Monday, September 29, 2014

september 29, 2014... rosário do céu‏


good

sweet andressa was waiting for me at the rodoviaria to say goodbye when i left cruz alta. she’s a single mom of 3 and is less active but has the biggest heart. she and her baby were there. i couldn’t believe it! it’s way far away from her house, she went on the bus and everything just to see me before i left! 

had a nice little activity about the plan of salvation. 

 

bad

ughzzzz send me back to cruz alta not gonna lie, i miss my peeps there. 

saying goodbye to joao and his family and marlene. tears. And the brats aka my irmãzinhas even used my scarf to wipe their nose but i was so sad i didn’t even care haha. 

first day without make up on the mish- tuesday. didn’t have time because i was packing (you know me, always last minute). i planned to do my makeup that morning while I traveled on the bus but i accidentally left my makeup bag under the bus with my other things. i had to do it quick in santa maria before i saw anyone haha. 

rainnnnnn até o pó. 

 

awk

during the rain storm we were going home and my new companion decided to try and help a dog that was being assaulted by another dog (sorry TMI) and she went to like kick it the other dog or something idk... but her shoe went flying and landed inside a fence of a church! ahhhh. so i had to enter through the barbed wire fence to go get it for her. yeah. 

 

awesome

FINALLY after one year and our provo mtc departure,  i saw sister shumway!!! during transfers for like 20 minutes at the rodoviaria in santa maria

my new branch has a bus that picks up all the members.. sickkkk!

 

 

so.... this lan house is going to close in ten minutes. brasil and their lunch hours. and it’s been péssima to send pics.. next week i will try a different email place. but lovers i love you.

 

rosario is sweeeet. it has a beach. (if i had more time i would keep going with this rhyme)

 

the big news is 

THIS WEEKEND IS CONFERENCE WEEKEND

everyone better watch. even if you’re not a member of our church. go to lds.org on sat and sun homies. 

can’t wait to hear from pres monson!! no, but serious i’m so excited. it’s my last one on the mish. weird right?

also weird that in four months i’m done. UghL why did the secretary tell me my return and release date??? 

 

i love you all k?

xoxo ash aka sister faldmo

Monday, September 22, 2014

atividade sábado - dia do gaúcho tchê! september 22, 2014

good
i now own bombachas!! 
sister rodrigues and i at the atividade w/ such great people here
thamires quit smoking!!
bad
so i’m leaving cruz alta
so let's just show you all the people i'm so sad to leave...
the oliveira family... ivando (the dad) is our ward mission leader. i love them so much!! their oldest son is serving a mission too and the other is preparing. 
the people in my ward
wonderful people i have taught
i’m leaving my comp
we were a great team here in cruz alta... this is going 
to be a tough goodbye, we laughed and we worked

I’m leaving joao and marielli and valeria
who will feed me ice cream?
awk
so i didn’t prepare anything for this letter and i can’t remember anything.. 
awesome
our activity for dia do gaucho was off the hook!!!! 
dia do gaucho

sooooo this letter is going to be horrible. oops sorry. 
basically this week was good. ha. everything was cray cray. went on splits with sister alves. it was cool. we will go home together. 
thamires quit smoking... we were slowing stopping our visits with her then, after almost a week,  we visited her and she said she prayed for us to visit her, she has been reading alone, and she quit smoking!! so, we marked her baptism.. but then,  she didn’t go to church :(

anyways. i seriously don’t have any time. i love you all. enjoy the few pics I sent.

xoxo ash aka sister fald
so... yeah, don't worry i bought these sour patch kids
 at mtc in provo... this is how we decided to drowned
out the transfer sorrows.








Monday, September 15, 2014

marielli and valeria FTW‏... september 15, 2014

love my luma
good
elders that know how to make corn dogs... and then show up on pday with some for you :) 
the fact that joão makes dinner for us at least three times a week. 
you can tell i’m making progress in life because here on the mish i’ve finished 2 whole chapsticks completely without losing them!
atividades com minhas mocas. 

