“Portanto, ó vós que embarcais no serviço de Deus, vede que o sirvais de todo o coração, poder, mente e força, para que vos apresenteis sem culpa perante Deus no último dia.”
Olá!!! Tudo bem??
If I were to describe the OCTM, it would probably be, Epic FSY or YA conference on steroids. Both are good, I mean, I love learning so many things at once. It is actually really nice to almost completely focus on gospel things. You’ll kinda see what I mean later.. Don’t worry, all good thing, all good things.
Sunday: Feliz Ano Novo!
This was my first Sunday as a missionary, and I loved it so much! Although after tomorrow, I’ll have to start preparing 5 minute talks every week in São Paulo. Sister Vanwagoner had a really awesome lesson in Gospel Doctrine, and we read a lot of scriptures, and it was a really good start to the new year!
Monday: Less inglês…
We all graduated from our Basic Core books and have to move up to Intermediate, which means less english, and more português.. I am both excited and scared. I am getting to the point where I can kinda understand what people are saying, like some words are familiar, but not even close to being strong enough to do more than a few questions an answers at a time. It will be okay though!
Tuesday: Okay Dr. Strange..
So I know this isn’t spiritual at all, but I thought it was absolutely hilarious.
My dad found a googly eye, and he slapped it on his forehead, so it looked like a third eye.
“Okay Dr Strange”
We both laughed, and my dad said,
“I know! Charades!”
And did it again. I was laughing a lot, and asked him how he would react if his brother or his dad would’ve done that, so I mimicked it.
This is where it all went wrong.
I slapped my head with such force, I gave myself a headache. I cannot even describe the absolute force I used.
Wednesday: Devotional Day & District Meeting
So this day we decided to start our District Meeting early, to play some games online to help us with Portuguese. Well… the games would’ve been really complicated if we had done that, so we just did it in english to get to know each other better before we leave for Brazil next week. After some fun times, we got a link to watch the devotional, which was AWESOME. I tried really hard to listen to it in the language it was being spoken in(português), and I could feel the spirit a lot. I am so excited to go to them in person next week!
Thursday: Awkward
So on all of our schedules, it said we had a workshop, but after we all got on the instructor was like, “I don’t think this is for you” and “Tchau tchau!” And we all awkwardly just left. We just were all confused kkkkkk. (<- that’s how you do hahaha in Brazil) Anyways, this was a rough day for me. I was frustrated with everyone, and didn’t really feel like I had a good spirit with me that day. It is okay though, I have worked on not feeling like that and keeping a good spirit with me.
Friday: FLIGHTS CAME IN!!
I am so SO excited about this!!! However, I do lose one extra day with my family that we had kinda planned on. It is a really good thing that I was already mostly packed, and I don’t really need a lot of stuff. I also got to do this day at my grandparents house, because I just needed to focus on not being in my room for 2 weeks straight. While I was there, we had our ACTUAL workshop, and it was actually sooo cool! It was on the Gift of Tongues, and we watched a video about the first 4 elders who went to Turkey, and had to learn Turkish, but they had almost nothing compared to when they started in Bulgaria. I am now really motivated to learn Português. Sis Womack and I are going to go over flashcards and read our Livro de Mórmons on the plane rides. After our workshop, minha companheiras e eu taught a less on Doctrine and Covenants section 4, which as you’ll notice is where I found my scripture for this week. We ended up having a really amazing testimony meeting, and every one of us shared something. It was awesome, and we all were an amazing support for each other. I can’t wait to meet all these people in person! They are amazing!
Saturday: Today is my last day to get everything from a store! I am so excited, and I am also going to the Ogden temple with my parents. Originally, all the people from Utah were going to go, but most of the group dipped, all for valid reasons, but still sad. It’s going to be great though, we’ll all meet either Monday evening in Atlanta, or Tuesday morning in Brazil!!!
I love you all! I am so grateful for all the experiences I’ve had, and I know that I will continue to have even more! Please email me! I love reading messages to know you all read it :)
Eu sei que Jesus Cristo é meu irmão. Ele é um filho de Deus. Eu sou é filha de Deus. Ele ama a mim e a você!
Next week I’ll be in Brazil, so hopefully more of my email will be in Português, but that’s all for now!
Sister Shelley
