January 13, 2014

And so.......

I have had the best week of my mission this last week. BY FAR. No ifs ands or buts.

My new companion is Sister Barbosa. Fresh from the CTM. Has less than 20 days on the mission. She's great. Very, very obedient and eager to learn. She teaches very well. She does great and she's very humble. She has a great testimony of the gospel. Her dad is a member but the rest of her family are not. She seems to have had a pretty difficult life, so I am doing all I can to give her a good experience. Since I was able to sneakily find out her name before meeting her, the night before I prepared the whole house for her arrival. Banners and cookies. I made her a planner with her name and the emblem of our mission on the front. Its awesome.

We still do not have Books of Mormon.

We have tons of pamphlets. Tons. So happy I almost cried. But still no Books of Mormon.....
We had a training for all new trainers on Wednesday. And Presidente did an absolutely marvelous job. I learned so much from the training. A lot of what he taught, is new tactics we will be applying to the mission. Several of his new ideas, are dad's old ideas. I thought that was pretty funny. We are really implementing filtering through our fish, and constantly looking for the ones that are ready to accept the gospel. We are going to focus much more on quality than on quantity. Although I spoke with our zone leader today....my companionship is still leading the mission.... no glory of man there...just dog gone hard work. We only had 4 days to work this week because of the transfer. And we still got in nearly 50 lessons!

A true miracle took place yesterday. We were walking to lunch from the chapel and passed this kid in the street. Generally we have to say boa tarde to people and they usually wont even respond. But the kid beat us to the punch and was like hey! BOA TARDE! We smiled and responded and kept on our way. We ate lunch and started off for our next lesson. A good 25 minute walk the opposite direction from where we first met him, we see this kid AGAIN outside of his house. We thought it was funny, smiled and waved, and kept on our way. We rounded the corner and as we were walking I just felt this pit in my stomach and a truly nagging urge to return to the kid. And so we did. NEVER ignore a prompting of the Spirit. We met a family of 6, and committed each of them to baptism in the first lesson. As they have already been attending church and are keeping all of the commandments, they are set to be baptized on Saturday. The mother, Tonya, cried and cried during the closing prayer. She prayed, and said, "Father, I thank thee for sending thine servants to my house today. I will follow the path thou hast chosen for me, and my entire household will be obedient to thy will". Her prayer was marvelous. She already has such a huge testimony. Certainly already prepared by the Lord.

We have two more set for baptism. John the Baptist, and Carol his niece. I called our district leader and said, "Elder, I've got a problem....Who's supposed to baptize John the Baptist?" ....I thought it was a good joke. Ha. Ha.... Anyway, they are set to be baptized this Saturday as well.

Hortalina, who was already interviewed and passed with flying colors, is still having doubts. She knows the gospel is true and even was asking quite a bit about Thomas S Monson the other day, wanting to know more about Prophets, but is still unreasonably hesitant about being baptized. I honestly think it is her old age. She's 74 and sometimes forgets things. Still working hard on her though.

Last night passed the worst storm of my life. There was hail. I never ever imagined that could happen. But it got SO, SO, SO COLD last night. It rained without stopping for 4 hours. The lightening was horrid. It was like the scene out of The hobbit when the mountains were fighting.... the sky was never black.....lightening every other second. I got called by all the Elders. They were worried about everyone. We lost power, and were stuck in our investigators house for 4 hours.

Something you guys might find funny. So I sleep in a hedge every single night. Last week I went to sit down on my (hammock), Book of Mormon in hand to read a little bit. Well my behind never quite met the hammock and I flipped upside down and landed square on my head. After the initial shock I just layed there, extended my hand, and yelled I STILL GOT THE BOOK! (AINDA EU TENHO O LIVRO!). Of course all the other sisters saw it happen and laughed at me. My companion was generally concerned and wanted to take me to the hospital in case I had a concussion. Sister Tavares said, "Well it's JUST like Sister Wainwright to be more worried about a Book of Mormon than her own head!"

At the end of this transfer... I will be 1/3 of the way done with my mission. AHHH! NOOOOO!!!! WHERE IS THE TIME GOING????

So get this. I went to the office to pick up my companion. And Elder Bitnof was super excited and said sister Wainwright you will NEVER believe it! You got a letter! I was so hysterically happy and my heart began to smile thinking of my mothers pretty handwriting, or a drawing of Romney's hand and a big I LOVE YOU like the perfect child's card. 
And I rip the card open and low and behold 5 MONTHS INTO THE MISSION and my VERY FIRST HANDWRITTEN CARD is from SISTER AGNES GRANTHAM! SEND MY LOVE TO THIS WONDEROUS SAINT I LOVE HER SO MUCH AND SHE LOVES ME MORE THAN MY OWN FAMILY! I'M SO EXCITED THOUGH!

If you can please keep my pesquisador, Renata, in your prayers. She is in the hospital. She has cancer in her throat, and it is really bad. We gave her a blessing this last week, more of comfort than of health. She's just deteriorating before our eyes. She's really young too...only 31.

Time really is moving so fast and I wish it would slow down. There isn't enough time in the day to meet with all our investigators and there isn't enough time in the mission to find everyone ready to here our message. 

My message of the week.....

We don't go to church for the people. We go to church for the gospel.

We don't go to church for the gossip. We go to church for the sacrament.

We go to church because its what our Savior would have us do.

We go to church because it is a commandment.

We go to church to renew our covenants with God, and begin the week edified.

We go to church because it is a house of God, and we have the opportunity to feel of the spirit NO MATTER what the person two pews over in the chapel is doing or thinking or saying.

We go to church because we love our Savior, respect him, and are grateful for the sacrifices he made to give us the ABILITY to go to church and partake of the sacrament in REMEMBRANCE of those sacrifices. 

"Could you men not keep watch with me for one hour?"

I send my love with each of you. From this side of the world, things are sunny despite the hail storms!

Tchau!

Sister Wainwright