Monday, July 28, 2014

july 28, 2014... i'm on top of the world!









i'm on top of the world!!!
good
oh yeah… um i colored my hair. sorry, i just couldn’t handle it anymore. i needed a change. no more natural hombre. all one color! 
Just turning my locs over to another missionary... do you see how organized my "closet" is straight ahead?
bad
did i mention the other day i woke up (and you all know how i am in the morning... let alone at 6:30 am),  i started walking, and then basically passed out. i tried to walk and got waaaay dizzy and couldn’t see anything then i just fell. hahahahahaha. all in front of my companion. so that was cool. don’t worry, i’m not dying. i’m fine.
RAIN RAIN GO AWAY. it rained so much this week! chuva até o pó. with wind. not cool. my new umbrella brokeL and i’m still too mad to buy a new one. 
having to follow  the rules and division of missionary areas might steal away some of our bestest investigators… but we threw a fit and so far so good.. i’ll explain a little below :)
awk
CAN YOU BELIEVE… NO AWK MOMENTS THIS WEEK!—maybe i’m not thinking hard enough at the momentJ
awesome
we did a division/splits with the sister training leaders. since they live with us, it was one on one. the first time this has happened! so i got to go with sister saito to her area. of course we went in all the rain. i loved it! i love her. then after, we celebrated (not sure what we were celebrating) with the other sisters and a good ol pazookie :)
FOUR INVESTIGATORS CAM TO CHURCH YESTERDAY!! am I making myself clear? i’m so used to being so so sad on sundays because no one goes to church... but yesterday, everyone went! (other than the people that were out of town because all of the schools have a break right now.
we are always finding new investigators. 
 even the cows listen to us:)
so yesterday we found a novo ^^ and i loved teaching her. she was always commenting and asking questions… and when i talked to fast so she didn’t understand me she would just tell me to slow downJ but i was talking about the great apostasy and how people changed important parts of the doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ… for example, baptism. how many different types of baptisms do people perform today? but Christ was only baptized one way... and then we got to talking about the baptism of babies, and how churches are just baptizing someone without sin, so it has no purpose this girl we were teaching just said ´´wooow. it’s so true! why do people do that? it doesn’t make sense!!´´ and then she was just way shocked at how crazy and confused people are in their understanding.  sometimes we just don’t stop and think how messed up the world’s thinking can be. 
 
we really are a great team!
okay, so throughout the mission they are making sure all of the areas are good and divided equally for our work. for example… in our ward we have two duplas of missionaries… so we work on one side of the ward’s area and the other missionaries work on the other side. the problem is… we have investigators in their area! sooo at first they (our leaders) said we can keep teaching our current investigators, but not to find new investigators in that area. but, if you do pass them on to the other dupla. butttt then i guess president said it’s causing problems and throughout the mission you have to pass over all of your investigators that are outside of your area. BUT, we have mariane, a 13 year old who doesn’t want the elders to teach her. 
this is mariane in the center:)
we have joao and his daughter-- who we LOVE and he is interested in the church because he wants to help his daughter because her mom died and he knows his daughter needs the influence of strong women. and we have carlos, or carlinho... my favorite little man who just needs to stop smoking. so we may or may not have “fought” with our district leader and said we just CAN’T give them to the elders… with all due respect, they are better off with us :) so after some clever and eloquent words, our district leader talked to the zone leaders (oh leaders leaders leaders...) and they said since this is a little complicated as they are progressing for baptism this transfer we can keep them IF they go to church this week. so… obviously we prayed and fasted super hard for them to go to church this week. anddddddd THEY ALL DID!! YAYYA we get to keep them. mariane almost didn’t go but we may or may not have explained the situation with her and she came late because she doesn’t want to lose us as her teachers. bahaha.  she’s great!  i don’t know if i already said this butttt when we taught her about the word of wisdom (the commandment about not drinking coffee, black tea, alcohol, or smoking) she said that her friend had explained it to her and since she wants to get baptized she decided the change has to start with her and that day (which was a month ago or so) she stopped drinking coffee!! This is something she REALLY likes. um what? eleito!!!

so i’m a happy camper. all of our investigators have little probleminhas that we need to help them with (parent’s hearts to soften, quit smoking, etc) BUT i hope and pray and fast that by the end of the transfer, some if not ALL of them will be baptized :) they all have been given the invitation to “Come unto Christ” and they ALL have accepted and want to be baptized.

