Puxa vida (= wow, or Oh my goodness), Kat has been out 6 months. One
year to go.
Hi Family!!!!
Merry Christmas! Here on the mission we're not exactly having the white
christmas that we all know and love from skiing in utah and eating fudge
at grandmas house, but its still a white christmas. White with baptisms
= way better.
I dont know if my email from last week worked out to be sent last week,
but we had a nice little baptism of a lady named Vanderlanda. She is
about 150 years old and very nice. She makes us food (aka she fries up
whatevers in the fridge). But her baptism was last week, and then this
week her son, Eduardo got baptized. He is a great guy, and a great dad.
He and his wife are separated, and he's been through a lot of rough
times in his life, but now he is doing really well. He is definitely one
of those "right time right place" kind of baptisms. In his own words, he
was saying one night how if he had been introduced to the gospel a few
years back, he probably wouldnt have accepted it, because he like to go
out, drink, and do his own thing with his life. But now with a little
more maturity, he says that he knows that this is the right direction he
needs to be heading in his life and that this is the right time for him
to accept the gospel. And he loves learning it. He has a lot of earnest
questions and he is really smart, so its great teaching him. (Except for
my limited portugues, and sometimes i dont know what he's saying because
his vocab is way higher than most people we talk to, so thank heaven for
the members who are helping us teach because... well you know, they know
portuguese and the gospel and stuff...)
Anyways, we also have a baptism lined up for this Sunday, of this guy
named Neto. baha his name means grandson in english. Anyways, he's a
good guy and I love when people will actually open up and let the spirit
touch their hearts and be changed. Christmas is SUCH a great time of
year!
Sister Lindenlaub and I have been working the Christmas card for all its
worth, and things have been turning out well the past week. We just go
from house to house and sing christmas songs for EVERYONE. Then we share
a really short christmas message, say a prayer, and ask who else would
like to hear a christmas song sung by americans with funny accents.
(haha sometimes after we sing people are like, "oh sorry i didnt
understand anything because you were singing in english." and we're
like, "oh no, actually we were singing in portuguese the whole time."
then i laugh.) And it is the strangest thing because people honestly
dont know the christmas songs here! we'll sing Joy to the World, and
they're like, "hm that was pretty, i've never heard that before" Or any
other christmas song in the hymnbook, and they dont know it. the only
one they ever recognize is Silent Night. crazy. Jette, these people need
you to come and sing for them. puxa vida, you would blow. them. away.
Anyways, love you a whole bunch.
This is the last week in the transfer and i hope SO MUCH that i stay
here in this area. next week if I get transfered, i dont know if there
will be time on p-day to write an email, so if thats the case, I LOVE
YOU SO MUCH AND MERRY MERRY CHRISTMAS. I know that Christ lives, that He
is our Savior, and that He loves us. He is the way to be happy during
the WHOLE YEAR. The church is SO true. if you have questions, ask the
missionaries, or juliette :)
AAAAAAAAAAAAAND i'm stoked to talk to you guys on the phone. december
25, hurry! and i have no clue about when/where/how any details
whatsoever. Whats the time difference? like 4-5 hours? mmm dont know.
but i think our mission is pretty strict on the rules so i think we only
get to talk for 45-ish minutes. ah welp. bummer. there's always
christmas 2010 when i'll be at home.
LOVE YOU!
Sister Wardle
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
oh hey, have you heard its already DECEMBER?
Hello my wonderful belovable family!
Happy belated Thanksgiving, and an EXTRA Happy first Day of December!
I'm sorry I didn't write last week, the computer got messed up. Anyways,
this week was kinda rough. We had these two firm baptisms, and we were
all pumped up all week long and things were going great. Then on Friday
one of them fell through because of a problem that was discovered in the
interview, and the other one decided that he just wouldn't leave the
catholic church. So by Sunday afternoon when we were baptism-less, I was
pretty bummed out - dare I say it, discouraged. (Not to mention I was
wearing the wrong shoes that day, and my feet were killing me so that
didn't help a bunch.) Then I remembered this conference talk about faith
from last April that I had read a little while ago. It said that
'discouragement and despair are the very antithesis of faith...' and
that 'disappointment is an inevitable part of life [missionary work],
but it need not lead to doubt, discouragement, distraction, or lack of
diligence.'
So my companion and I stopped and sang a little hymn and said a prayer,
asking to have the spirit with us again, and to keep working hard and
increase our faith. Afterwards we headed over to this lady who went to
church with us for the first time that day. (Its kinda cool. We were
walking by her house on saturday, and she was sitting out front and we
just said, "Hey do you want to go to church with us tomorrow?" Sunday
morning we passed by, and walked with her to church. That's it. We
hadn't taught her anything.) This brings us to Sunday afternoon when we
went by her house to follow up and see how she liked it. We taught her a
lesson about the gospel of Christ and invited her to follow His example
and be baptized in His church. She said YES. It was sweet. And right
then we marked the date for this next Sunday. We taught her how to pray
and then asked her to say the closing prayer. She did and then I asked
her how she felt and she goes, "I feel really really happy. I feel like
I have wings, and like I could fly." (And then picture me and how I felt
at that moment) So this was definitely God's answer to the prayer we had
made 1 hour earlier.
I know that there is so much power in prayer and I just need to have
faith and patience in this work and in my life. I know that even when
baptisms fall through, there are SO many people that Heavenly Father is
preparing to receive and accept the gospel. So the experience with
Joelma was a big pick-me-up that I needed. I'm thankful to be here as a
missionary and to learn these lessons.
In other news, this area is f a n t a s t i c. I am LOVING the ward, and
the area. Right when we got here, I was in love with this area, and I
told sister lindenlaub how the only thing that this area doesn't have is
good sidewalks or buses. And how it's way awkward to try and walk side
by side but you cant because there are crazy drivers and no where to
walk on the main road. The NEXT WEEK we saw these construction workers,
and I asked what they were building, and they're making SIDEWALKS!!!
Yayyyy. What blessings! And we found out that there is a metro station
kinda close, that works way better than buses for when we have to go to
meetings. Yes, this area is getting better and better.
The only downside - bug bites. I never really see the bugs, but then I
just have bug bites everywhere. And then I scratch them all the time,
and then they bleed, scab, and turn into little bumps or scars or
whatever. So my arms and legs are covered in little bug bite scars and
bumps . If I run my fingers over my skin, its like reading Braille
because there's so many dots. (now I just need to find a blind
Brazilian who knows Braille to translate the message for me.)
