eat pray love
dear blog readers,
Can you believe we are halfway through the mission already? umm nope. thats all i have to say about that one. Also, that everyone talks about how the second half goes by faster than the second half....and to that, i only say ``let it not be true`` because it literally was yesterday Man was dropping me off at the CTM.
So I figured its been a while since i have updated you on my theory of ``eat pray love`` as my mission statement.
eat. and pray
We are in a ward incredible enough that not only do we have lunch every single day, we have Irmas fighting over feeding us. I counted this morning, we have 40 Irmas that rotate feeding us every single month. These women are incredible and it is tradition here in brasil that when the missionaries are over, you pull out all stops and feed them your best. Which means for us, literal thanksgiving dinner every afternoon. We don´t mind either. :)
Every first Sunday of the month we eat with Eunice. Eunice is Kelly´s mom (remember the african Goddess?) And I cannot lie, Eunice has the best food i have eaten here in Brasil. Very brasillian tasty food. We love Eunice. We love her family too. Eunice´s husband is Garcias. (yes i will tell you who you have been praying for finally). Garcias is very inactive. like 10 years inactive. The two of them have two daughters, One who has already been sealed in the temple, and the other who just got home from her mission. Sister Anderson and i have a personal goal to reactivate this man. It is a whole lot more complicated than just this, so i cant go on other than to say multiple people have tried, multiple times. And this isnt the story i have to tell.
The story is that Eunice has her recommend to go to the temple for the first time. She is worthy, and waiting to be able to go to the temple to get out her endowments. And she has been waiting now for 2 years. They didnt tell us any of this. Just remember how sneaky sister sackley is? Yep. Found the recommend, found the unsigned signature-Garcias. So we decided if there was anyone that could get him to sign it, it was us. We told Kelly, swore her to secrecy and got all the info we needed for him to sign it.
On Friday, (hump day) we prayed real hard, went to the house while it was just him home and talked him through signing it. He signed it, after reading multiple scriptures and a prayer. Coincidence enough, Eunice got home just moments after he had signed it. We had her sit down and give her the paper while he was in the room. I can not describe the amount of joy that just FILLED the room as she read the lines and saw the signature. Eunice is shy, so she blushed, with tears welling up in her eyes she just kind of looked at us and then nodded. And then did a little giggle.
Yesterday we had lunch at Gracienne´s, her daughter´s house. She and Kelly were of course there as well. They told us that the they had prayed, fasted, attempted multiple times and even had bishopbric and elders qurom try. Nothing. Eunice will be taking out her endowments within the next few months with her daughters there. I have no doubt that your prayers and the power of mission work is the ONLY thing that opened this man´s heart.
also...
You remember how i told you all about sister sackley and sister andersons problem of falling asleep during prayers? Yeah. that is still happening. And as of this week, we each had a day where one of us fell asleep for a solid 5 minutes during a lesson. IN THE MIDDLE OF A LESSON.
I was reading the bible the other day about when the eleven fall asleep outside the garden of getsemane. I can now tell you for reals, i have a testimony of how that can happen. It is incredible just how exhausted you can become as a missionary and no matter how much you want to, sometimes you just...fall..asleep.
love
with that being said, i have been studying the atonement a lot. As members of the church, we put a lot of emphasis on the fact that Christ knows MY problems and MY tribulations. I try and keep this blog and my letters upbeat and happy as much as i can, and so in a lot of ways, you might be decieved in thinking that my life and my mission has been nothing but rainbows and butterflies. Just realize that there are a lot of pther things going on inbetween the happy smiley photos. Do not get me wrong, i have loved my mission. But there have been days, and moments of literal pain. The most pain and hurt I have ever felt and probably will ever feel.
It comes in waves, some days are really terrible, and some weeks are worse. There are moments where it rains and people spit on you and all your investigatars fall saturday night or someone tells you ``I KNOW this book cant be true``. And then you have the bible basher screaming at you and just EVERYTHING goes wrong all at once. Those days and those moments happen. A lot.
I have never understood the phrase ``carry your cross to Calvary`` more than i do as a missionary. As a missionary we have the opportunity to feel just a small part of what Christ felt. There is a talk by Elder Holland in which he says ``If you are His representatives, dont think for one minute you will be treated differently than He was``. And I feel that. I feel that a lot. The atonement brings on a whole new meaning as a missionary. Because I know Christ feels my pain, but in a whole new way, I feel his pain too. Just a small little step of it. But I feel it, and it makes the Atonement and the suffering Christ did just that much more meaningful. And knowing his pain makes things so much more okay, because i know he has already felt that pain. And in that, I am happy. Because I know after all i can do he is going to be there helping me the rest of the way.
have a fabulous week,
love sister mad
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