i hope and pray that you all are doing what you can to keep the commandments and honestly search for more knowledge about our Savior and what he did for you. i know it changes people. i’ve seen and witnessed it. of course, we respect every religion, but i’m so so happy i can represent mine—the church that contains the restored gospel of Jesus Christ here upon the earth today. at the beginning of my mission i was nervous to be so bold and always talk about how awesome this church is but it’s true... we all need God in our lives, but more importantly we need to find him in the right way, with the Christ’s church and saving ordinances that can be performed by the restored priesthood here on today... this is something i know only one church has. i know God didn’t make a different path for each of His children to return to him, and He doesn’t have lots of true churches. i do believe good can come from all churches and religion on the earth.  but i know salvation and exaltation will only come through the saving ordinances of the restored priesthood of Jesus Christ. His invitation is extended.

i love you all and i love the people here in cruz alta. my small sacrifice is so worth it. 


xoxo ash aka sister faldmo
peace out, girl scout:)

Monday, July 21, 2014

clube de luluzinha‏... july 21, 2014

good
ehhhh... life is just all good as a missionary. 
  
just a little look at the place i live in cruz alta-- sorry these pics are bad:/
bad
soooo… this week i attended my first brazilian funeral. long story short is that a less active member of our ward died. unfortunately she never could quite give up smoking and she died because of her addiction. it was realllly sad. she has three kids that are all in their teenage years. she was less than 50 years old.
the funeral could really be under the awkward. there were some church members there and our ward did the funeral, but it wasn’t at the church. we sang. i conducted the music... i know,  that was realllly awk. the second song i didn’t even know and let’s just say i don’t think anyone else knew it either. next time… let’s just stick to “god be with you til we meet again.” stay with the classics. there’s safety in the classics. buttt... now go ahead and skip down to the awesome part... **
awk
um… here they eat avocado like it’s sweet. with sugar. i tried it out. no thanks! someone needs to teach these people how to make guac!!
a member took us home after a family night because it was late anddddd... the car ran out of gas. it was an interesting ride home. 
MINHA NOSSA. lunch yesterday. with two crazies. i sat next to the gma and she kept putting food on my plate!! and so… i gave it to elder when she wasn’t looking. but then i couldn’t hide it and she said she wanted to see my plate clean so i told her to close her eyes for ten seconds and i put all the meat on elder’s plate. that’s how we get things done!
awesome
**on sunday this family of the woman that passed away came to church! i was so so so happy when they walked into sacrament meeting... some of the boys even had on a white shirt and tie and everything!! unfortunately, sometimes people need tragic things to happen to turn to God.
we had a family night with some of the young women... i can’t really explain it without you all judging me but we couldn’t invite everyone... so it really wasn’t official and we called it clube de luluzinha (a character from a cartoon who is identical with my comp) and invited some members, less actives, and our cute mariane aka best investigator ever... it was a hit! everything… the message, games, brownies, cookies, and a torta de pobre.
they were all excited to come to our family night
we made some yummy treats...
 we goofed around... a little
some of the girls were wearing their cooking:)

sidenote! the sisters and elders of the other ward have a radio program. legit, i know. every saturday night at 9pm brasilian time. google search this everybody: 107.9 popular fm cruz alta rs and see if anything comes up. it’s called mãos que ajudam. if you find it let me know and i’ll make them give you a shout out next week. 
sooooo. our mariane’s baptism did not happen on saturday. but we have lotssss of faith that it will happen soon. we just need a miracle to soften her mom’s heart. Unfortunately, carlos hasn’t stopped smoking yet so it will be a little bit before he can be baptized. 
my comp is teaching carlos how to put on a tie:)
my comp has some knee problems so we have just been walking to the really important stuff and haven’t been able to just be out finding and meeting new investigators... butttt it will all work out. i’m still really happy and excited about the investigators we have. they are super great and we know the probs that are in their way of Coming unto Christ  can be worked out. with god, we can do anything… right? right. 
Anyways, meu queridos... te amo. my time is getting smaller and smaller every day here in brasil and i can’t believe it. but I’m living it up and making the most of every minute as a missionary here! missions are the best. the gospel is so so true :)
xoxo sister faldmo



Monday, July 14, 2014

germany FTW‏... july 14, 2014


 good
creative zone leaders that have us ´´bury our swords´´... one of them gave a great training about the army of Helaman and how their father buried their swords and promised not to fight more and to change… he invited us to write things that we’ve done wrong in the past that we want to forget and then we went and literally buried our paper swords. 
my new zone!
love this fellow missionary!
in general zone meeting was so good!! all of the trainings were so good and made me feel really inspired to just be my best.
bad
7 to 1 WHAT IS THIS BRASIL?!
awk
the world cup is over.. now what?
awesome
so the other sisters and the zone leaders restarted a program on the local radio saturday night and they gave a shout out to me and my comp ´´and we want to send a big hug to ashley from the united states who is listening tonight... hugs ashley!!´´ hahahhaha 
teaching the word of wisdom to our investigator whose baptism is marked for saturday and she says… “oh yeah well my friend who is a member already mentioned this so i stopped drinking coffee almost a month ago…” and this was before she had even received the missionaries or went to church or anything!! she is perfect.. now we just have to hope her mom feels she is ready for baptism... pray for a miracle!!!
we talked about eternal families with a couple we are teaching and gave them a picture of the temple... the next day they had the picture in a frame and hanging on the wall.