So things are good. I'm a little thrown off this year for Christmas. It
does NOT feel like Christmas at all. Its super weird. On the one hand,
I'm trying to remember that its december, but at the same time I kinda
don't want to because I don't want to be trunky or miss home or any of
the joyous Christmas traditions that are happening. So it all evens out.
Basically we sing Christmas hymns and that's about it. But I'm happy
that its Christmas in America!!!!!! And I love you and want to hear
about all the fun and happy Christmas things that are happening at home.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE you so much.
Beijos!
Sister Wardle
Happy belated Thanksgiving, and an EXTRA Happy first Day of December!
I'm sorry I didn't write last week, the computer got messed up. Anyways,
this week was kinda rough. We had these two firm baptisms, and we were
all pumped up all week long and things were going great. Then on Friday
one of them fell through because of a problem that was discovered in the
interview, and the other one decided that he just wouldn't leave the
catholic church. So by Sunday afternoon when we were baptism-less, I was
pretty bummed out - dare I say it, discouraged. (Not to mention I was
wearing the wrong shoes that day, and my feet were killing me so that
didn't help a bunch.) Then I remembered this conference talk about faith
from last April that I had read a little while ago. It said that
'discouragement and despair are the very antithesis of faith...' and
that 'disappointment is an inevitable part of life [missionary work],
but it need not lead to doubt, discouragement, distraction, or lack of
diligence.'
So my companion and I stopped and sang a little hymn and said a prayer,
asking to have the spirit with us again, and to keep working hard and
increase our faith. Afterwards we headed over to this lady who went to
church with us for the first time that day. (Its kinda cool. We were
walking by her house on saturday, and she was sitting out front and we
just said, "Hey do you want to go to church with us tomorrow?" Sunday
morning we passed by, and walked with her to church. That's it. We
hadn't taught her anything.) This brings us to Sunday afternoon when we
went by her house to follow up and see how she liked it. We taught her a
lesson about the gospel of Christ and invited her to follow His example
and be baptized in His church. She said YES. It was sweet. And right
then we marked the date for this next Sunday. We taught her how to pray
and then asked her to say the closing prayer. She did and then I asked
her how she felt and she goes, "I feel really really happy. I feel like
I have wings, and like I could fly." (And then picture me and how I felt
at that moment) So this was definitely God's answer to the prayer we had
made 1 hour earlier.
I know that there is so much power in prayer and I just need to have
faith and patience in this work and in my life. I know that even when
baptisms fall through, there are SO many people that Heavenly Father is
preparing to receive and accept the gospel. So the experience with
Joelma was a big pick-me-up that I needed. I'm thankful to be here as a
missionary and to learn these lessons.
In other news, this area is f a n t a s t i c. I am LOVING the ward, and
the area. Right when we got here, I was in love with this area, and I
told sister lindenlaub how the only thing that this area doesn't have is
good sidewalks or buses. And how it's way awkward to try and walk side
by side but you cant because there are crazy drivers and no where to
walk on the main road. The NEXT WEEK we saw these construction workers,
and I asked what they were building, and they're making SIDEWALKS!!!
Yayyyy. What blessings! And we found out that there is a metro station
kinda close, that works way better than buses for when we have to go to
meetings. Yes, this area is getting better and better.
The only downside - bug bites. I never really see the bugs, but then I
just have bug bites everywhere. And then I scratch them all the time,
and then they bleed, scab, and turn into little bumps or scars or
whatever. So my arms and legs are covered in little bug bite scars and
bumps . If I run my fingers over my skin, its like reading Braille
because there's so many dots. (now I just need to find a blind
Brazilian who knows Braille to translate the message for me.)
So things are good. I'm a little thrown off this year for Christmas. It
does NOT feel like Christmas at all. Its super weird. On the one hand,
I'm trying to remember that its december, but at the same time I kinda
don't want to because I don't want to be trunky or miss home or any of
the joyous Christmas traditions that are happening. So it all evens out.
Basically we sing Christmas hymns and that's about it. But I'm happy
that its Christmas in America!!!!!! And I love you and want to hear
about all the fun and happy Christmas things that are happening at home.
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE you so much.
Beijos!
Sister Wardle
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
The Land of Aguas Claras (beijo para lasley!)
HI FAMILY!
NEW news!
My NEW COMPANION is Sister Lindenlaub, and she's fresh from the CTM.
When the new missionaries arrive in the field they have the group shot
taken, and then one with Pres and Sister Pizzirani, and then one more
with their trainer. These are the pictures from when sister lindenlaub
got here, and so I'm just forwarding them along to you. Sister
Lindenlaub is from Goodyear, Arizona, and she is just a little
sweetheart. Its kinda crazy going from being trained to training, so I'm
trying hard remember all the good things that sister canfield did with
me, and trying to pass them on to her.
Our NEW AREA is called Aguas Claras. Its on the outskirts of Brasilia,
and its divided into two sectors. Theres the huge rich area with super
high apartment buildings where everything is all nice and delux and
polished and you kinda feel like your in a really chic part of new york
city. That's the actual city of Aguas Claras, and its all commuter
people who live here and work in downtown Brasilia. Then the other half
is called Areal, and its the regular Brasil that I'm used to. :) Its
really crazy being double transfered into a new area. I had never been
here before, and obviously Sister Lindenlaub doesnt know whats going on,
so its been interesting trying to get around. We spend a lot of time
walking and trying to find our appointments, and asking directions from
everyone. (Too bad a prominent characteristic of most Brasilians is that
they are lacking that whole sense of direction thing...But they always
act like they have a surety of where they are sending you, and more
often than not, it will turn out to be the exact opposite direction. Ah
welp, sugar.) Anyways we're starting to get a handle of things better.
Also its great to be in a NEW WARD! It was a little branch before, but
in the last year they've become a ward. We dont have a chapel, but we
meet in an apartment building, using a bunch of little connecting rooms.
Its kind of awkward and crowded, but its SO GREAT. and 80% of the ward
speaks English! So its a great first ward for sister lindenlaub. There
are a few returned missionaries who served in the states, and some other
people who teach english classes here, and others who just studied
english for funsies. We even have an American in the ward. His name is
Keith and he gave us ice cream. Thank you Keith.
