may 26, 2014 minute to win it in prep for the CUP!

good

●no ward mission leader? no person in charge of ward activities?

do you recognize that girl in the middle running the show??? #futureeventplanner

#olympicsinrio2016hereicome

... no problem. successfully planned and executed our missionary sponsored minute to win it mega family night. it was stressful, of course, but everything worked out and people had a good time!

                   "if he can do it????                                                    i can do it....."

            too cool for school....                           and the purpose of this game is.... ????

#skills

bad

●it’s getting cold!! i thought i was a thick blooded midwest girl but this 9 degrees celcius is already killing me! and it’s just starting! i sleep with leggings and big sweat pants and a shirt and sweat shirt and wool socks with three blankets. this is real life people. enjoy your heating systems. no, but seriously we are so lucky. not just in the states… even here. i know some of the people i visit and some of the members here are much colder every night. #noticeeveryonewearingcoatsinthebuildingatouractivity

●oh yeah, our shower broke the other day... i refuse to take a cold shower. today i washed my hair in the pot of warm water. the things i do to be a missionary...

●found out father’s day is different here than in the states. what the heck??? 

just wait... all of southern brasil will be saying this by the time i leave. #iamacartooncharacternow

awk

●so this week we got locked out of our house.... with the keys. yeah. idk how that happens but it did. and it was night time and it was COLD. we tried for like 5 minutes to get in.. then we were helpless and called the elders… which obviously didn’t help anything. so then we asked our downstairs neighbor for help (we live in a two story apartment house thing and downstairs is the cutest little lady and her son who is like 30 or something). he came and tried but couldn’t get the door to open either. so... then… yeah. long story short, we went to the back of the house, i climbed a ladder, walked across the roof, crawled into our laundry room, and opened the other side of the door with the key and kinda saved the day #nbd.... oh yeah of course i was IN A SKIRT!

awesome

●so for the first time while being a senior companion i knew we realllly needed new investigators and i have absolutely no clue what i am doing. seriously.  but we used the area book and managed to find some really awesome new investigators this week. it’s amazing how missionary work actually works. like people just let us, complete strangers, into their house and when they are seeking they just love us so easily. and we love them too of course. 

●this week i officially became brazilian when i learned how to make pastels with cheese and another with chocolate. YUM. i’m addicted. so unhealthy but whatever people keep saying i got skinny here, so i can right?

did you read that??? i'm officially brazilian!

anyways. this week was good! things are getting better. i’m really excited for the potential that is building here in santiago, brasil. this week i started studying more of the book Jesus the Christ and that book is seriously amazing. i love how much i learn about my Savior and Heavenly Father. 

so. life is good. things are looking up. two of our new investigators are a mom and her son. we invited them to the minute to win it activity but she couldn’t go because she takes care of her mom, but her son said he would go with us. he’s 12. i didn’t know in the end if he would really have the courage to go alone, but we went to get him and his mom said he was so excited, it’s all he could talk about and then… he got sick! i was so sad. then we tried to visit them the next day and his mom had taken him to the hospital :( things will get better! he has to get baptized so they have to get better :)

yeah well i love you all! have a good week! everyone…. get ready for the CUP!!!! go brasil!

start wearing your green and gold ASAP!!!

xoxo ash aka sister faldmo

may 19, 2014... just a plain out weird week‏

good

●celebrating birthdays with one of my fams here in santiago

●ward bdays 

      happy birthday geovana! she has five years            and happy birthday & baptism andre

parabens!!

●MY LITTLE BROTHER GRADUATED what the heck???? 

bad

●my favorite nude flats are no more. #RIP they did good work for 9 months. 

you served me well...

we'll see if these little brazilian flats will do the trick:)

●i know the new bachelor is going to be starting but i’m in brazil

●went to the hospital again this week with for my comp

awk 

●when sister marinho (who lives in our apartment) doesn’t get a companion at transfers and her old companion leaves..

●so then we are working in trio with her but we work in two different areas with different chapels and everything…

●but then she gets a new companion... who is actually a girl preparing for a mission in the branch where sister marinho serves... 

●imagine that! being a missionary in your own branch! she sleeps at our apartment  and everything. 

awesome

●but it was fun to be in trio again and companions with sister marinho again :) 

●paloma said the prayer at andre’s baptism in front of everyone. i was sooooo proud!

andre's baptism... oh i love the children:)

it was andre’s baptism/birthday this past week. his mom is a member and his older siblings too, and even some of his aunts and uncles and cousins but his not his dad. i love his mom. she is a SAINT. seriously. she is so kind and helps us so much. she always is willing to host a family night on whatever night we need and always wants to make us dinner or snacks haha.  then the other birthday was his sister, geovana.  on that very busy day his their mom (mara) gave us lunch because another member couldn’t as was scheduled… and here it was,  her daughter’s birthday. she’s a gem. 