one thing that our sister training leaders said as part of their training was that right now we are paying our tithing as missionaries. tithing is ten percent right? when Christ was 30 years old he started his ministry... and he lived for three more years. the average age of a missionary is 20 years old and we serve for almost an average of 2 years.. interested eh? they talked about how if you give 9.9% you aren't a full tithe payer.. so if we give 99% of our mission time we aren't doing our best.. but actually we may never be perfect 100% missionaries but we have to try... we will never be able to do exactly what Christ would do because we are not perfect like Him, but through this atonement, He will make up what we are lacking.

ok so i am completely out of time.. but hopefully this gave a good overview of our week. things are SO great. we have four investigators who are progressing towards baptism reallly soon. mariane is planning to get baptized saturday but her mom thinks it's a little soon. she completely supports her and is so great but we haven't been teaching her for long so her mom wants her to wait. but she is so ready!! pray for her! seriously... a miracle. we will fast this week and teach with a powerful member and hope that everything works out for saturday! 

buttt. love you lots. and i love the goalie from germany. so… I might have saw a little pic of him yesterday. just a sidenote for you all. 
stay cool homies. i love you. and so does your heavenly father. 
xoxo ash 

 new people to love in cruz alta

 my comp

 relief efforts from flooding two weeks ago that we helped with as missionaries in cruz alta



Monday, July 7, 2014

july 7, 2014... here we gooooooooo (sing with the backstreet boys song)


good

•got to help out with the flood relief efforts. the community brought clothes and food to the church and we organized it all.. all (16 i think?)of the missionaries here in cruz alta got some media coverage. look for me on the news:)

•i’m lovin life. *see details below. 

bad

•parts of rio grande do sul and our mission are flooding waaay bad… but not my city cruz alta but in são borja and itaquibryson served there I think??? #flashbacks

•and part of the road like fell apart or something making transfers waaaay complicated and meaning i spent 5 hours at the bus station tuesday and sister gold (ex comp of my new comp) just ended up going straight to santiago and not getting her new comp that she is supposed to train in santa maria. superrr sad. 

awk

•fourth of july in brasil. no fun. 

•people may see me cry like every week looking at pics of isaac in his cute little suit and nametag. 

awesome

•we went home to study and plan during the game and here you can actually here everyone cheering and you know when brasil scores and who won. YAY BRASIL! usa disappointed me but whatever-- i want my brazilians to be happy! 

•my new companion is sister gusmãoshes so fun! she is 22 and a convert to the church. but, her family is less active. she lost her dad just days after her baptism. She is from a place by Sao Paulo called minas geneis or something like that. She’s 6 months in the mission and super sharp. she’s making me a better missionary. i am laughing again and loving it!

 

soooooo. cruz alta. has 4 wards. my ward is ala 3. yesterday we had TWO investigators at church. wait, what? this hasn’t happened in forever. one is the cutest young girl named mariane. she’s14. we marked her baptism for july 19. then there is carlos. his sister and brother and other family members are members of the church. he is 50ish. he does need to stop smoking, but we marked his baptism for july 26. idk why i just love him. he’s the cutest little man ever. Very simple and humble but I love it when he pulls his book of mormon out of his plastic bag and gets all ready for the lesson. We are praying so hard that he can stop smoking. it’s soooooo hard! don’t even start kids!! 

 

so i’m just happy happy. i am so happy to get to work here in cruz alta. the members are great. REFERENCES! say what? goodness, we have so many people we need to visit but we don’t have time! and the weather has been great this week. idk why it got way cold like a month ago then it just stopped…but i’ll take it. 

 

S/O to my 17 YO sister abby.  i told everyone it was my sister’s bday here.. not that they know her, but it’s whatever. 

 

anyways. got to go homies. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. i made a goal to finish reading the book of mormon in PORTUGUESES before i hit my one year... in one month! ahhh. do you think i can do it? i’m only in the book of  mosiah. wish me luck. 

 

love you like A LOT ok?

