Kylie's letter 8/27/12

Well looks like summer ended and school has started. This summer flew by waaaaay tooo fast. And the mission is flying by even faster. I will make 1 year on the mission this week. Weird that I have been doing this for 1 year. Doesn't feel that long. what would you guys think if I extended my mission for another six months.... I am just kidding. Sort of.

This week was very exciting. 

- First off it was an emotional roller coaster. Every day was very different. One day everything fell and nobody wanted to listen to us and then the next would be filled with lots of lessons and lots of people with potential and the next day everything would fall again. but such is life... God gives us the bad days and it makes the good days even better. 

- I got in a bike accident. Don't worry I am totally fine, I was riding home really fast to get home within the hour and I hit this guy. Actually we hit each other. He was riding his bike too. And we crashed, I bruised my knee and demolished his bike. It was really weird, God is watching out for his missionaries. Because my bike was perfectly fine and I was fine too, but his bike took a beating. I helped him pay for a new wheel and everything. haha, makes a good story. 

- This week I was able to see the fulfilling of Gods promises to his missionaries that in the very hour you will know what to say. We were teaching a man (turned out to be a pastor) on the street and he was asking us a whole bunch of questions trying to trip us up--things like what we would say if I came upon a drunk man, and about the doctrines of Cristo etc. etc. And it was the coolest experience looking back at it. At the time, I just said the things that came into my head, but looking back Heavenly Father was really helping, because while speaking to him, I knew exactly what he was thinking and knew exactly what answers he needed to hear. And I just opened my mouths and let the words come out. He is a pastor that doesn't want to read the Book of Mormon, but he has one and maybe one day, he will soften his heart enough to read it. But he was impressed with our responses. And I hope we helped change the image he has of the Church of Jesus Christ. 

- We visited another church last night. We were supported a few of our investigators that sang in church and we wanted to watch. We went and listened to 2 hours of really, really loud prayers and singing. I have listened to these churches outside, but inside is almost unbearable. I had to fight the urge to cover my ears. But all in all it was a very moving experience, and to my surprise I felt the spirit. Looking at the pastors with all their nice clothes and sheeky cars, I didn't feel the spirit as they were speaking and praying and doing their thing, but I did feel the spirit clapping and praising god with the Brazilian people. They really put their heart and souls into their praises. And I felt the love of God for these people and I felt the love of God that they had. Yesterday morning I got really sad/discouraged/annoyed with all the people, what we call here in Brazil mole (pronounced moley). Mole is a word that captures all of the people we teach that don't keep commitments, and don't really do anything about the gospel. Anyway, I was feelings these things yesterday morning about these people and just sad that they don't have that thing deep down inside to act and to do something about their faith in God. But in that little church singing and shouting praises to God, I felt the spirit whisper to me, that these people will be happy in the after life. They will continue praising God and they will be happy in their own way. So I decided I am going to stop feeling sad about the people who don't want anything to do with the Church of Jesus Cristo and just remember that in the end everything will turn out right and they too will be happy. Of course they all have the potential to reach a bigger and better happiness, but maybe I think these people wouldn't be happy in the celestial kingdom...who knows; we each have our free agency to choose what we will. 

-We have some potential baptisms this week. I hope everything goes well with them. They have been really hard to get a hold of, they have been traveling. But they are an awesome couple, really young, but very mature. Manuela and Marquino. We´ll see how this week goes

- and the elect family, is going really really slowly. But I am hoping that the Book of Mormon will do its magic. 

thanks for your emails, and prayers

good luck with school 

and remember someone in Brazil loves you

sis p

Kylie's Letter 8-20-12

soooooo,

My new companion is Sister Margarette Zeller. She is super sweet and
will be a great companion. She has 4 months in Brazil, but she
speaks very well, she doesn't speak a whole ton, but her accent is
great. I am hoarse  right now because I have been talking waaaay too
much. I need to learn how to let her talk more and do the contacts.
But hey- I'm getting a lot of Portuguese practice in. She is from
Oregon, a geography major at BYU and another tall blond hair blue eyed
American. We make quite the pair riding our bikes with our helmets.

We are working super hard here, we are planning on doing a fireside
on patriarchal blessings, and doing a training for the leaders
here on how to do a ward counsel meeting. Everything is waaaay
  unorganized here and I am trying to fortify the ramo as well as be a
missionary. It's kinda hard to be a missionary and a member at the same
time. The members at present rely waaay too much on the missionaries
and I am trying to help them realize all the things that they need to
do and see that it isn't our responsibility but theirs. I think it is getting
better. I love this little branch much. And they deserve a chapel.
That is one goal we are working for.

So this week started with my companion fainting, the first day on the
bike was a little rough. Poor thing. I have had to learn to slow down
my pace waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down. But yeah, she fainted the first day
and I am sooooo grateful it was in the house of a member and not in
the street. And me being such a wonderful companion I left her in the
house of the member and carried another member on the back of my bike
to go do visits.Poor thing, but it worked out well. It was a long hard
day but good. It ended with an awesome lesson with a amazing family
who sat and devoured everything that I said, they were sooo respectful
and wanted to learn the whys about everything. Why I was on the
mission, how the gospel has blessed my life, why the gospel is
important for me. I hope the book of Mormon does its magic with them.
Pray for them. Natanel, Angela, Lu, and Natalia. I clapped on their
door right as they were headed out for church and they said no - we
want to hear what you have to say and for sure it will be just as good
as what we would hear in church. (elect!!!) we will see what happens.