On Sunday in this ward they had the primary program during sacrament
meeting. They dont have a piano, but they use this funky keyboard organ
thingy. I was playing for the program and it was the most ridiculous
thing ever. baha i dont play the organ! I was messing up all over the
place, and the kids were a little rowdy. There were some technical
difficulties with the microphones, and it was kinda hectic. Not to
mention that the organ has like 1 setting: circus. Picture primary hymns
and sister wardle on the circus organ. GOOD TIMES!
But thats ok, it didnt deter our investigators! We had a guy named
Bright and his mom and a few other people there at church, so it was
still great. Bright was BAPTIZED on Sunday afternoon and it was
faaantastic! Cutest little man ever. His face and his behavior after was
adorable. thank you bright. (sidenote: the other day i was like, bright,
how did you get your name? he's all, oh my parents just found it in an
english dictionary. yayy good name!)
Anyways, I'm almost out of time, but i have to throw down some SERIOUS
thank yous...
MOM - COOKIE MIX. i LOVE you. thank you mom.
Laura - THANK YOU for the pictures! dont worry I spent like 30 minutes
pouring over every single one, making my companion listen to 80 million
stories about curtis, corinne, derek, carlsbad football/cheer, the
works. and THANKS for the Skirt! Its perfecto.
Marsha! - Thank you THANK YOU for the byu football shirt! i feel so
connected to byu :) it is a serious tragedy to miss a cougar football
season, so thanks for sending me the merchandise so i can still rep my
team. And thank you so much to Sister Hunt for the letter and card. I
have the best support ever from family and friends.
Grandma - Love the letters, always uplifting
Sister Auton - love the c-bad updates and newsletters. all news from
home is always good news!
Jake STREETER - welcome home! Thanks for the last letter from the mish.
love you cuz :)
Jacob VOEKEL - Love the inspiration packet - that Elder Holland excerpt
definately kicks you into gear!
Mindy BAATTTT - omg MIA is adorable. congrats on the angel
and ALICIA LASLGKJMEBEKNDIJK - thanks for the card and congrats again on
the baby!
Greg - excellent advice, excellente letter, e excellente photos!
K, bahh, i gotta go. LOVE YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU for the support. LOVE
YOU
Sister Wardle
NEW news!
My NEW COMPANION is Sister Lindenlaub, and she's fresh from the CTM.
When the new missionaries arrive in the field they have the group shot
taken, and then one with Pres and Sister Pizzirani, and then one more
with their trainer. These are the pictures from when sister lindenlaub
got here, and so I'm just forwarding them along to you. Sister
Lindenlaub is from Goodyear, Arizona, and she is just a little
sweetheart. Its kinda crazy going from being trained to training, so I'm
trying hard remember all the good things that sister canfield did with
me, and trying to pass them on to her.
Our NEW AREA is called Aguas Claras. Its on the outskirts of Brasilia,
and its divided into two sectors. Theres the huge rich area with super
high apartment buildings where everything is all nice and delux and
polished and you kinda feel like your in a really chic part of new york
city. That's the actual city of Aguas Claras, and its all commuter
people who live here and work in downtown Brasilia. Then the other half
is called Areal, and its the regular Brasil that I'm used to. :) Its
really crazy being double transfered into a new area. I had never been
here before, and obviously Sister Lindenlaub doesnt know whats going on,
so its been interesting trying to get around. We spend a lot of time
walking and trying to find our appointments, and asking directions from
everyone. (Too bad a prominent characteristic of most Brasilians is that
they are lacking that whole sense of direction thing...But they always
act like they have a surety of where they are sending you, and more
often than not, it will turn out to be the exact opposite direction. Ah
welp, sugar.) Anyways we're starting to get a handle of things better.
Also its great to be in a NEW WARD! It was a little branch before, but
in the last year they've become a ward. We dont have a chapel, but we
meet in an apartment building, using a bunch of little connecting rooms.
Its kind of awkward and crowded, but its SO GREAT. and 80% of the ward
speaks English! So its a great first ward for sister lindenlaub. There
are a few returned missionaries who served in the states, and some other
people who teach english classes here, and others who just studied
english for funsies. We even have an American in the ward. His name is
Keith and he gave us ice cream. Thank you Keith.
On Sunday in this ward they had the primary program during sacrament
meeting. They dont have a piano, but they use this funky keyboard organ
thingy. I was playing for the program and it was the most ridiculous
thing ever. baha i dont play the organ! I was messing up all over the
place, and the kids were a little rowdy. There were some technical
difficulties with the microphones, and it was kinda hectic. Not to
mention that the organ has like 1 setting: circus. Picture primary hymns
and sister wardle on the circus organ. GOOD TIMES!
But thats ok, it didnt deter our investigators! We had a guy named
Bright and his mom and a few other people there at church, so it was
still great. Bright was BAPTIZED on Sunday afternoon and it was
faaantastic! Cutest little man ever. His face and his behavior after was
adorable. thank you bright. (sidenote: the other day i was like, bright,
how did you get your name? he's all, oh my parents just found it in an
english dictionary. yayy good name!)
Anyways, I'm almost out of time, but i have to throw down some SERIOUS
thank yous...
MOM - COOKIE MIX. i LOVE you. thank you mom.
Laura - THANK YOU for the pictures! dont worry I spent like 30 minutes
pouring over every single one, making my companion listen to 80 million
stories about curtis, corinne, derek, carlsbad football/cheer, the
works. and THANKS for the Skirt! Its perfecto.
Marsha! - Thank you THANK YOU for the byu football shirt! i feel so
connected to byu :) it is a serious tragedy to miss a cougar football
season, so thanks for sending me the merchandise so i can still rep my
team. And thank you so much to Sister Hunt for the letter and card. I
have the best support ever from family and friends.
Grandma - Love the letters, always uplifting
Sister Auton - love the c-bad updates and newsletters. all news from
home is always good news!
Jake STREETER - welcome home! Thanks for the last letter from the mish.
love you cuz :)
Jacob VOEKEL - Love the inspiration packet - that Elder Holland excerpt
definately kicks you into gear!
Mindy BAATTTT - omg MIA is adorable. congrats on the angel
and ALICIA LASLGKJMEBEKNDIJK - thanks for the card and congrats again on
the baby!