 

xoxo ash-- aka sister faldmo

 

Thursday, July 3, 2014

June 30, 2014 que choroso

good
•last minute splits/division… just because, with my favorite curto prazo (idk how to say it in english.. part time?) missionary sister ribeiro 
•i made pancakes! for our last district meeting and sister marinhos birthday
the district seems to enjoy my cooking... sister marinhos is on far right
•a little visit from our sister training leaders. 
i was already ready for bed
bad
•the last district meeting was supposed to be a surprise breakfast for sister marinhos birthday but the elders showed up late, we didn’t have keys, and long story short it was a distaster BUT thank goodness i’m a great liar and she didn’t know anything was up. #surprisewasasuccess
awk
•when the mom of an investigator we’re teaching tells us she doesn’t like it when we sing (she’s old and has alzheimer’s but still! #ouch) oh yeah and she still thinks were jehovah’s witnesses. 
•the fact that the guy on the computer next to me is looking up things on youtube like ``lucifer’s temple...`` #scaryawk
•a surprise (ish.. we knew it was coming) visit from president and sister parrela. they took us out to eat! 
•getting to my new area and no one knowing i was arriving today… so i had some alone time at the bus station. 
awesome
•shout out to irma laise for making me CHINESE this week. it wasn’t orange chicken from king sea but it helped me stay strong for the next seven months until king sea will be waiting on the counter when i come home :)
•ok…. Paloma!!! i freaking love her so much!! the poor thing went to seminary this week but they are on break so we took her with us to teach. without any prep or anything she just owned our lesson. 
if you only remember one thing... know that i love this girl paloma and she is AMAZING!!!
paloma's brother-in-law, sister, me her neice and nephew and paloma-- who i love


•and okay i don’t want to get all emotional but paloma wrote me a letter before i left saying she wants to serve a mission and hopes to be a missionary like i am. and a bunch of other things that made me stop reading the letter in front of others because i didn’t want to cry. #itsallworthit

so...... o que eu vou te dizer. where do i start?? i got transferred. yep. i’m no longer in santiago. in fact, this morning at 6:30 am i left santiago. this weekend was CRAZY. on the way to lunch saturday we got transfer calls. awesome. only three missionaries will stay in our district in santiago.. the crew is breaking up. it’s probably for the best. so saturday i really couldn’t do anything. i couldn’t decide if i should worry about packing or saying bye to people.
i know from this picture you're thinking i should have worried more about packing then goodbyes...

not to mention it was raining cats and dogs. thank goodness for my hunters. seriously!! i packed a little... then started to say goodbye but i just couldn’t do it. after saying goodbye to one family i gave up. (mostly because next on the list was paloma and i just never want to say goodbye to that girl.)
then sunday came. none of our awesome investigators came so that was extremely sad. one thing i will not miss is how depressing almost every sunday was in santiago. i got to share my testimony in sacrament meeting. gosh dang it was in that moment when i noticed how sad i was to leave. it was still super rainy and there was only about 45 people there but those people... who are the foundation of that ward, are incredible!!!
after lunch i had to get down to business. we made the rounds. we barely had time to make it to mini ctm (mini mtc) in time. we actully didn’t have anything prepared so we did a mini testimony meeting, asking about how the mini ctm and their perspective of missionary work has changed? minha nossa i already had cried enough but this put me over. there were lots of tears. i’m so proud of my youth in santiago! then i still had to finish packing and be ready by 6 am the next morning. you all know how that went. 
then i got here in cruz alta and idk what it is but every time i’ve been transferred (aka the two times) no one knows i’m arriving. i awkwardly waited a while, then bought a phone card, then couldn’t get it to work, then a nice man let me use his phone, then i took all my stuff (aka 2 big suitcases, 1 little one, a box, a sack, and a laundry bag FULL) inside because i was cold and waited. wooohoooo. and here i am. i’m in trio until my companion’s companion leaves (ironically for santiago, but not my area) and so i am getting to watch her say all her goodbyes. it’s not easy.. the memories are fresh of yesterday and i’m trunky for santiago. 
so what do we learn from all this? my five+ months in santiago were hard but obviously something went right because i miss it so much already.
i know you're all enjoying you're summer... but it's cold here!
such incredible youth here in santaigo
missionary work is really cool like that. i thought i needed to leave santiago and what not... but the Lord kept me there gosh dang it and now i just want to go back! no, but i’m ready for something new but idk. Heavenly Father knows us so well it’s not even funny. He pushed me to my limits but it all worked out quite well. 

oh yeah and my little brother isaac’s a missionary now. so that’s weird. goooooooooooooo faldmos. 
love ya lots! 

xoxo s. faldmo

I love Suzere & her family!

 Pictures of the Santiago goodbyes... so TOUGH.  I love them ALL!!!





 my little friends at church in santiago, brasil