first christmas thousands of miles from home.... december 30, 2013

GOOD
●the facetime with my family was awesome and somehow we managed to go without tears until the end.

                                      

my view before good-bye

●saying goodbye was hard, but as soon as i left the room where i was skyping my family, the cutest little girl ever named ruth, was waiting to talk to me and gave me a big hug. i couldn’t help but be so grateful i’m here this christmas. 

   

I couldn't have tears for long because of these amazing people waiting for me with open arms

  

BAD

●it’s. flipping. HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i don’t know how I’m going to do this. january is hottest month

  UMBRELLAS ARE NOT JUST FOR RAIN...

●minutes before leaving the house to go visit our families on christmas day… i got the bloody nose of a lifetime so i looked realllll good for facetime with my fam. (mother’s qualifier… she’s never looked more beautiful)

AWK
●one night i was the last one in bed… i turned off the light and walked to my bed in the dark like i’ve done many times before... except this time i guess i was confused and completely missed my bed and bifffed it on the floor. oops. 

●remembering that last year my goal for 2013 was to pray every morning after i woke up... well it might have taken a mission to help but I think i accomplished that one!!

AWESOME

●rose (who we have been teaching for quite some time) was baptized!!                                                                                         

●giving christmas eve dinner to some elders... (details below)

●investigators with LOTS of questions that make us study our stuff lots. 

  

this family loves us in camobi & gave us chocolates...   their little girl loves me... of course:)

awwww christmas. it was awesome. we spent christmas eve all together, us four sisters of camobi, with adriana and her family. we got a call before dinner started from one of the members of our ward saying he had dinner for us... he didn’t know that we could stay out a little later and eat with a member so they had prepared it and were going to deliver it to our apartment… but, we were already eating dinner with adriana, so he asked if we knew of any missionaries that were without. we didn’t, but we said we would call. we called our zone leader and he said there were some elders in centro that were without on christmas eve. we called him back, but he had already given it away to someone on the street. we felt so bad that these missionaries were spending christmas eve alone in their apartment and probably eating who knows what.... so we asked adriana if we could share what she was serving with them? we told her if there wasn’t enough they could have ours. of course… adriana being adriana she was completely down with our idea. we prepared a helping of everything for the missionaries, and also gave up a panettone (a special dessert of bread with chocolate chips! a special christmas thing here) and guarana (their special pop drink of brazil) and we loaded up the car and were on our way. we sang christmas carols in the car in our 3 languages (it was interesting) but the Spirit was soooo strong.

christmas eve recipients from the sisters  & adriana in camobi

i am soooo grateful we had an opportunity to help someone else on christmas eve... especially thinking about what it would be like for me to spend christmas eve alone in our apartment far away from our family.  but really, i feel bad because really i didn’t sacrifice anything but it still made christmas extra special. 

 so this is my zone... can you find me?

we also had rose’s baptism this week. i LOVE rose. she is amazing. she is a single mother of 4 teenagers and you can just see she is trying sooo hard to do everything for them and be a good mom.

                                          

rose in center in white on baptism day

  

                                                two incredible women i have        rose & daughters

               had the privilege of teaching...

             rose & adriana

i really can’t put into words how much respect i have for rose.  she was ready for this change in her life, but it wasn’t easy! family members weren’t happy with her decision but she stood strong and true to what she knew was right and now you can tell she is just so happy and knows that things are different now. through baptism she was forgiven of all of her sins and she has made a promise or a covenant with God to follow him and keep His commandments. she also has the gift of the Holy Ghost... so she will always have his guidance in her life when she lives worthy. she knows this will help her and her family. it’s a different happiness from the world... a happiness that can only be found through the true principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

 

adriana read the christmas story to us out of the bible on christmas eve and she talked about how we need to think about if joseph and mary were knocking on our door if we would let them? also, how we can know when Christ is knocking. it was really awesome to for her to now be teaching us!

this week starts 2014… how crazy is that? i’m excited about the fact that this year-- in 2014, i will completely be in the service of Jesus Christ. every single day this year i will be a full time missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and thus a representative of Jesus Christ. it will be a year different than any other for the rest of my life and i hope i can be worthy of this title and this calling and make a difference in my life but also for others.

happy new year!! i hope christmas was great and everyone spent time with lots of family and friends.  i hope 2014 will be extra special for all of us :) during your time off this holiday season take some time to check out mormon.org and learn more about why the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is so special to millions of people all over the world. 

xoxo sister faldmo

and sister mora & i went out christmas day baring gifts

christmas eve dinner... brazilian style

 adriana gave me a gift... she is soooooo good to me

no more tears

christmas morning with the sisters in camobi

"chata"... might seem like a rude adjective if you speak Portuguese but sister mora and i use it as a term of endearment

tryin to make our companions pancakes christmas morning

short and sweet.... (family chat in 2 DAYS!!!!) december 23, 2013

GOOD
●special zone conference with three zones for natal!!!