Greg - excellent advice, excellente letter, e excellente photos!
K, bahh, i gotta go. LOVE YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU for the support. LOVE
YOU
Sister Wardle
Thursday, November 12, 2009
GOODBYE GUARA
HI FAMILY!
And hello to a new area!
Today is transfer day, so there is basically no time to speak of. We are ALL being transfered out of this area. We had 4 Sisters here, Christensen and MJ, and Sister Hill and I, and we're all getting transfered away. We still dont know where we're going but we'll find out pretty soon here. And we think that this ward/this area is getting changed to Elders. Welp, see ya later, Guara!
I'm going to miss Sister Hill like crazy. She was the gem of this transfer. She made the hard days so much better, and every other companion has really huge shoes to fill.
As far as new companions go - I'm going to be getting a new American sister fresh from the CTM tomorrow. I dont know anything else about anything, but I'll find out this afternoon or tomorrow or something.
And this past week was a little bit hard, and a little bit silly (sih-we), but thats ok. The best part about this week was the primary presentation for sacrament. The pianists for both wards that meet in our chapel were no-shows, so I had the pleasure of filling in. It was seriously the best 2 hours of the week, just playing the primary hymns and watching all the kids sing. LOVED it.
Tomorrow starts a new day, new week, new area, new companion!
orações, sorte, e sorvete, and I should be just fine.
Love Love Love love lvoe love love love love you!
Sister Wardle
And DISH - CONGRATS ON BABY EVAN. I'm so excited to blow bubbles with him in 13 months!
(DISH is Kat's friend Alicia who had a baby boy. Congrats to the Lagenkijk family.)
And hello to a new area!
Today is transfer day, so there is basically no time to speak of. We are ALL being transfered out of this area. We had 4 Sisters here, Christensen and MJ, and Sister Hill and I, and we're all getting transfered away. We still dont know where we're going but we'll find out pretty soon here. And we think that this ward/this area is getting changed to Elders. Welp, see ya later, Guara!
I'm going to miss Sister Hill like crazy. She was the gem of this transfer. She made the hard days so much better, and every other companion has really huge shoes to fill.
As far as new companions go - I'm going to be getting a new American sister fresh from the CTM tomorrow. I dont know anything else about anything, but I'll find out this afternoon or tomorrow or something.
And this past week was a little bit hard, and a little bit silly (sih-we), but thats ok. The best part about this week was the primary presentation for sacrament. The pianists for both wards that meet in our chapel were no-shows, so I had the pleasure of filling in. It was seriously the best 2 hours of the week, just playing the primary hymns and watching all the kids sing. LOVED it.
Tomorrow starts a new day, new week, new area, new companion!
orações, sorte, e sorvete, and I should be just fine.
Love Love Love love lvoe love love love love you!
Sister Wardle
And DISH - CONGRATS ON BABY EVAN. I'm so excited to blow bubbles with him in 13 months!
(DISH is Kat's friend Alicia who had a baby boy. Congrats to the Lagenkijk family.)
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Elder Richard G. Scott
Hi fam fam,
Elder Scott came to town and it was wonderful. He gave great training on how to present the Book of Mormon as evidence which proves the truth of the message of the restored gospel, and proof that the church is true. He even had a few of the missionaries come up and do practices and then gave personal feedback on how it went. it was sweet. He also taught great doctrine on how to receive and follow guidance from the Holy Ghost. And then the last part was about how our character and our faith are so closely related, and how God uses our faith to test and improve our character. And he gave the whole thing in pretty darn good Portuguese. and his accent was really cute.
Plus President Pizzirani spoke and it was a killer talk about what sets our church apart from other religions, and other churches. i LOVED it. Also, this Sunday in church President and Sister Pizzirani came to our ward it was hands down the greatest Sunday church meeting we've had in the field. AND they brought with them a member of the Area 70 and it was all around a very good day.
In other news, we were eating lunch at a members house the other day, and the food made me think of the Siaosi boys. in one letter they asked me what the weirdest food I have eaten has been. You have to understand how the brasilians really just love to mix all the food in the house together and call it a meal. for example: rice, beans, pasta, chopped up hot dog, corn, hard boiled eggs, bananas, chicke, and steak. it is so weird but strangely so good. And for desert - popsicles and banana bread. love this country.
I was thinking the other day how the funniest things that i want to tell you are all action-type stories. the kind where you have to act them out and actually see what the person is doing to think its funny. this being impossible to do right now, i have a little listy that i'm making to re-enact next christmas for you. one of them is a woman that would've fit in well in Paul's mission in Belem. (Paul - lembra por quê estava tão difícil quando você chegou no campo? por causa da higenica dos dentes... ou seja, falta dos dentes... estas histórias são em relato assim. muito engraçado)
Aaanyways, next week we have transfers, and I'm almost sure I'll be stickin around here in Guará I, but I'll find out for sure next monday morning. I hope that nothing changes, I love being with sister hill, and I dont want to loose sister hill as a companion again. Saying goodbye to her is such a drag. so, we'll see what next week has in store.
oh, and if anyone has news on alicia's baby por favor send that along. and her address too please. ooooobrigada.
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH
DONT FORGET ABOUT ME
I MISS YOU PEOPLE
Sister Wardle
Elder Scott came to town and it was wonderful. He gave great training on how to present the Book of Mormon as evidence which proves the truth of the message of the restored gospel, and proof that the church is true. He even had a few of the missionaries come up and do practices and then gave personal feedback on how it went. it was sweet. He also taught great doctrine on how to receive and follow guidance from the Holy Ghost. And then the last part was about how our character and our faith are so closely related, and how God uses our faith to test and improve our character. And he gave the whole thing in pretty darn good Portuguese. and his accent was really cute.
Plus President Pizzirani spoke and it was a killer talk about what sets our church apart from other religions, and other churches. i LOVED it. Also, this Sunday in church President and Sister Pizzirani came to our ward it was hands down the greatest Sunday church meeting we've had in the field. AND they brought with them a member of the Area 70 and it was all around a very good day.
In other news, we were eating lunch at a members house the other day, and the food made me think of the Siaosi boys. in one letter they asked me what the weirdest food I have eaten has been. You have to understand how the brasilians really just love to mix all the food in the house together and call it a meal. for example: rice, beans, pasta, chopped up hot dog, corn, hard boiled eggs, bananas, chicke, and steak. it is so weird but strangely so good. And for desert - popsicles and banana bread. love this country.