Young Women peeps
so the young women activity we did this week was about beauty. we got all fancy and what not.. hair and make up, and took pics. then we talked about the difference of internal beauty and what Christ sees and everyone had to write an Christlike quality that they have that they like about themselves on their foreheads and after we took more pics :) 

dia do gaucho is saturday-- party at the church!!
bad
went to another funeral this morning of someone i don’t know…
how indecisive youth are (but i love them) *details below
awk
the fact that i think you guys are sending all my letters to the wrong address because i haven’t been getting any... #stepituppeople #guessthismeansireallyhavebeenhereawhile #youallforgotaboutme
this house color is cooler than your house color
awesome
the cake with made for thamires for her birthday. i was so sad when we left it all at her house. 
getting creative… needing a fire for a family night.... so i could eat smores. 
where there is a will... there is a way. #smoresforthewin

here is what my end result was... not bad? :)  
                                   
                                                                      sister faldmo with the photobomb                        
teaching joão about the temple. it was perrrrrfect. 

for the first time in my life i helped bring two people to waters of baptism in one day andddd two members of the same family.. joãos daughter marielli was baptized! and her friend valeria that is practically his daughter. 

marielli & valeria coming out of the waters of baptism

the youth at church all were there for the baptism
so this week was crazzzzy. the big news of the week is that marielli and valeria were baptized! but goodness gracious it was not easy. first of all, we had to get authorization for valeria to be baptized and her sister mariana in our ward, because they live in another ward (congregation) but spend the weekends here with joão so they always go to church here. so we got it-- check. sweet. but then during the week they go home which is outside of our area,  so we can’t teach them during the week. so we just had to pray that everything would work out. we had a family night with them, joão, marielli, and some other members of the church on friday. Before the family night we went to teach them and they told us that their mom wasn’t going to let them get baptized, that they are really young, not prepared, and that God loves everyone and everyone will go to heaven. sweet. so what can you say???  at that moment they weren’t getting baptized and marielli didn’t want to get baptized without them. soooo. then we had the family night. I LOVE GOD! so we invited another family to join the family kinda last minute the night before. we hadn’t even planned to visit them (they are members) but we ended up having a really good conversation with them the night before and invited them to join joão’s family night. they got to the family night late and i didn’t even think they would show. but guess what? everything truly happens for a reason. they came and made the connection at family night that they are really good friends and work with the parents of mariana and valeria! irmão volunteered to talk to the girls’ mom for us to get permission. yaayayayya. and after the message during the family night the girls truly wanted to be baptized. 
joão and his family at marielli & valeria's baptism
butttt...as we know satan works 24 hours a day. so after lunch the next day aka the day of their baptism they didn’t want to get baptized anymore, and didn’t even want to go to the Young Women activity. so we went to talk to them but in the middle of our mini lesson this imão showed up to get them to go talk to their mom for their mom sign the papers. they went to go talk just the three of them, and we had no clue what they would decide. buttttttt. everything worked out and they decided they would be baptized. so we went and their mom signed the papers.  we went to fill up the baptismal font and they went to go get ready. then... we got another call. marielli and valeria. they said they had two good things to tell us and one bad. they said mariana wasn’t going to be baptized but they were still planning on it and were on their way to the church. and... assim ficou. just the two of them. but mariana chose to come and watch, she felt the spirit, and after said she wants to be baptized saturday. 

"Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God."

we will see want happens. of course i want her to be baptized but she needs to make sure she wants this because of her testimony and not because her sister and bff were baptized. but. we will see :) 
anyways. this week was so great. nothing went as planned, but at the same time everything was wonderful. i’m just lovin life and so grateful for... everything! transfers and next week :/ i have no clue what will happen. i really want to stay here with sister rodrigues but what i want never happens soooo.. yeah. we will see. 

i love you all soooo much. k? k.
go cougars!!!
xoxo sister fald
 ps... we also had zone conference this week:)
me and my comp and roomies


























Monday, September 8, 2014

september 8, 2014 marcando datas and stuff‏...

how can you not just love this face of my comp??? :)
good
another activity at the church = success. 
                                      jeopardy challenges for the activity at the church:)
we finally contacted a reference given from a person in another state but actually no because the boy wasn’t home but we asked his mom if we could teach her and guess what? the gospel is exactly what she is needing right now. funny how that works out. 
i learned how to play the cups song. #workingfordessert :)
bad
yep dont worry i found a place to buy diet coke with coconut in it… já era. #addictedagain
awk
when you invite someone to a baptism and they reject... *see details below
awesome
we have the coolest new investigators-- neli and jonathan. jonathan is like miracle boy and famous in with other religions here. he is super talented and plays lots of instruments and sings super well. i feel kinda bad that he’ll be baptized and then other churches will probably lose lots of people because the people are probably just going there to hear him play. mwhahahah. 
the video about missionary work and the atonement. i’ve seen it lots on the mission so i’ve kinda become numb to it.. but as you know i’ve been praying for more spiritual experiences where i feel the spirit super strong… and this week i had one watching the video. gosh dang it it is perfect!
sionara *see below. 
when your recent convert asks for help paying his tithing. 
the letter our investigators wrote for us saturday night... after they received the answers they needed about the church :) darn!  i wish i had time to tell you everything they said. 

