pictures, Pictures, PICTURES!

Pictures from her last week in Arizona

The Haboob!

Pheonix Airport-- leaving for Brasil!

there she goes!

WEDNESDAY, July 25, 2012

Querido Amigos, Familia e admirers,

Guess What?! I live in Brazil now. Or should I say Brasil.And our P-day is on Wednesdays always....not monday....so i will forever and always be on wednesdays now.
I miss my indians in america it was very strange to be leaving them-i never thought i would i guess. But the flights here came quick and I was not too tired although one of my legs was perma asleep. i just thought it was classy. anyways....Brazil customs went quick and then President and SIster Fortunato were there waiting all excited and huggy. Theyre very sweet and made me feel right at home. I totally love them already....even though she speaks broken english and he doesnt speak any....i will undetrstand them someday....

Little story-me and sister peterson from argentina were the two sisters that came yesterday. We were sent to a hotel room for the night and upon arrival I was VERY nervous. Sister ´Peterson speaks no english and the area the hotel was in would be equivalent to ghetto portland...if portland could be ghetto....anyways we had no phone and I was maybe freaking out a little...when we got to the lobby with president however, we opened up the doors (think creepy hotel) and then I heard sir bono´s voice. Even though they forgot something and left me and sister peterson for 45 minutes to wait, the lobby played just U2 the entire time we were down there and I felt right at home. Its incredible that i can be SO far away and yet, as we got into the hotel I felt right at home like heavenly father was telling me its alright, i got this!

So as for Brasil-Belo Horizonte is like San Francisco hills on steroids with more color and more beautiful people. I am loving it here and Istill have no idea what is going on. But it is great and i am hoping that my total lack of understanding changes someday. for now i am enjoying the complete 180 in lifestyle. for real brasil is NOTHING like america and its great. things i am so not use to yet-everyone is very close all the time. the elevators are tiny and we smash tons of people in there. I did not think elders and sisters could stand so close together but obviously i thought wrong. its very different here in that sense. My companions are from Gresham Oregon and Brazil. Yes I have two companions again. I guess when you don't get companions in the MTC they overload you with them in the field.

Also, I am a North American. Not american. I made that mistake yesterday and an elder from brazil was all ah I am an American too! Now read that again with your best nacho libre voice.

Advice for my sisters leaving for missions soon-I have now experienced stateside and out of country travel for missionaries. SO here is my advice-first, buy a moomoo...or mumu...whatever. not only are they super funny because cmon youre a sister missionary you might as well look frumpy, but they also take place of a robe and theyre great for sleeping in. and they dont take much room. Also on that note, stateside sisters HAVE A TON OF STUFF. Seriously. It is because they can-they travel by cars for transfers. However, out of state or at least brasil, you travel by bus for transfers. Having two suitcases is a joke. I am throwing out a lot today and hopefully i can narrow it down more. If i could do the whole shopping experience again i would first buy a big backpack suitcase to wear so i could easily have two suitcases.
Also I would buy EVERYTHING from D.I. I have met many sisters who only shopped there and they have way great stuff. Also, you get a ton on your mission. I have found things other sisters left as well as been given skirts and shirts. Do not buy anything expensive. it isnt worth it. Buy shoes at payless and then get inserts. I wish I didn~t buy two pairs of danskos. Also a few of you have asked-my grey mary janes are from nordstrom rack and they are danskos. They are the ones i would keep. Also, if you wont wear it at home you will not wear it on the mission. Buy lots of scarves and lots of just plain tops you can accessorize....wrong spelling but you get the póint.

This computer is messing with my mind. Desculpe.

My new address is-

Brazil Belo Horizonte Mission
R Sáo Paulo, 1781 10 AndaR
Ed. 17 de Moaio-Sala 1001 Lourdes
30170-132 Belo Horizonte_MG
BRASIL


Umm yes its the longest address ever.

Love you all!

sister Sackley

MONDAY, July 16, 2012

Hello friends!

this week on the 20th marks the 100th day i have been a missionary! crazy how time flies. a few things that happened this week as follows:

 you could say the monsoon treated us well :)

fruits eaten: raspberries and cantaloupe. I'll eat the cantaloupe for life. I ate it without the lady who served us knowing i didn't like fruit (major score) although brunt and budge were staring at me waiting for me to make a face. They succeeded in me making faces when i ate the raspberries. BLAGH NEVER AGAIN! they were super sour and smushy. nasty.

Angels for the week: dude i don't even know. there were lots. but let's just say Sister Orton for the sake of time. she's my new companion as well as Sister Soifua and boy oh boy do we have fun preaching the gospel. She's a great addition to the companionship.