Things we did after zone conference

 

                          told santa what we wanted                               took pictures in front of the downtown tree

this works....

         sister mora and i saw our old companions 

some would call this sucking up... i believe photo op would be the right term
me & sister parella

                   camobi sisters at zone conference              

                          provo district reunion                                           elder from ctm

BAD

●biffing it in front of the other sisters’ investigator... i was trying to be reallly friendly hoping she would want to come to church with us and what not, but in the talking/walking process wasn’t paying attention and the good standard sidewalk here changed on me and... well, leave it to your imagination:/

AWK

●jantar (dinner) with the ward for a christmas activity-- SO MUCH MEAT!!

●false addresses-- were not dumb. when you hesitate for 2 minutes to think of your name, we get it… we know. 

●we were like the only ones who didn’t have a talent for the zone talent show:/

●the poor office elder had to retrieve my christmas package for me and he said he could barely haul it from the office. i had to make him a treat in return. 

sioux city christmas... represent!!

 

        christmas box has arrived...                          

   oh my...  santa???

AWESOME

●helping teach the young women yesterday #besthouroftheweek

●SISTER PARRELLA LET US HAVE ICE CREAM FOR NATAL!! #missaobrasilsantamariaprobs

●leite condensado aka sweeten condensed milk. try it on brownies... why do we not use this on everything in america too?!

wait… what??? natal is in two days? it’s beeeeping hot here and there’s no christmas lights so i’m refusing to believe it… but i’ll accept the fact that i get to talk to my fam fam in two days yes please and thank you!!! tudo bem here in camobi. this week our numbers were little but our hearts and hopes are big,  right?? we have a couple people really progressing and think we will be having a baptism real soon :) i hope and pray they are really ready.  although it’s natal, to be honest i don’t really feel like people are more open to our message but it’s all good. i’m happier because we have lots planned for the next couple days and i’m excited for it all. 

in our messages with members this week (that we give after lunch) we have been talking a lot about the Atonement of Jesus Christ because in the spirit of natal-- what really is the purpose of it all? the birth of Jesus Christ, but the most important purpose of His life and mission was the Atonement. the plan of salvation, repentance for sins, everything that is realllly vital is possible because of the Atonement. i’m so grateful. 

anyways. i love you all lots and miss you all MUITO k?

have a holly jolly christmas/natal and drink some hot cocoa for me please. 

the church is true peeps and i love telling todo mundo about it. 

xoxo com amor- ash aka sister faldmo

                    

                                 in bloom for natal

papa noel is coming to townnnnn!!!! December 16, 2013

GOOD

●it’s kinda awkward when i don’t have a lot to put in this section... 

●i got a hair cut

a great english class this week:)

BAD

●my portuguese isn’t quite up to par yet... i.e. we sat down to teach a less active member and panicked because we hadn’t planned our lesson because teaching him was like plan G on our schedule but plans A-F fell through. sister mora asked me to give the message. it was a simple message on faith but i couldn’t find the scripture i wanted so we started reading a bunch of random scriptures in the right chapter until it sounded like the right one... and it still wasn’t. i just hope the spirit was there.. 

●almost started the apartment on fire after getting rid of paperwork.

●missionaries who gave us sheets of progressing investigators and only wrote their name and age. no address. not sure how we will be able to contact them but thanks elders!!

●eternal lunches. 

mother's note:  not sure why eternal lunches is on the bad list???

●speaking of lunches literally 3 minutes after we left lunch friday it started POURING. i didn’t have my umbrella so sister clay shared with me. but then the wind started to blow so hard and there was no hiding. finally i gave up and starting running down the street to the next members house. oh yeah and then found our window in our apartment  open where we study because the morning was SO HOT!! great…

AWKWARD
●went to teach an investigator... long story short, they’re getting a divorce. it was an awkward convo with her ex fosho.
●the drunk uncle always appears during our lessons. this last time during the prayer when she said she was grateful for the lesson and what they learned drunk uncle pipes in (during the prayer) “i just got here! i didn’t learn anything!” oh my... 

●sitting next to an elder at the christmas devotional. but seriously… this so awkward. 

●sometimes when people speak portuguese i’m just amazed they can talk that fast. its incredible! 