But the work continues, the sunny days are returning, and it is
getting hot again.

Love you all!!

ky

Kylie's letter 8/13/12

This is the last week of Sister Cunha. I will miss her so much. She is headed back home to Manaus in the Amazons. This week was filled with a lot of late nights talking. I think I have only gotten three hours of sleep every single night this week.They say in mission vocabulary that I am killing her (sending her home) but I think she is killing me. I feel like I have a huge hangover. But hey....I don't regret one night. And we have one last night together to party it up.

Had interviews with presidente and looks like I´ll be getting a gringa. I really wanted another Brazilian. But the Lord knows best.

This week is kind of a blur. But looking through my journal, I had one really great spiritual experience. Sis Cunha and I for companionship study shared our testimonies to each other, which we hardly ever do. It is usually to other people. But we bore our testimonies to each other and prayed for every investigator and every member by name. It was the most spiritual companionship study I have ever had.   I love the spirit. I don't think we understand the gift of the spirit and the profoundness (I hope this is an English word because I think it is a mixture of Port and Eng...) we have a member of the Trinidad with us at all times. The capacity to receive orientation in whatever moment. Seek for the constant companionship of the spirit and be aware of it! 

sure love you all. 

happy summer times

sis p 

Kylie's 2 letters, Aug. 6, 2012

My Dear family.                                                                                                          8/6/12

Que alegria! I am so sad that summer is coming to end. I am sad too because this transfer is coming to an end. And Sister Cunha will be heading home. But is has been such a good three months with her. But I am excited for the next transfers coming up, can’t believe how fast the time is going. Aaaagh! Love the mission- recommend it to any person. viu!

Ok - so this week´s stories:

- Andreza got baptized!!! Wooohoooo! It was the most unorganized hectic day of my entire life and I was soooo stressed out. Her baptism was planned for the same day of a festa quadrilha in the church and we planned to do it before. But our leader of missionary work in the branch didn’t fill the baptismal font and on the day of the baptism there was no water. So.....we started running around like chickens with our heads cut off. We ran to go talk to people with water trucks but they jacked up the price, ran back to the church to try to get hoses to link to other water boxes in other parts of the building. Which worked, but it was two hours before the baptism, and we only had a little bit of water. The hour of the baptism arrived, we had investigators that were there for the party but there were no members (common in brazil for everyone to arrive hours late), and the baptismal party arrived and our leader of the missionary work in the branch hadn’t organized the program......To make a looooong story short. She was baptized 8 o´clock at night, in shin deep water. She had to kneel down, and the guy who baptized her was super nervous and she had to be baptized three times. And the program was quickly thrown together. Ai ai ai, but I learned my lesson. If you want something done right you have got to do it yourself. The others sisters said they felt the spirit so I was glad about that. And Andreza had a cute attitude she joked that she had to be baptized three times because she had that many sins. Haha, cute girl. She and carol are the start of a wonderful work in the area we are working in. Vamos lá.

Three min left...

Know that I love you all. And know that Michele is back in church and she is okay. She made a deal with the Holy Ghost and wanted him to show the truths that she doubted and He did! I love her!

tchau tchau!

write more next time.

love you all

Ky

Okay - I have a little bit more time,

So we had the baptism And it was a little hectic but great. And the quadrilha (which is a basically a country dance of hillbillies with lots of food) I was working at the fishing station (you know the little fishing thing to get prizes) and all of the kids were pouting and complaining about what prizes they got and fighting in line. And they would call me titia, which is like auntie - a type of endearing word better than the normal tia (aunt) they called me titia (cheecheea) with their little pouty complaining. That day was a looong day and tested all of my attributes of Cristo that I have tried to gain. Actually I think they all left me that day. :D

- Funny food story of the week: we ate lunch at the house of Michele are golden investigator that is now back to believing (thank to the Holy Ghost and lotttssss of prayer) she served us chicken gizzard. Which tastes like chicken but has an organ texture (not the normal muscle texture). It wasn’t the yummiest thing I have eaten in my life. She was sitting across from us feeding her three year old and chatting away. She mentioned that her little girl didn’t like the meat so she kept telling her that she would turn into a princess after she ate everything on the plate. I was struggling too with the meat. I sat and watched this little girl take spoonful after spoonful quietly and obediently dry heaving/gagging in between bites. The poor thing. Her mom didn’t notice she just kept talking about turning into a princess. Needless to say- we both turned into princesses...

- Spiritual moment of the week - yesterday was testimony meeting. I love testimony meeting!!! The spirit here is different in Brazil because the majority of the people are recent converts. These are the pioneers of the church in Brazil. You can feel that same fiery spirit that the pioneers of old had who trekked across the plains. I love being about of this marvelous work and a wonder. Remember to look for and pray for missionary opportunities in your lives back home too. You will be surprised to find how many people the Lord puts in your path! Love this gospel!

and Love you all!!

sis P

our trip to the beach, and Maçadinha (a historical place where slaves were kept on a plantation type thing), me and my Querida companheira, and me with a plant of madica!!! I think in English it is cassava. But we eat the roots and it is super duper delicious roasted with butter. MMMMMMmmmm! Planning on trying to pass customs with some of that stuff.