Which brings me to, no one ever told me how FUN mission work is. Seriously this past week might have been the time of my life because for real we had a blast. we saw miracles happen, we experienced my first monsoon and we even smashed an old watermelon for our favorite goats. Time is flying by and I am loving every moment. It makes me really sad to think i will be leaving my brown Indians.

Also, the natives are so funny. I was chatting with a few of the YSA's and asking them how they like to be referred to as. They laughed and said that "only white people want to be politically correct, we don't care!" So i call them injuns or red man or brown people or natives or Indians or some times Pocahontas. only when I'm feeling really bold though. and they love it. And I totally love them.

Also, my favorite lamanite, Germaine (the one with tats and was in jail for 11 years) said the following this week: "I use to mess with these high tech weapons. Like huge guns and stuff. But now I have a higher weapon. That's the Book of Mormon" Yes you do Germaine. Yes you do. Seriously I love him every time we go and teach him he gives me one of those golden quotes.

Also all my paragraphs are starting with also in this letter. sorry.

We had transfers on Wednesday and thus began our cleaning the res. There is SO MUCH WORK to do before i leave in the upcoming week, and we're working really hard to get everything done. The area book is very out dated so we've been contacting a lot of people that we've never heard of but they're names in the book...such as "yellow feather and goldenhawk" I want to be friends with these people based on their names alone. selfish, i know.

I was sorry to hear about Grandma Ann, however how great it is that she's no longer in pain! One of my favorite things to explain to these people is that when you die, your body is healed back to its perfect state. So many of these people have lost limbs from alcohol and diabetes and when they hear this it's like nothing else matters. I have a testimony that we really will see those we love after this life and I guess Grandma Ann just adds to Grandpa's angels in heaven now.

 one of my goals in mesa was to go and pick some cotton...nevermind the fact that it's totally the wrong season to do so...well we were sitting on the side of the road trying to contact someone on the phone and i thought-perfect time! unfortunately it had just been irregated and my feet went STRAIGHT in. Determined, i took my shoes off and grabbed a flower from one of the bushes. goal complete. kind of.

 also this is casera. she's my favorite little indian girl and i am not kidding, in 15 months i will be visiting her.

 so we were doing service friday morning and i found a new friend! let it be known i scooped it up in my BARE HANDS and held it for a long time. yes i am pretty legitimate these days....ha joke. oh also just the pima/maricopa salt river res sign we pass every day. yes. random i know.

Alright I leave you with MY FAVORITE MOMENT OF THE WEEK:

Alec is one of the investigators that i have been here since we started teaching him last month. I feel like he's "my" investigator. Anyways, he's told us many times he never thinks he'll ever feel the spirit. My personal quest this past month is to get the dude to feel what i feel every time we meet with him. So that's the back drop, now the story: we were teaching them the plan of salvation this past Thursday and when we got through the lesson we had a brief quiet moment. Alec then said "whenever you guys come or i go to church or right now even, it feels like my heart is beating faster. like it's under my bones pounding and it almost hurts, it just takes my breath and i have to stop and breath..." I almost jumped off my seat. I sort of yelled out Alec, you're feeling the spirit! To which he looked at me confused and then all of a sudden it was like this HUGE blanket just engulfed the room and his face just brightened and he choked a little and said "i am?!" It was an incredible moment that really changed my life.

If the only reason i am here for 18 months on a mission was for Alec to feel the spirit, then my mission is a success.

sister mad

MONDAY, July 9, 2012

Hello Everyone,

This week FLEW. That should be the end of this email because for real I cannot remember anything about this week. So in advance, sorry this is very jumbled.

Actually I will just tell you a few things about the week that I remember:

On Wednesday I ate three fruits. I know. THREE. People should be paying me for this because it was a miracle I didn't keel over and die right there at the Wood's home. We were eating dinner and the Wood's might be one of my favorite families because we're all open with them. Elder Brunt decided to tell the Wood's I don't eat fruit, and the Wood's own a few fruit trees in their yard. And thus began the "Sister Sackley eat this kind of fruit!" So I ate: watermelon, fig and then a cactus fruit. Gus went out on a hunt for cactus fruit earlier that day and he had cut off a ton of them. They grow on the top of the cactus and he uses a ladder to get to them. They were spikey and a little daunting but believe it or not, I would eat the fig, cactus fruit AND the watermelon again. I know. miracles. We also went and had a meeting while the fireworks were going off. Also, as we drove home I realized this was the last firework show in America I'd see till 2014-i was very excited about that.