I was thinking the other day how the funniest things that i want to tell you are all action-type stories. the kind where you have to act them out and actually see what the person is doing to think its funny. this being impossible to do right now, i have a little listy that i'm making to re-enact next christmas for you. one of them is a woman that would've fit in well in Paul's mission in Belem. (Paul - lembra por quê estava tão difícil quando você chegou no campo? por causa da higenica dos dentes... ou seja, falta dos dentes... estas histórias são em relato assim. muito engraçado)
Aaanyways, next week we have transfers, and I'm almost sure I'll be stickin around here in Guará I, but I'll find out for sure next monday morning. I hope that nothing changes, I love being with sister hill, and I dont want to loose sister hill as a companion again. Saying goodbye to her is such a drag. so, we'll see what next week has in store.
oh, and if anyone has news on alicia's baby por favor send that along. and her address too please. ooooobrigada.
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH
DONT FORGET ABOUT ME
I MISS YOU PEOPLE
Sister Wardle
We're getting a special visitor
hi fam!
This week we're having a Conference with our whole mission, and Elder Richard G. Scott is coming to speak! oh joy. Everyone is just all a tither about it. (Mom phrase). I'm stoked too. We're having the conference this Thursday, and Sister Pizzirani (the mission president's wife) asked us to do a special musical number. bahaha. I dont think i ever told you about the last 'special musical number' i participated in, because i was way to ashamed.
so like 4 weeks ago we had transfers, and we had a Family Home Evening with everyone who was being transfered or going home. (aka almost the whole mission). and in the middle of the meeting, Sister Pizzirani asked Sister canfield, and me, and sister kevern to do a musical number. so we had 10 minutes to "prepare" but it was in the middle of someone speaking, so we couldnt talk. we were passing notes to choose which hymn, which verses, who would sing what parts, etc. and we had to do it a capella, and never practiced it. it was RIDICULOUS. SO BAD. we were singing along, and when we divided into parts it just started to suck, because we were way off, and i thought it wsa funny, so i started laughing in the middle of the song, and i couldnt recover or get it back together to finish the song. and then sister canfield started laughing, so by the end of the 3rd verse it was just a sister kevern solo because i was on the side in silent laughter. pretty freakin embarrassing. and it was in front of presidente and sister pizzirani, and allllll these missionaries.
So this time around they actually decided to tell us in advance, so hopefully it will go a little better since it will be for an apostle. Me and Sister Canfield, and then two other elders are singing 'A Poor wayfaring man of grief." and the other elders were like, "seriously sister wardle, try not to laugh this time." but thankfully i'm just singing alto, and there are literally only like 2 notes in the alto line of that song, so all i have to do is hold that E flat for 3 verses, and sister canfield and the elders will do the rest. yay.
Sister Hill and I have new games like every other day. I love being companions with this girl. she is just two hoots and a holler. We were thinking how we could get creative with our language study and improve our street contacts one day. so the new game is to choose 10 new random words every morning, and then we have to use one random word in a street contact that day. and therefore make 10 new contacts. should be interesting.
Sister Hill also introduced me to one of her interests. Ant Hill Demolition. The ants are HUGE. and very strong here. we have some places we walk by every day, and the ants are busy as ever. sometimes we like to watch them marching with huge loads, and make contests out of which ants we think will win the race. Anyways sister hill takes the long umbrella, and crushes the hill, or puts fallen fruit in the way, or some other obstacles to frustrate their work. the next day, we walk by, and see how the clever little ants have solved the problem. i think they would be really good missionaries because they never give up!
In other news, Guara is a good place to be. its an area with some interesting challenges, but a lot of great things to learn. Its also an area with scrum-diddly-umptious food. They have these fast food stands here where they sell "Bombas." A bomba is a glorified burger with Hamburger, hotdog, ham, cheese, egg, mayo, lettuce, and tomato. its the funniest thing to me. and you can get a bomba and a coke for the equivalent of $1.25 US dollars. bahaha but i prefer my little $.50 chocolate ice cream cones. have i mentioned that i love brazil?
Dont worry, we still squeeze in a little bit of time to work between eating sessions. we have a really great family we're teaching right now named Renato and Vanessa, and their two little boys Gabriel and Raphael. He used to play proffessional soccer, and he has a ton of really interesting questions. and Vanessa is the cutest little thing. They are progressing, and we set a date and have the goal of baptizing them november 7. We taught them the book of mormon, and the next time we went back to teach, we asked follow up questions to see if he prayed to know that it was true. Renato said, "i have no doubt that the book is true. you can just read the words, and you know that a man could not have written them. they are the words of God." Then just picture me sitting there like inside my head and my heart jumping up and down loving that he was saying these words that we never put into his head, but that he knows the message is true for himself. it was so great.
The first time we taught Renato and Vanessa we also invited the neighbor to join. So we also marked baptizmal dates with the neighbor! One morning we were teaching her about the doctrine of christ, and how with these 5 simple steps we can return to live with God and our families for eternity. and she said, "Yes, i know this is true. And I want you two to teach this same thing to my family. I think my brother really needs to hear this message and he would get baptized." So then she gave us all of her families names and contact info, and she told us that she would drive us there next week to talk to her family, but they are not in our area, so i told her I think we'll have to pass them off to some other elders. she was like, "no I want you two to teach them, and i want to be there when you do." it was pretty sweeeet. It just shows how true the gospel is, and when you really get the joy inside of you, you want to share it with your family and everyone else. (Thank you Lehi and the tree of life)
Bottom line, the church is true. I love the gospel. I love the Book of Mormon. Guess whaaaat! I'm finishing it tomorrow. Pres Pizzirani gives every missionary the challenge to read the Book of Mormon in portuguese in the first 2 transfers in the field. Its a little more of a challenge for the americans, but its great, and it certainly helps with the language so much! So I will finish it tomorrow in portuguese, and then I'm starting over on thursday in english. I'm so excited to read it in englishhhhhh. my favorite language... yayyy.
I LOVE YOU!
Until next weeeeeek.
