5 March 2014

3-5-14

Dear Family,

I’m writing you on Wednesday this week because all of Brazil was on Holiday for Carnival, so nothing was open Monday. I am so grateful this holiday is finally ending and that I will only be here during carnival once. J  To add to the craziness everything was en greve (I spent about 10 min trying to remember what this is in English.. I think it’s called a strike? when no one wants to work because they want more money...) anyway so we didn’t have onibuses and had to cancel our meetings because no one could get to Curitiba, and lots of exciting stuff, but all that is finally over with. On the plus side there were way more people in their houses during the greve, but in general this didn´t end up working in our favor too well. All of our baptisms dropped either because they were traveling, or they didn´t want to live the commandments... (Carnival is a holiday where you can do whatever you want from Saturday ‘til Tuesday because apparently God isn´t watching, and then Wednesday -today - everyone repents.) Anyway it was super frustrating and heart-breaking to see how “eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die" is exactly how people felt here. But I was able to learn a lot in the process. I left a house pretty discouraged because after much conversation about the law of chastity, our investigator decided that she didn´t want to live the law of chastity yet - and this seemed to be the theme of our day. But my verdinha companhiera was a really good example and as we left the house and I just wanted to give up I was so frustrated trying to call people to repentance and she said "well lets go knock some more doors!" And I was thinking you know what, you´re right. It doesn´t do anyone any good to sit here feeling frustrated at the world. It really is our decision whether or not we want to be happy. So we said a prayer and went on our way. It was pretty dark and during carnival so everyone was drunk and no, we didn´t find some miracle family, but I realized, just the same, we can choose what we want to do in hard situations and whether we want to let ourselves be upset because of the decisions of others or choose to be happy and make the best of it. She was a great example of that.

Speaking of companions—I have Another New companion! #16! I’ll finish training her so she´s kind of my 7th filha. Sister A Santos is a rockstar and didn´t even need to finish her training and I’m sure she is doing great in Santa Felicidade, but it was sad we only had 2 weeks together. But anyway my new comp is awesome as well, Sister Palomino. She´s from Lima, Peru, but she studied a yr. at BYU-I and a yr. at BYU, so it has been fun for the first time since the states, to have a comp who knows my culture and can laugh about the same things. She’s an awesome missionary too. I think being an STL here just means you get new companions every 3 weeks so you kinda work with all the sisters because the other STL of the mission has been having quite a few transfers too.

I was reading “The 4th Missionary”, this week (love that talk I think this is the 3rd time studying it during the mish) and I loved how he talked about for us to truly change, we can´t just be doing what we´re supposed to, we have to actually change our will and our desires to be in line with God´s will and desires. It’s like if you fast or do service with a bad attitude, what good is it doing you? It’s the same with missionaries. It’s easy to go thru the motions, following the rules, giving the same lesson, and all the while thinking about other things, looking forward to the day that you´ll finish this so you can be happy, but in the long run this really isn´t easier because you are struggling between what you want to do and what you´re actually doing. But if you can truly learn to love what you´re doing, you won´t just get somewhere, you will become something! I thought about how the same applies to us in the church. You can begrudgingly accept every calling and get thru doing your Visiting Teaching because that´s what you´re supposed to do, and do the assignments you´re given, but when you´re truly changed, you WANT to do it. You are looking for opportunities to serve, you´re asking the missionaries who you can help, asking the bishop which less-actives need a friend because it´s in your nature. I loved the way he described it and truly our purpose is to become like God so we have to learn to make our desires His desires! It’s the same with investigators too. It isn´t doing a whole lot for them to force them to do what´s right; We have to help them WANT to do what´s right, want to keep the commandments, want to be at church. Alma talks about clean hands AND a pure heart, And my favorite thing is seeing that truly change: When people no longer have that desire to do evil, but to do good continually. Marguerida is a beautiful example of that. She has stopped, drinking, smoking, and coffee, all in about 2 weeks, even though the people around her are all doing that stuff still, because she has the desire. Not just because we told her she shouldn´t do that but because she doesn´t want to do it anymore. And you can see a glow in her that didn´t exist before because her heart has changed.

Anyway I love yall and hope you have a wonderful week as well.

Love,

Sister Lewis