get treated. But the pain was worth it because i now have to wear chacos. Oh poor me, but i am happy that i got authorization and you didnt send them for nothing. Sister Cooper (our mission presidents wife) has a tab there because so many missionaries have foot problems haha. 

Last week of training woohoo! Except this is like the worst week because i have to do everything, Sister Ramos is supposed to act like a newbie who barely speaks Portugues and she says i am going to absolutely hate her this week so thats gonna just be loads of fun. I still have so much to learn from her. I was talking to Sister Olsen about how we never feel like we are good enough missionaries, and she said that never really changes until you are about to go home because we always have to be improving. So its not super fun to always feel inadequate but its good because we are always improving! 

Transfers next week!

Tchao

amo vocês 

Sister Cecil

BATISMO, BUGS, AND I Wish I Had Another Thing That Started With A "B", But I Don't, I'm Sorry

Hello I would first of all just like to declare that I have the BEST mom ever. I LOVED my package and was so excited to eat peanut butter for the first time in months. I didn't even like peanut butter before the mission, but now it seems like nectar from the gods. Is that sacrilegious to say? 

I also have received another package, not sure from who -  but I will pick it up today!

 

This week was a fun one...Had a good zone conference (always good because they have food) and after that I headed for Nucleo Banderainte with a sister trainer for trocas (exchanges) for the next day and it was nice to experience a new area.

 

The most EXCITING thing EVER happened to me. Okay it really is not that exciting but I was pretty happy: So throughout school I've learned about the famous capybara, or the largest rodent in the world. We were being driven to Lago Sul because a member was taking us to a restaurant there and I SAW ONE. I COULD HAVE RIDDEN IT.... IT WAS SO BIG. The capybara was j chillin, eatin sum grass and we just drove past it and I like had an aneurysm cause I could not believe it was real. I'm really not sure why I got so excited about that haha I just never really thought I'd see one in my life.

 

BATISMOOOOOo

Wohoo!! Maria was baptised this Saturday! We were so excited when she passed the interview, and when we asked if her parents were going to come she said no, but that she was going to be baptised no matter what, and that her mom would give permission.  We went around calling all the members we could to make sure that she would have a lot of people there supporting her. Our Zone Leaders told us they were coming too just to make sure. Our LMA has cancelled every meeting we've planned for the past couple of weeks so we called him and told him he had to plan the baptism. Then that Saturday we were out about 30 minutes from our house proselyting on what seemed to be a nice sunshiny day. Boy were we wrong. It began to absolutely pour. So we run back to our house, sometimes wading through water at our ankles because oh boy is the draining system in the streets bad here, and by the time we arrive we are just soaked, but worst of all, we are worried no one will come to the baptism. Sure enough, our LMA calls and says he's not gonna come cause of the rain. We go to the church, just absolutely soaked and plan the baptism with our elders. 5 minutes before, he ends up actually showing up haha so that was good. Our prayers were answered and a lot of people actually came, and almost everyone brought food! 

 

Well, you all know what the rain brings. We have been battling creatures galore in our house due to all this rain. First it started off with a couple hybrid cockroach, grasshopper, spider things (thank goodness sister Ramos is willing to kill them). I have become accustomed to cockroaches now (as accustomed as one can get) but these roaches are new. Then today we had a nice pile of maggots outside our door, and then there was some frogs hopping around and of course lizards. I thought I loved the rain? Not sure anymore, but I do enjoy this cool weather (hah, 70 degrees is cool for me now). 

 

Love you all! 

Sister Cecil

anna.cecil@myldsmail.net

 

Second Picture with "Eu heart Brasília" is She and Sister Olsen :) :)

“Bomb Churrasco”

Oi, Bom Dia! 

This week was normal more or less, yesterday was pretty dope though. So we have this family that we have been teaching for a while.  They've been going to church for like 3 months now but are trying to get married so they can get baptized. They're basically members, so they signed up to have us for lunch on Sunday. We went to church on Sunday and we were super disappointed because first of all, we went to 5 of our investigators houses who promised they'd come with us to church and ALL of them either said they were too busy, wanted to go to the other church, or were sleeping! We went to church and that family who always comes wasn't even there. So afterwards we went to their house for lunch. Turns out they didn't go to church because they were cooking and preparing lunch for us. Hands down best lunch ever, churrasco (so much churrasco), salads galore, beans and rice(of course), potatoes, etc and homemade ice cream. It's kinda funny that they didn't come to church because they were making lunch.  Sister Ramos and I had a good laugh about that. 

Okay so typical day: I wake up at 7:30, stretch, do exercise for about an hour and then take a shower. I really want to run but Sister Ramos doesn't want to.  Then we revise our day, and then personal study for an hour. Then companionship study for an hour, and then we usually head out for lunch at a members house at 12, usually ends up being 1.5-2 hours because they loovvee to talk and to eat slow. We then go out proselyting until about 9, 9:30. During proselyting we usually go to the people’s houses who we made appointments with but about 50% fall through cause they don't actually plan or remember that we made an appointment. To get new investigators we usually just walk around and talk to people. Almost 99% of who we talk to becomes a new investigator and we mark an appointment. 

We are trying really hard to have a baptism this week but we aren't sure if Maria will be ready. We can’t visit her every day because she lives out of town, but we are gonna try our best! 

Things are pretty good here for the most part, I'm gonna cry when I get a new companion cause Sister Ramos is honestly the best. She really pushes me to step outside of my comfort zone.  I've been teaching half the lessons since my second day in training lol. Not very well hahaha, but now I'm way more prepared to teach. Sister Ramos made me a happy 3 months sign! She hit 14 months today so we have been joking about how old she is ha ha.  2 more transfers and she goes home, seems so soon for her. 