●one of our less actives/recent converts (yes sadly he is both) won’t pray… he wants us to pray but he won’t do it... but he says any other person can. one day his excuse was that he’s not praying until after the new year. another excuse…he can’t remember how, but he won’t let us teach him. after waiting for him and saying i wasn’t praying until the new year too… finally after like 5 minutes… i just said the prayer and asked for some choice blessing for him, like him remembering how to pray. 

AWESOME

●we saw victoria!  remember our investigator from the family night story where they surprised us and said they were all reading the book of mormon together and almost finished... but they were moving the next day. well… now she has finished it! however, an awkward part of all of this is we sent the elders to her new pink house so they could teach her... they tried to find her twice on hot hot days and apparently it’s reallllly far away for them to walk. well, turns out her house is white... oops. SorryL

●giving tours of our chapel. i gave my first one this week and the spirit was SO strong. 

●sister training leaders came to visit…  awesome because they are conveniently my last companion and sister mora’s last companion. 

●finally having plans and know what we are doing for christmas and christmas eve. 

 

on our way to christmas devotional

every time people talked about christmas this week i got a little depressed. everyone has their families and we’re just alone here. we didn’t know where we would go or what we would do. i figured a nice long nap on christmas could be good… maybe we could bake some goodies? but then all a sudden we got invites and had options and then we had ideas better than family dinners and selfish things... like caroling at the hospital and visiting members that also don’t have family here. i think we can make christmas really great here… and the members that we will spend christmas with are really like our family here. they take care of us and i’m so grateful for them. (once again-- take care of the missionaries everyone!!)

 

how's this for festive???

myself and the three missionaries in my apartment have been having fun preparing a secret santa for our zone conference, the talent show (i have NOTHING to do. my best option right now is a yoyo trick that a recent convert who is 11 taught me.), and dreaming about sweets. but, i’ve figured out that everything on the mission is what you make of it. sure... im realllly sad i will be away from family and 40 minutes is not enough to talk to them but i can use this christmas to really be doing what Christ would be doing… and that’s exactly what i need to be doing as a representative of Jesus Christ and His church. 

i love you all and hope you all have a great christmas. do something extra for someone who needs it more… i promise it will make you feel happier than the material things that will end up in the trash or at the goodwill one day. 

xoxo, sister faldmo. 

natal in camobi! december 9, 2013

GOOD
●making brownies and comparing it to the gospel of Jesus Christ. we know how to make our cake and eat it tooJ... is that the phrase? i don’t know. we’re just creative with our teaching for our own goodJ

sister mora & i are still companions

BAD

●i was saying how SORTE (lucky) we are to an investigator and she heard FORTE (strong) and she said yeah you girls are very strong! ...now she probably thinks i think i’m a big deal. nooooo. 

●missing byu basketball #gocougs #stilllovecharles

●a member of the ward here asked what happened to my hair. apparently he doesn’t like my missionary melt.... 

●no one likes us between the hours of 1-4. i’m getting more and more jealous of the missionaries with facebook because it is soooo hard to teach during this time. 

●it is SO HOT!

AWK
●my companion’s family is moving to utah for her dad to study at byu, so she’s trying to learn english. so we practice reading in english and everytime she comes to the word because she sings “because” like rihanna does in umbrella. (BECAUSE when the sun shines we shine together....)

●we made a birthday cake for an elder in our district... but didn’t have a knife to cut it. so some elders left the chapel and went to a neighbor’s aka stranger and borrowed one. alright. that works. 

this is really what i look like in the morning... do we make a lot of cakes? it was sister gomes' bday

AWESOME

●NOT TRANSFERRED! staying here for the next six weeks! which means NATAL with my family here in camobi :)

●my last companion (sister jackman) is a leader now so one night i had to call her... we ended up talking for a long time, just catching up. i felt like a normal girl for a second. 

adriana's baptism was an awesome day... sorry this pic is late.

this week was realllly chill. teaching, eating, laughing, dying of heat. all in a day’s work. we’re working with and teaching a new family and we possibly be baptized during this transfer. this work is good. i am SORTE aka lucky to be here. i’m happy. i’m healthy... i thinkJ my hair is dying in this heat but we will get over that. i’m also trying to make our apartment look like christmas but with my limited time and money we’re struggling. christmas is in our hearts that’s what matters… right?!

also... the references are rolling here and i LOVE it! i hope it’s the same way at home. all the members of a ward need to help the missionaries... do you hear me?! :) alright. 

love you alllll.

xoxo

sister faldmo

PICTURES FROM LAST WEEK THAT WOULDN'T LOAD: ADRIANA'S BAPTISM!!!

it might not look like much... but this cake was a HUGE hit at adriana's baptism

these are a few of adriana's supporters

sister mora, me & adriana's mother

adriana & a friend on her baptism day