so as you can see my week was good better and best!!!
first of all god loves me and i’ve felt the spirit so strong this week. 
second of all.. 
* we have 4 of the cutest sisters that we are reactivating. one is 19. and guess what? she is thinking about going on a mission! 
 
i haven’t had way good experiences with reactivating members but this is totally worth it. we gave her a preach my gospel the other day and watched the missionary work and atonement video with her and it was so special to be able to share my testimony with her about all that missionaries do and the importance of this work. 
so saturday we were at joaos house teaching his daughter and her two friends. i felt strongly i needed to set their baptism for saturday. i tried three times and they rejected. i didn’t understand why… and they really didn’t either. but we went on and taught the rest of the lesson. at the end sister rodrigues invited them again... and they accepted! idk exactly why? maybe it needed to be her and not me. butttttt this saturday we have a baptism. things are a little complicated because her friends don’t live in our ward but they come to stay at joao’s house every weekend... so technically, they haven’t ever been to their real ward so idk it’s all just a little messed up but everything will work out. i’m so so so happy for marielli (joaos daughter) and valeria and mariana :)

anyways. gtg homies. i love you so much. 

xoxo ash aka s f
 










Monday, September 1, 2014

september 1, 2014 i'm still learning...


good
we helped out with the radio this saturday! we went to drop something off for the other sister missionaries but they asked us to stay when they were doing the radio show. i got to man the facebook part. hence… why i added you abby. it was super hectic but super fun! i will steal the pic sister mendonça took and send it in next week’s email :)
the fact that joão always has ice cream waiting for us when we visit him.
bad
the fact that we spent all of last pday looking for a skirt for my comp for zone conference and there was NOTHING within the price range that was missionary appropriate and cute. ughhhhhhhh. we literally went in every store cruz alta has to offer. 
so we showed up to lunch one day and they forgot so they gave us money. but we didn’t have much time so we just made a pizza. don’t ask how much we ruined the pizza…the kind you just put in the oven. it was a rough day. 
awk
teaching drunk people
awesome
zone conference! love seeing my peeps. and had some great trainings. and we helped the sister training leaders with theirs and had to act out a little skit in front of everyone about inviting people for baptism on the first visit. 
pics from an awesome zone conference
Elder Titensor
Elder Dos Santos
Elder Miller from the Brazil CTM district

my original mtc group that started this together aug 7 2013

me and my first comp in cruz alta... sister gusmão
the spirit…  see the deets below. 
we had our first successful ward activity--lots more to come. it made me so so happy. had investigators, less actives, and members. it was super great! our ward needs lots of activity because they are not very united. 
pics from the treasure hunt activity

k i have to be quick buttttt this week was GREAT
zone conference was super good and passed by so fast. after i thought lots about the spirit. they say if you have the spirit you’re worthy and you’re doing it right and God is accepting your work. i have more than one year doing this work now and i’m not having tear shedding experiences everyday… but do i still have the spirit? i got super worried. do i teach what He wants me to teach? i talked to my companion about it because that night i thought lots about it all. she told me about an experience that happened this week that she felt the spirit really strong when i taught. we were teaching thamires, and she seemed very unexcited and hopeless. she had been smoking that morning and was honestly just being so so annoying. i didn’t know what to say to her. i was just so frustrated. so i said a prayer, asking for help to know what she needed to hear. after... i just looked her in the eyes and told her how much i loved her and how much Heavenly Father loves her. and i told her the potential she can reach  but only if she keep the commandments. i don’t know if it really helped, but it had to because it wasn’t me speaking. then throughout the week i had lots of other experiences that really helped me have the confirmation that the spirit is constantly guiding this work when we follow it. 
this work is so great!!! we have a few people so so so so close to being baptized. maybe this week we will have a miracle, but if not next week for sure. i pray. 
i love you all sooooo much. 

have a great week. ta bom? xoxoxo ash aka sister faldmo
we never drink the chimarrão... but every family wants to serve it to us