Bloggy goodness

Hey, so I decided that I need to involve people more in the whole mission experience, so this week, I´m going to give an overview of the week. Fun? Maybe. ... but only maybe. Don´t judge me if its boring..
Since I write every wednesday, I´ll start from thursday:
Quinta:Was a relatively normal day. We got up, studied, and then ate lunch... at a restaurant (the members here live sooooooooo far away that usually they just give us money to eat at a local restaurant. Its fun. Less fun than at members, but there is usually more salad at the restaurant.. ??)We taught: Erica, some drunks in the street (??) and FABRICIA, who is one of my favorites, and Evandro. And a bunch of others just in the street. Fabricia is a cool story, she used to a CRAZY drug addict, and then lost EVERYTHING she owned, and realized that her kids lives were going to hell.. so she quit. Now she´s clean, but still is in the process of rebuilding her life. Its a sloooooooooow process but she´s receiving the gospel well. I´m pleased.SExtA:We taught wilson, rosalha (who really doesnt want anything..) and fernanda (who also, really isnt interested) Cristiane (she´s awesome) alex, and drunks in the street (faz parte)We´re teaching a cool girl named Luciene (SHE IS AMAZING!) who lives forever away, so we have to call her to accompany her. thats nice.SabaDo:Moniessssss for lunch again. We live in a good sized city though, so the restaurants are pretty good. $2,50, none the less..We taught EVERYONE about keeping the sabbath day holy (in other words GO TO CHURCH TOMORROW!!!) it turned out well.DOMingO:We have church at 3pm and so we have to eat lunch and then go to church . its weird. I like it, but this WHOLE time I´ve had this mindset of wake up at the crack of dawn to go get our investigators. I´m personally a fan of the current situation..It was good though, Luciene came, and I love her. Her son, however, is somewhat of a hellian, but I love him too. he is 4.SeguNdA:We had our weekly planning (which I love) and then all four of us went to the the bakery under our house to buy garbage, and then the whole way back up to our house we all said (while eating cake and other goodness) "I´m on a diet.. can you tell?" hahaAnyway, I´m noticing this actually isnt fun. SO I´m going to say, my week was great. I just now remembered that I had to do divisions with the other sisters THREE times, because FIRST sister Smith fell out of a mango tree and sprained her ankle, so I went with her comp to accompany their investigators, then she got better and HER comp fell in the street, twisting her ankle, so I had to go with smith 2 times. It was really fun actually. I love them both!It is sad, but pretty funny that the TWO of them sprained their ankles in the same week... hahaAnyway things are goo, I heard a cool phrase: Don´t keep the faith- SPREAD IT! haha and it has apicture of butter being spread on bread.. muahaha.Anyway, I´m in love with this area. I´m happy as can be! I love love love you all- sb

Life After Transfers goes on

Hello!well so much has happened, I dont know where to begin!! Transfers were last week, and those are always fun. I was transfered from Nova Cidade, Sete lagoas to Divinopolis, Divinopolis!Its funny, Nova cidade was like a forth of the size of salem- and Divinopolis is probably about the size of 2 or 3 salem´s put together.. its HUGE.I love it though! Its a city! Like, a real city!! (*have I been city deprived for the past year? I think so..) Its so fun! The contacts are harder because people are always in a hurry in big cities, but still. Fun. A new dynamic.ALSO! We have a new Mission President, so with him, a whole bunch of new rules. So far I´m not a huge FAN of the new rules, but I completely trust the Lord,and I trust that he was called of God. So, I accept these new rules. Again, change is part of the journey!Just before I left Nova Cidade, we had a miracle happen! I was getting sad because we were having a lot of trouble getting people to PROGRESS. And I started to feel like there wasnt ANY one in that area who wanted to hear the gospel! So I prayed fervently and fasted. I remember that one day in one of my prayers I said "Lord, where aRE Thy children who are READY to hear the gospel? Where??" and the next day at church, a kid showed up and said "I like how I feel here, and this is the only church for me. I know its true. I want to get baptized."Wow! So, we taught him (and had a few problems with authorizing him to baptize because of a crazy aunt of his, who actually didnt have anything to do with signing the baptismal form, but somehow managed to mess everything up.. just a little though.) and then *after all that with his aunt* he was baptized!!! It was so rad! And then he bore his testimony in sacrament meeting the next day! It was so simple and beautiful. I´m grateful for the opportunity to see God´s answers to our prayers.
Right now I live in an apartment with another pair of sisters!!! My companion, sis. Reis and I have the lower half of the city, and Sis. Smith (my former companion, whom I adore!) and her comp (and DAUGHTER, cause she´s training her!) Sis. Morais have the upper half- but we all live together. It is AWESOME. I love it. Sis. Smith is still insane, and it is lovely. She´s so much fun. We all sing all morning long!
I was reading an article this morning in the ensign that my amazingly awesome mother sent me (thaaaaaaaaaaaank you, it was the envy of every american, I´ll have you know) this morning and found this part particularly interesting:
"Our challanges, including those we create by our own decisions, ar part of our test in mortality. Let me assure youthat your situation is NOT beyond the reach of our Savior. Through Him, every struggle can be for our experience and our good. Each temptation we overcome is to strengthen us, NOT to destroy us. The Lord will never allow us to sufferbeyond what we can endure." -Rober D. Hales ("becoming provident providers temporally and spiritually")
I loved that part "each temptation we overcome is to STRENGTHEN us, not to destroy us!" our experiences can be what creates us, if we let it! IF we trust in the Lord. He knows how to use our experiences for our good! He knows how to illuminate our minds to make trials and challenges appear as the character-building opportunities that they are (or potentially could be.)I´m trying to put this all into practice in my life. Easier said than done, eh?But yeah, life is good right now. I´m loving every minute! Soaking in the present is how life is meant to be lived. The good and the bad have something of worth to offer. If only the exhilerating experience of feeling alive. I´m still, and continually impressed by the scripture in 2 nephi 2:26 that explains to us clearly that WE are free to choose. Our lives are ours to live- but the consiquences are what we need to be careful of! understanding the CONSIQUENCES of our actions is true freedom. God´s commandments are for exactly that. To teach us how to have the CONSIQUENCES that we want. Peace, security, wisdom, health, love- everything that we are all searching for in one way or another.Anyway, thats all for now, I love and miss you all tons.Até mais- com amor- sb