Week 4

Oi minha familiaaa,

I don't really know what to say this week, since the second week everything has been the same! The devotional this week was pretty cool, the wife of whoever is speaking always gets up for about ten minutes or so to talk and Brother Gavarett's wife got up and she bore her testimony in Portuguese for everyone, it was the best! I understood like everything she said and it was just so amazing to hear someone give a real testimony in the language, the testimonies we share are all real, but they are also very structured from what we learned, so that was a highlight for the whole district.

You guys asked some questions about the "investigators" they aren't real investigators, they are just our teachers, but we are on our third teacher for one block of our language study. The first one we taught in English and he left a few lessons in, and then we had one in Portuguese that we got to teach 4 lessons and had committed to baptism after coming to church and stuff, one more lesson and we would have set a date. So this week we started on our new one. But we have had one the whole time, our teacher picked someone from his mission and showed us pictures and told us about him so that is who we are teaching, not our teacher. We have him committed to baptism but he hasn't let us set a date yet, this week we will set one for sure. It's hard though, he is 65 and just lost his job, and the next commandment we have to teach him is tithing. He has been smoking for a long time, this week we taught him the Word of Wisdom, sooo many new things to learn in that lesson in Portuguese and so many commitments. He is ok with not drinking coffee anymore but the smoking will be hard, we just have to help him set goals and remind him of the blessings he will recieve.  We have been doing a bunch of work with teaching by the spirit, everyday it becomes more important because you plan something and then go in and sometimes you know what direction it neeeeds to go in but don't know any words to take it there, luckily though we are getting to the point where we know enough that we can take the lesson more and more directions which allows us to listen to the spirit and be confident to follow it. I never understood how important it is though, its everything, a lesson is nothing if the spirit isn't there, and it can be 10x better when it suits their needs. We also teach in TRC which is where people from the outside world come in and volunteer to be taught, thank goodness for so many Portuguese speakers in the area, most are RM's coming to keep up with the language, its really fun, we mostly end up asking them to share with us an experience from their mission and it is always so cool. We cant understand every word of their story but you can just feel the power of their testimony and the spirit fills in all the gaps and even if you dont understand every word you understand the entire experience. (I met a guy who knows TJ and has met Michelle who goes to UVU, but caaaant remember his name:/)

I'm out of stuff to say so... Wednesdays here are great. We stand outside and just watch new people walk up and you can yell "BEM VINDO" at them all day and they think you are so smart because you know how to say "welcome" in your language and they don't. Having that orange dot on your tag is so weird, the whole day people yell at you and smile at you and stare at you. So it's nice watching everyone else have them and we're like the old ones here now. Speaking of that, I get my reassignment NEXT WEEK! like 6 days, AND when I do I get a 5 min phone call home so be by the phone next Thursday slash possibly Wednesday. I feel good about it, I have had several times here where the spirit confirms to me that it's going to be ok if I get reassigned, Im really excited actually! I will be meant to go wherever I go and serving here in the States for however long will be a blessing. I already know the people and I know the language and I'm raedy to do work wherever I get called.

I am in Alma 55 right now, trying to finish before I leave the MTC! We were promised a loot of blessings if we finish it here, but then they take 15 minutes out of our personal study and I'm the slowest reader ever but I'm reading every spare moment and have been doing about 20 pages a day this week, its awesome! The whole story has never made so much sense!

Welllll I've been doing well and I can't believe I have been a missionary for an entire month as of today! I don't feel extremely different but then again when I look at where I was a month ago I have come a long way. It's just hard to see day to day improvement but my testimony really is growing and my Portuguese gets better and better as I use it, I know I'm growing a lot I just only have like 12 days to get as much in as I can before I get to the field it's crazy!

Happy mothers day to Mom! (and Jenny! and Tiff! and Grandma Stevens and Demery!) Keep the dearelders coming while you can everyone!!

 

Love

Sister Stevens