mara's family at andre's baptism

also, we had our family night this week at  a members house. i won’t lie... he’s kinda crazy. he has a motorized bike and he wanted all these pictures with us (the missionaries) on his bike 

hahaha but he’s so cute!!! he lives alone and he invited everyone to this big family night he organized and he bought treats and made homemade juice and was so excited to share. he loves the gospel... he was baptized only a couple of years ago.  but, as you can tell this week was... interesting. it was weird trying to cover two areas—and one of them isn’t even your area, being in trio again, and i’ll be real honest WE CURRENTLY HAVE NO NEW INVESTIGATORS sooooooo,  until then i don’t have any cool stories to tell you. this week is for sure a “finding” week. sorry to let you all down. i still have six more weeks to do some good work here. and i will, you just wait J

anywaysssssss.... I’ll talk to you all later. happy graduation and summer everyone. do the work. read your scriptures. go to church. help the missionaries. 

sometimes kids just jump in my arms:)

love you lots. 

xoxo sister faldmo

may 12, 2014 feliz dia das mães!!‏

"how great shall be your joy..."

this beautiful girl is paloma and she is a member of 

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

good

●ringback tones hahahha. #imissmusic

●writing down where every single sister in the mission is serving to try and guess transfers 

●on sister william’s and my  9 month anniversary both of our comps were sick… so we went on a little division haha. 

sister william's and i getting it done... despite the sick comps

don't freak out... it's just what we sisters do at the 9 month on the mission mark, hahahaha

●not getting transferred… sister silva and I still have work to do here in santiago, brasil

sister silva & i at the end of a long day...

bad

●4:30 am wake up call for zone conference saying the van is picking us up a little earlier than expected #shootme

a realllllllly long day on tues at the tri ward zone conference

●a failure of a district pday… basically it just consisted of us trying to make 8 pizzas (to feed 4 elders and 4 sisters) with one oven and so when pday ended is we finally finished the pizzas. #fail

i think like 10% of our transfers guesses were right. probably less..

awk

●technical difficulties and ending up riding to lunch with president and sister parrella and the assistants… 

●on our way home from zone conference there was an accident on the highway so we had to stop for a while so we all got out on the side of the road. there was a long line of cars and there was some guys way far away with white shirts and maybe ties that got out of their car so naturally we assumed it was other missionaries and started yelling at them... yeah it wasn’t.

took a moment to take some snaps of us before sister williams is transferred

awesome

●PALOMA GOT BAPTIZED! 

●TALKING TO THE FAM ON MOTHERS DAY!!!!!

so the big news of this week is the baptism of paloma!! this week was CRAZY. my goodness our little nemesis Satan did not make this easy on me. Heavenly Father saw that i really wanted this more than anything else. so long story short it was a battle just to make sure paloma could get baptized saturday. but when everything happened the way it needed to i was literally on top of the world. it all started wednesday, my 9 month anniversary of the mish. the best present i could ever receive. 

paloma decided to be baptized

but it didn’t get any easier...

saturday came. i was so excited.. we told her to come to the church at 5 and we would get her all ready… hair and make-up. we made a cake for her. everything was all set. we got to the church and waited. nothing. the font was all ready. nothing. so finally at about 5:15 or so i called her sister. there was a bunch of confusion on the phone but then she gave it to her husband, he told me paloma would not be getting baptized today. he said she didn’t want to and she wanted to get baptized in his church. i kept asking if i could talk to her. finally he gave her the phone. i asked her what was up? she said she wasn’t getting baptized. my heart broke and i asked what happened. she said he wouldn’t let her leave the house to go to the church. so, i just asked her if she wanted to get baptized.... the phone hung up. i’m not going to lie. i started bawling like maggie dru during one of her tantrums. at the church many members totally saw or heard me. my companion tried to tell me everything was going to be okay but she wasn’t on the phone, she didn’t hear how her brother-in-law  talked to me. i was convinced this man was ruining paloma’s baptism. i finally calmed down. we said a prayer. then we went to work. the elders were getting to the church and still probably way confused what was going on but came with us. we went to paloma’s house. on the way there things were almost completely silent... other than us awkwardly asking each other what we were planning on saying to him. we all had nothing in our heads… just the Spirit. we got there and i had a second before we went in to talk to her alone and i quickly asked her if she wanted to get baptized in her brother-in-law’s church. she said no. i asked her if she wanted to get baptized today in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. she said yes. we awkwardly entered. he (the man.. sister’s hasband) tried to act like everything was normal and made small talk about the weather (gag me). half of me wanted to start screaming half of me wanted to cry.  finally, one of the elders asked him if he would be going to paloma’s baptism today. he said no. so people, at this point it is not really necessary to give you a play by play on the conversation, but he told us his pastor doesn’t let him go to other baptisms, he only believes in one baptism… during all this i saw paloma behind him getting ready in a dress and i almost started crying again because i knew what she truly wanted. at the end, one of the elders basically straight up called him to repentance, and we went to the baptism :) 

so you can see... my eyes are a bit teary after what we have been through

it was so great. there were other youth there, the talks were great. i walked with her to the door of the baptismal font and she said “i think sister is happier than i am.” it’s could be true,  let’s be real. i was so happy. then after we had treats and she got to know some of the youth of our ward better, which also made me so happy. then yesterday at church she received the gift of the holy ghost. life is so perfect!