Sister Wardle
This week we're having a Conference with our whole mission, and Elder Richard G. Scott is coming to speak! oh joy. Everyone is just all a tither about it. (Mom phrase). I'm stoked too. We're having the conference this Thursday, and Sister Pizzirani (the mission president's wife) asked us to do a special musical number. bahaha. I dont think i ever told you about the last 'special musical number' i participated in, because i was way to ashamed.
so like 4 weeks ago we had transfers, and we had a Family Home Evening with everyone who was being transfered or going home. (aka almost the whole mission). and in the middle of the meeting, Sister Pizzirani asked Sister canfield, and me, and sister kevern to do a musical number. so we had 10 minutes to "prepare" but it was in the middle of someone speaking, so we couldnt talk. we were passing notes to choose which hymn, which verses, who would sing what parts, etc. and we had to do it a capella, and never practiced it. it was RIDICULOUS. SO BAD. we were singing along, and when we divided into parts it just started to suck, because we were way off, and i thought it wsa funny, so i started laughing in the middle of the song, and i couldnt recover or get it back together to finish the song. and then sister canfield started laughing, so by the end of the 3rd verse it was just a sister kevern solo because i was on the side in silent laughter. pretty freakin embarrassing. and it was in front of presidente and sister pizzirani, and allllll these missionaries.
So this time around they actually decided to tell us in advance, so hopefully it will go a little better since it will be for an apostle. Me and Sister Canfield, and then two other elders are singing 'A Poor wayfaring man of grief." and the other elders were like, "seriously sister wardle, try not to laugh this time." but thankfully i'm just singing alto, and there are literally only like 2 notes in the alto line of that song, so all i have to do is hold that E flat for 3 verses, and sister canfield and the elders will do the rest. yay.
Sister Hill and I have new games like every other day. I love being companions with this girl. she is just two hoots and a holler. We were thinking how we could get creative with our language study and improve our street contacts one day. so the new game is to choose 10 new random words every morning, and then we have to use one random word in a street contact that day. and therefore make 10 new contacts. should be interesting.
Sister Hill also introduced me to one of her interests. Ant Hill Demolition. The ants are HUGE. and very strong here. we have some places we walk by every day, and the ants are busy as ever. sometimes we like to watch them marching with huge loads, and make contests out of which ants we think will win the race. Anyways sister hill takes the long umbrella, and crushes the hill, or puts fallen fruit in the way, or some other obstacles to frustrate their work. the next day, we walk by, and see how the clever little ants have solved the problem. i think they would be really good missionaries because they never give up!
In other news, Guara is a good place to be. its an area with some interesting challenges, but a lot of great things to learn. Its also an area with scrum-diddly-umptious food. They have these fast food stands here where they sell "Bombas." A bomba is a glorified burger with Hamburger, hotdog, ham, cheese, egg, mayo, lettuce, and tomato. its the funniest thing to me. and you can get a bomba and a coke for the equivalent of $1.25 US dollars. bahaha but i prefer my little $.50 chocolate ice cream cones. have i mentioned that i love brazil?
Dont worry, we still squeeze in a little bit of time to work between eating sessions. we have a really great family we're teaching right now named Renato and Vanessa, and their two little boys Gabriel and Raphael. He used to play proffessional soccer, and he has a ton of really interesting questions. and Vanessa is the cutest little thing. They are progressing, and we set a date and have the goal of baptizing them november 7. We taught them the book of mormon, and the next time we went back to teach, we asked follow up questions to see if he prayed to know that it was true. Renato said, "i have no doubt that the book is true. you can just read the words, and you know that a man could not have written them. they are the words of God." Then just picture me sitting there like inside my head and my heart jumping up and down loving that he was saying these words that we never put into his head, but that he knows the message is true for himself. it was so great.
The first time we taught Renato and Vanessa we also invited the neighbor to join. So we also marked baptizmal dates with the neighbor! One morning we were teaching her about the doctrine of christ, and how with these 5 simple steps we can return to live with God and our families for eternity. and she said, "Yes, i know this is true. And I want you two to teach this same thing to my family. I think my brother really needs to hear this message and he would get baptized." So then she gave us all of her families names and contact info, and she told us that she would drive us there next week to talk to her family, but they are not in our area, so i told her I think we'll have to pass them off to some other elders. she was like, "no I want you two to teach them, and i want to be there when you do." it was pretty sweeeet. It just shows how true the gospel is, and when you really get the joy inside of you, you want to share it with your family and everyone else. (Thank you Lehi and the tree of life)
Bottom line, the church is true. I love the gospel. I love the Book of Mormon. Guess whaaaat! I'm finishing it tomorrow. Pres Pizzirani gives every missionary the challenge to read the Book of Mormon in portuguese in the first 2 transfers in the field. Its a little more of a challenge for the americans, but its great, and it certainly helps with the language so much! So I will finish it tomorrow in portuguese, and then I'm starting over on thursday in english. I'm so excited to read it in englishhhhhh. my favorite language... yayyy.
I LOVE YOU!
Until next weeeeeek.
Sister Wardle
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
1. short 2. short 3. short
Hi family!
1. This week was SHORT! The mission is long long days, with short short
weeks. We worked really really hard this week, but we havent exactly
been seeing the fruits of our labors, so we're trying to find things to
change and do better.
2. I cut Sister Hill's hair this morning really SHORT. bahaha it looks
ridiculous. (oops - turns out you really do have to go to cosmotology
school to know what you're doing). Its like that time when Juliette cut
Chase Lonas' hair and was dancing around snipping here and there. Welp,
except in America there is a SuperCuts to fix it, and here the hair
cutters are not super great, so we're just leaving it. baha oh well.
3. Um, this email is really SHORT? Sorry, but there's just not lots to
say and not lots of time to say it. But the mission is good, and I'm SO
EXCITED for JAKE STREETER. I think he comes home this week? last week?
next week? dont know, but much love to the cousin who fought the good
fight and kept the faith and finished his course in Mexico. (Jake is our cousin, who is actually coming home from Honduras)
Love you!
Sister Wardle
1. This week was SHORT! The mission is long long days, with short short
weeks. We worked really really hard this week, but we havent exactly
been seeing the fruits of our labors, so we're trying to find things to
change and do better.