There is a woman in the ward we'll call sister smith. Sister Smith is a VERY active member, she's great and she's kind of like everyone's grandma. WE LOVE HER. Well this week I heard her story all the way out. She has quite a history of drinking and drugs and everything under that palm tree. It was incredible to hear her story and realize that she is such a stronghold in the church now. EVERYONE CAN CHANGE. While talking with her about one of our investigators she said: "if she had Christ she wouldn't be lonely, she would have hope, because when I started believing in Christ, I had hope". She's such a great example that with God, anything is possible.

And then of course, Nicole got baptized this past Saturday! We met with her a few times this past week to go over everything she was confused about and to answer her questions. she's such an incredible woman it is awesome to watch her testimony grow and her understanding become clear. On Sunday they called her up to bear her testimony (she wasn't expecting it) and she's fairly shy so we were really worried about it. She got up and bore a short testimony in which she proclaimed: "I am a living, breathing example of how this gospel is true"

If Nicole Loring is the only reason I came on this mission, then she was worth it.

love you all!

Sister Sackley

p.s. big guy with the glasses is sir Edwin. We love sir Edwin, he is the ward clerk...he does all with the word "clerk" in it for the ward. we come and bother him all the time about paper work. He's great.

MONDAY - July 2, 2012

Hello Friends!

This past week FLEW by. Literally I feel like I was in here yesterday.  It's been an incredible week on every account.  The longer I am on the res, the more I learn from the people and the more out of my comfort zone I get. I guess life begins at the end of your comfort zone because this week has been just that!

We have been blessed with a LOT of elect people lately, three different times this past week we've been in a lesson and the investigator will say out of the blue "so can I be baptized?" Yeah. It's awesome and every time it happens we leave the home a foot off the ground.

We have also had a lot of heart ache the past few weeks. Things I have seen over the past week in some ways I will never be able to talk about. The things some of the children I have met have been through, the pasts some of these people have.  The conditions they live in and what they put up with and the family systems and the amount of love they have for others is mind numbing.  Countless times this past week I've found myself weeping as we are leaving homes. some of these people are in much more need than just soul saving. But that's all I can do. And sometimes I feel so helpless because of it.

Because of our favorite elders (Elder Francis and Elder Redmond) we were able to meet an incredible family last week. They're a family of four and they're a beautiful, functioning family. we just love them. Anyways, we had a lesson with them on Thursday and they flat out were all "so we wanna be baptized. and our daughter (who was in the room) wants to go on a mission when she's older" it was their 2nd lesson. the mother had downloaded the scriptures on her phone and the whole family had been praying together and reading together since we had seen them last. It was so awesome to talk with them and just feel their testimonies growing.

 On Saturday we had a full on blown-out Native wedding. Clarence, my very favorite baptism so far, got married to Felicia (she's a member) and then baptized right after. It was a traditional "Indian time schedule" which means the wedding started at 5, baptism at 6 but really the wedding started at 6, baptism at 6:30. it was very sweet, they have 4 children and have plans to be sealed next year in the temple.

Yesterday after sacrament meeting one of our "almost investigators" (she goes to another ward with her husband, he's a member and his kids are in that ward but she can go to the native ward too...) Well Nicole shows up and is all "hi sisters, I want to be baptized!" she's been taught the lessons over the past 8 months and so we were like okay okay let's set it up after church! she bore her sweet, short testimony in relief society in which she only said "I am new to this church and soon I will be a member, but I know it's true" it was very moving to see how far she's come in just the month I've gotten to know her.  Well after church comes and she had talked to the bishop and she wants to be baptized before TRANSFERS. Transfers are June 11th. So she is being baptized this coming Saturday. And we are so excited because she is so ready! We went over to her house last night to set everything up (so last minute) and her husband wolf was all "wait you're being baptized?!" The woman is on fire.  I just love her.

The res is great, we are loving our brown people....I confessed I wish I was brown to a few of them and ever since they make fun of my pasty skin...thanks....

The ward is 1400 members and it's HARD.  And a lot is reactivation since only about 300 come every week...except we think it's roughly 200....anyways, we're starting a new thing with the Elders in the ward this week. We're quite concerned the ward is going to start dying since it's very skewed to the older people side of things, so as of this week we're focusing our efforts in activating the younger generations. PRAY FOR THEM! They need all the help they can get. For real.

Goats: are owned by the church. We feed them whatever members feed us that we don't want to eat - just kidding ...or dum dums...that too. The one i am feeding is rammy-emp-ton. Er something like that.  They have big parties every few years and kill like 10 to eat....natives i tell you.

Elder behind the piano: Elder Francis! such a sport for playing for the wedding...he played a solid hour before....

Then lots of smiles after lessons and my scriptures.

umm that's it. Have a great week!

love you all,

sister mad

Madisons visa has finally been received.  The date of the next mission transfer date is July 24th. Which means that she will leave Mesa/Phoenix on Monday July 23rd flying to Belo Horizonte!