and then just a few hours after that…. i met the families on skype of my companion and elders that i work with and then I TALKED WITH MY FAMILY! life is so good. things are changing but luckily they are changing for the better. i can’t be sad people are going on missions. dad is the new WML!! aka LMA here. what upppp???  what i wouldn’t give to have dr dave for my ward mission leader. isaac is graduating so that’s just straight up weird. and everyone else is just cute as ever. 

anyways.  Our Heavenly Father has sent lots of trials my way this week but it made the success of this week that much sweeter. i’m lucky lucky blessed blessed to be here, to be serving, and to have met paloma. on to the next challenge...

have a good week! i love and miss you all!

beijos, sister faldmo

here is our zone at the tri zone conference on tuesday

and here's a bunch of random pics from all the people i saw on tuesday

may 5, 2014 amor verdadeiro‏

here i am folks... 

yes... here i am:)

good

●the past weeks have mostly just been hard, but now they are hard with more tender mercies and miracles. it makes it all worth it :)

●during testimony meeting i got a shout out for harassing one of the young men to study preach my gospel to prepare for the mini ctm. what can i say??? ... i do what i can. 

●get to a house with a less active.. they made us cake. #3slices #longday #wheninbrasil #cominghomechubby #itswhatever

●miraculous lessons with members 

bad

●being trunky as i was thinking about my family this weekend and my dad’s release as stake pres. it’s hard to miss important moments in my family’s life but i know this is exactly where i need to be right now. 

●mom said she wonders if I still walk alot. just know i walk A LOT. like 45- 60 minutes just to get home some nights. other nights its 30 minutes or so. 

●mom also wonders how many lessons i teach. ok well, i’ll be real... not that many, or as many as i want because we spend a lot of time walking, but it’s quality not quantity guys.. 

awesome

●testimony meeting yesterday turned into testimonies about missionary work. the longer i am here in santiago, i am really learning to appreciate and love this ward. they are trying! yesterday we had less than 50 people at church because of the rain, but the members are trying to help in the ways they know how. 

●one of our progressing investigators comes from really really humble circumstances. her life has been so hard, and i am loving watching her grasp this gospel and let the happiness it brings into her life and feel more of her Savior’s love. we picked her up for church yesterday with a member. it was raining like crazy! her clothes that i watched her hand wash yesterday were already soaking wet. when she came out of the house in the same shirt as yesterday. she looked really cold and was without a coat or jacket. the member stopped by her own house before we went to church, i wasn’t quite sure why? but she’s crazy, so i didn’t questions her :) she returned to the car with a jacket for our investigator, and told her it was hers to keep. what an example to me and a really sweet moment! our investigator doesn’t talk much but i knew she was so happy. 

●less actives opening up to us about why they aren’t going to church. after months of working with them i have finally earned their trust and now we can help them based on what they really need. 

here's some pics from a zone meeting:)

awkward

…that i don’t have anything to put here right now. now that’s awkward itself 

this week was good! after testimony meeting yesterday i was so happy. i felt the love this ward has for missionary work… finally! it has been hard because the missionaries in the past here where I’m serving hadn’t been that impressive, so why should they trust us? but i feel like we are making real progress, with members, less actives, and investigators. and now that they are starting to get to know us better and work with us more their testimonies are growing too. how can they not? this work is amazing and when we take part it changes us for the better. as we teach others and watch them grow, we ourselves grow. we realize how important this gospel is and why literally EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD NEEDS IT!

i just want to give a shout out to my parents. one: my dad who was released as our stake president this weekend. i am a better missionary because of the example of Christlike service he set for me. i am happy to come home and have more time with him, but i know our family was SO BLESSED because of his service and time. i don’t know what it will be like without those blessings? thank goodness isaac will be serving soon enough and maybe he and i can make up for those blessing. 

and obviously a word for my mother. :) and all others out there. where would we be without you? my mom’s support on my mission has helped me so much, but more importantly how she prepared me before the mission. she has always taught gospel principles in such a loving way in our house, but also through example. her thirst for gospel knowledge is inspiring. AND I CANT WAIT TO SEE HER BEAUTIFUL FACE IN SIX DAYS ON SKYPE!!

this week is big. there’s a possibility of a baptism. not for sure though. could be my last week here. they say when you learn to love your area you leave.. and i’m loving it :( but it’s been three transfers here which is usually the norm. let’s see :) whatever happens will be for the best. 

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo love you 

ash aka sister faldmo