2. I cut Sister Hill's hair this morning really SHORT. bahaha it looks
ridiculous. (oops - turns out you really do have to go to cosmotology
school to know what you're doing). Its like that time when Juliette cut
Chase Lonas' hair and was dancing around snipping here and there. Welp,
except in America there is a SuperCuts to fix it, and here the hair
cutters are not super great, so we're just leaving it. baha oh well.
3. Um, this email is really SHORT? Sorry, but there's just not lots to
say and not lots of time to say it. But the mission is good, and I'm SO
EXCITED for JAKE STREETER. I think he comes home this week? last week?
next week? dont know, but much love to the cousin who fought the good
fight and kept the faith and finished his course in Mexico. (Jake is our cousin, who is actually coming home from Honduras)
Love you!
Sister Wardle
Friday, October 16, 2009
You know that one Blue's Clue's song?
From an email dated October 13, 2009:
Here's the mail
It never fails
It makes me wanna wag my tail,
when it comes I wanna wail,
MAAAIIIILLLLL
Yahhh... about that... some day I'll grow up and find a better way to express myself than by reciting lyrics of a Nickelodean song. But until that point, I've found that this song is pretty good at explaining how I feel every 4-6 weeks at zone conferences. I received a bunch of letters and packages this week and it just makes me SO HAPPY. THANK YOU!!!
Family - love you
Mom - LOVE YOU thanks for the shirt and the pictures and the halloween decor
(and to chelsea monahan for the primary letters - omg so stinking adorable)
Grandma - love the updates on life and the fam and the cousins
Greg - inspirational? yes. love the letters and the pics. surf looks GOOD.
Sister Lasley - honestly where do you find the time on P-day to write letters?
Sister Auton - i love the news from the ward, makes me feel like I'm still a part of C-4!
Fred - i'm SO happy you loved france SO MUCH.
and MARTHA - Thanks a MIL for the sweet package. I'm glad you went to a good source (I'm assuming it was kelly). Really, so so nice of you.
the other missionaries kind of gawk when I receive a bunch of mail, and I am just so so grateful and blessed to have the support from friends and family at home, so Thanks a boatload!
In other news, this week went super fast. The days tend to drag sometimes, but then all the sudden its Sunday again. Crazy. And now I'm trying to rack my mind to think of the highlights worth telling you about. For starters, being companions with Sister Hill is just the greatest thing in the world. I absolutely love how we work together. its SO different from being companions in the CTM because now we're actually doing the real deal, and she is a huge strength to me. and we seriously just laugh all day long. this girl is a hoot. I cant wait for you all to meet her and love her.
(side note - mom or dad, can you forward this one to Donna Vidmar and also ask her to pass it along to Sister Woffinden from the CTM? She was one of our pals, and one day we were talking about how we wanted to be companions again in the field, and sister woffinden thought it probably wouldnt happen, but we were so stoked when we found out to be together again, so we want to just pass on the joyous news to pres and sister woffinden. cool, thanks!)
How to describe a day in the life with sister hill - yes, I'll use a Hercules quote: "we sing, we dance, we carry on, we go home happy." And yes, we teach the truths of the restored gospel. Could you have a better week? I submit that you could not. Just get excited for christmas 2010!
Other things about which to be excited - HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAAAAAD! yayyy a time to eat cake! we do that close to every day in brasil, but just especially for you today I'll go ahead and help myself to an extra slice in honor of you.
Parabéns para você, nesta data querido
Muitas felicidades, muitos anos da vida!
(sing it to the tune of happy bday)
(PAUL! - remember when you taught me this on corinne siaosi's first little day of birth? yeaaa boiiii)
Other quick news, before I gotta go. We are teaching this family, and their names are Henrique e Larissa. And Larissa reminds me SO MUCH of Lisa Khoury. Its so crazy. She is the sweeeeetest lady. And she's BEAUTIFUL. She has this elegance and cute little behaviors paired up, and this "jeito" and a few of the same mannerisms of Lisa. anyways, maybe some day they could be friends.
OH and I forgot to tell you this from the other week too... we had a really fun day last week where all the Sisters in the mission got to go to the ZOO. We had a mini sisters meeting at the mission home first, and then some new instructions and slightly amended rules for the sisters for our safety and health, and then we all got to go play for an hour at the zoo. So that was sweet, and we were literally RUNNING all over the place because we had 1 hour and the Zoo is HUGE. but we saw lots of animals and took lots of pictures, and someday when there's time I'll try and send some home. (Sorry I still dont know how to email pictures... ah, welp, what are ya gonna do.)
So this week we had a few exceptionally choice teaching experiences. We taught a man named Marcos who is super elect. and fluent in English! and there is this other family, and the mom, Iada, said that she had been praying all week for some one to come and help her out and find Christ again, and she said that we were angels sent to help her. And she said that she has fallen away from the church that she usually goes to, and that she was hoping that some one from her church might come and be-friend her again, but she believes that instead, God sent us to help her. We were pretty amped up after that one. So we taught her about how families can be together forever, and about how we receive these truths through the restored gospel, and about how a prophet directs the church - you know all the good stuff. she loved it. we loved it. there was love felt in the room. church is true.
And also this week was a holiday on Monday, so we participated in the Helping Hands project. Super fun. There were a bunch of stakes that combined to clean up a school. Big time clean up. We're talking re-doing the "grass" (aka piles of rocks and weeds with ants the size of my thumb), repainting the school walls, putting up new wall coverings, cleaning everything, and painting the playground equipment. bahaha then somebody from the newspaper came and interviewed me. and I was super embarrassed because I all of the sudden froze up and seemed to forget all my portuguese in 1 second, and so I really hope they dont use any of the quotes I said.
Anyways, gotta jet.
LOVE YOU SO MUCH,
Sister Wardle
Here's the mail
It never fails
It makes me wanna wag my tail,
when it comes I wanna wail,
MAAAIIIILLLLL
Yahhh... about that... some day I'll grow up and find a better way to express myself than by reciting lyrics of a Nickelodean song. But until that point, I've found that this song is pretty good at explaining how I feel every 4-6 weeks at zone conferences. I received a bunch of letters and packages this week and it just makes me SO HAPPY. THANK YOU!!!
Family - love you
Mom - LOVE YOU thanks for the shirt and the pictures and the halloween decor
(and to chelsea monahan for the primary letters - omg so stinking adorable)
Grandma - love the updates on life and the fam and the cousins
Greg - inspirational? yes. love the letters and the pics. surf looks GOOD.