The weather here is so wild. It's either like 5 billion degrees (for me, i think if i get transferred to palmas i will probably die from heat), or it's storming like crazy. Yesterday I saw lightning hit a metal pole on the house across from us. 

Oh and that photo is our district. It got changed so our district is only girls!  Today I am gonna go to the lake with Sister Olsen so that should be funnnn

Church is true, the book is blue

Muito amor,

Sister Cecil

THE WEEK THAT NOTHING REALLY HAPPENED.... IDK?

Honestly every week feels like 5 years and then I think about how I only have 4 more weeks of training and then it seems like time is going by really fast haha. I can’t even really remember what happened this week to be honest haha so I guess nothing exciting?? I wish I had some cool stuff to tell you guys haha but everything is tranquilo for now...usually when things are calm somethings about to happen sooo we shall see. 

We worked super hard this week and way more than passed our goals. Since it is Sister Ramos's 4th transfer here she told me she needs help being motivated so we decided to work as hard as possible this transfer. This was good prep for general conference. I’m sure everyone is freaking out about 2 hour church???? How awesome, it’ll be weird to start that in Brasil but still will be cool. 

We watched General Conference in Asa Sul because I wanted to watch in English and our ward wasn’t broadcasting it so it was fun to hang out with other missionaries. The talks were all good of course. We didn't watch the Women’s Session yet because it was at like 9 pm and our commute is about an hour to get home.  

I made quac this week and I was super happy. The avocados here are huge. Like the size of a big grapefruit, not joking. 

Mom I would tell you about our investigators but It’s kinda hard cause we get 30 every week and lose about 10 each day, and the ones who are progressing I don’t want to say too much about until they get baptised cause I don’t want to jynx it haha. As for mosquitos, I rarely use bug repellent so I get bit a lot or rarely get bit. I never know what the day will bring haha. Never have a problem getting filtered water. No need to put that part in the group email.

One of our investigators is Maria, and we are thinking we will baptise her this saturday or the next. The issue is her parents wont let us in their house so we end up teaching her at a members. This is a problem because she’s 15 and needs authorization from her parents to be baptized, but she definitely wants to, so we will see how that plays out. 

The election was yesterday, and the streets are absolutely covered in political stuff. Everyone here is so open with how they are voting and how they feel about it, but I try not to talk about politics because then they want to talk about American politics and that’s always a testy subject haha 

I’m not really sure who won the election but lots of fireworks were going off last night soooo someone is happy! Their political system seems pretty similar to ours from what I’ve been hearing so that is cool.

I hit 3 months this week! Crazy. Can’t tell if its going by fast or slow to be honest. 

One of these photos is a day we got caught in a rainstorm running back from the bus haha we were absolutely drenched but its always nice to have rain especially as its getting well into the 90's here.

Brittyn

So this week i legit couldnt hear out of my ear at all. It was getting kinda annoying cause everyone would have to repeat what they were saying to me! Finally sister Ramos and I agreed that 3 weeks is too long for this to be going on, especially because i already finished my antibiotic so sister cooper set us up with an appointment this week. We went to Brasilia and were probably in the clinic for 6 hours, doing tests etc. I have ANOTHER ear infection so the doctor gave me prednisolona or prednisdona and claritromacina. One is a different antibiotic than the first one and the other is something to make my ear more dry. This means i am required to drink a cup of water every 30 minutes. Bathrooms are not exactly accessable here. You can see how this may be a problem some days. But its getting better, I can hear!! finally!!! Super excited for this. I cant remember the last time I wasnt sick with something here in Brasil haha. 


So here's for the big news: A gente vai ficar! This will be sister Ramos's 4th transfer which is a lot of time to be in one area, especially an area like this. We are pretty happy because we have a lot of potential baptisms this upcoming month because of marriages and such. So the way transfers work here is Sunday night, at around 8 or 9 you get the phone call about what is going to happen. No one really knows anything before this. The transfers happen monday morning and you meet at 9 am, so people have about 12 hours to pack and be out of the area so its super stressful for everyone. We got the phone call, and for some reason, he told us that sister Olsen and Sister Shields were going to Lago Sul. I asked him why he was telling us this because Lago Sul isnt in our district, its not even in our zone (Which is super strange because when we go to members houses a little ways out of town, there’s literally a road separating our are from that area). He told us that Lago Sul just this transfer has become a part of our district. I think i screamed so loud when we were told that. I can’t believe that the one rare time that an area is being moved districts just so happened to be when Sister olsen got transferred there. It was super funny too because my companion had planned to go shopping in their area for Pday, without knowing they were being transfered there. So I got to see Sister Olsen after 9 months!! We were pretty excited to say the least. Her Portugues is great so hopefully she can help me too haha 


I honestly dont even remember most of what happened this week because we were so nervous for transfers. Its been hotter than normal the members say so its been hard to work becasue everyone is inside. Hopefully it wont continue to climb up but who knows... definitely missing snow right now. Sister Ramos and I have decided that this transfer we are gonna work really hard, and try to involve the members more because people need to feel welcome when theyre coming to church. This area has so much potential for baptisms so we are hoping to really set it up for the next pair that comes (which could still be me haha nobody really knows whatll happen in transfers).


Tchaoooo


What do you love most about being a missionary?


Probably that i am nice to everyone no matter what casue im not just representing myself. its really hard cause some people i just want to glare at or be rude to because theyre not being nice but i know i cant, so i just smile.