Sister Lasley - honestly where do you find the time on P-day to write letters?
Sister Auton - i love the news from the ward, makes me feel like I'm still a part of C-4!
Fred - i'm SO happy you loved france SO MUCH.
and MARTHA - Thanks a MIL for the sweet package. I'm glad you went to a good source (I'm assuming it was kelly). Really, so so nice of you.
the other missionaries kind of gawk when I receive a bunch of mail, and I am just so so grateful and blessed to have the support from friends and family at home, so Thanks a boatload!
In other news, this week went super fast. The days tend to drag sometimes, but then all the sudden its Sunday again. Crazy. And now I'm trying to rack my mind to think of the highlights worth telling you about. For starters, being companions with Sister Hill is just the greatest thing in the world. I absolutely love how we work together. its SO different from being companions in the CTM because now we're actually doing the real deal, and she is a huge strength to me. and we seriously just laugh all day long. this girl is a hoot. I cant wait for you all to meet her and love her.
(side note - mom or dad, can you forward this one to Donna Vidmar and also ask her to pass it along to Sister Woffinden from the CTM? She was one of our pals, and one day we were talking about how we wanted to be companions again in the field, and sister woffinden thought it probably wouldnt happen, but we were so stoked when we found out to be together again, so we want to just pass on the joyous news to pres and sister woffinden. cool, thanks!)
How to describe a day in the life with sister hill - yes, I'll use a Hercules quote: "we sing, we dance, we carry on, we go home happy." And yes, we teach the truths of the restored gospel. Could you have a better week? I submit that you could not. Just get excited for christmas 2010!
Other things about which to be excited - HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAAAAAD! yayyy a time to eat cake! we do that close to every day in brasil, but just especially for you today I'll go ahead and help myself to an extra slice in honor of you.
Parabéns para você, nesta data querido
Muitas felicidades, muitos anos da vida!
(sing it to the tune of happy bday)
(PAUL! - remember when you taught me this on corinne siaosi's first little day of birth? yeaaa boiiii)
Other quick news, before I gotta go. We are teaching this family, and their names are Henrique e Larissa. And Larissa reminds me SO MUCH of Lisa Khoury. Its so crazy. She is the sweeeeetest lady. And she's BEAUTIFUL. She has this elegance and cute little behaviors paired up, and this "jeito" and a few of the same mannerisms of Lisa. anyways, maybe some day they could be friends.
OH and I forgot to tell you this from the other week too... we had a really fun day last week where all the Sisters in the mission got to go to the ZOO. We had a mini sisters meeting at the mission home first, and then some new instructions and slightly amended rules for the sisters for our safety and health, and then we all got to go play for an hour at the zoo. So that was sweet, and we were literally RUNNING all over the place because we had 1 hour and the Zoo is HUGE. but we saw lots of animals and took lots of pictures, and someday when there's time I'll try and send some home. (Sorry I still dont know how to email pictures... ah, welp, what are ya gonna do.)
So this week we had a few exceptionally choice teaching experiences. We taught a man named Marcos who is super elect. and fluent in English! and there is this other family, and the mom, Iada, said that she had been praying all week for some one to come and help her out and find Christ again, and she said that we were angels sent to help her. And she said that she has fallen away from the church that she usually goes to, and that she was hoping that some one from her church might come and be-friend her again, but she believes that instead, God sent us to help her. We were pretty amped up after that one. So we taught her about how families can be together forever, and about how we receive these truths through the restored gospel, and about how a prophet directs the church - you know all the good stuff. she loved it. we loved it. there was love felt in the room. church is true.
And also this week was a holiday on Monday, so we participated in the Helping Hands project. Super fun. There were a bunch of stakes that combined to clean up a school. Big time clean up. We're talking re-doing the "grass" (aka piles of rocks and weeds with ants the size of my thumb), repainting the school walls, putting up new wall coverings, cleaning everything, and painting the playground equipment. bahaha then somebody from the newspaper came and interviewed me. and I was super embarrassed because I all of the sudden froze up and seemed to forget all my portuguese in 1 second, and so I really hope they dont use any of the quotes I said.
Anyways, gotta jet.
LOVE YOU SO MUCH,
Sister Wardle
MLIA - My Life Is Awesome!
From an email dated September 22, 2009 (this one is a little out of order):
Hello to the GREATEST family in the WORLD!
THANK YOU SO MUCH for the package and letters! You (family and friends very much included) are the greatest family in the world.
So, we get our mail every 3-6 weeks / most random intervals / who knows when. We had an awesome zone conference and training last Tuesday, where I received the packages and TONS of letters. Yayyy you guys didn’t forget about me! But one of the mission rules is that I could only open packages and read the letters on PDay, so I have been waiting for s.e.v.e.n. long days to open all that stuff. Hah so I woke up literally at 4:30 this morning to open and read and write back. It was like CHRISTMAS.
Dad, I got the package with the bag, and love it! And all the Brazilians love it too. They all think its sweet, and they love that I’m reppin the colors of the brazilian flag. And Mom thanks for filling it with school supplies and the cheezits! Don’t worry about E.L.Fudgekins, they have a close impersonation here called passo tempos which are really good.Lasley – Eu freakin amo voce. Suas cartas foram ótimo, e eu não sei como você tive tempo para escrever tantas cartas. O BRE gada. M.A.S. Eu estava chorando e rindo o tempo inteiro.Annie – you cute little housewife, I’m glad to hear that things are good at home, and just so you know, things are super great here tôo.
Jette – MLIA thank you thank you, I was cracking up with those gems.
Punk sucka – I got nothing but love. Nothing but love.
Also, a huge thanks to the Siaosi’s, Maja, and Sister Auton. Your letters are so awesome!
In other news, Dish-Dish, where’s your baby? I know your due in October, and I’m so excited for a little baby lagendijk! What a little blessing. tell me about life and whats happening! I really want your address too ps, because that’d be neat and then I could write you. Thanks.
And Mom, I love you! I'm so excited for you to help out with this missionary business! the work is SO true and its SO great to get the members involved, especially the youth. Just tell them to be FEARLESS and not to worry about how it might be awkward or uncool to share the church with their friends, and that the GOSPEL is the most special thing that they can possible share with their friends, and that their friends need what they have. Everyone needs the gospel. Everyone needs the joy and blessings that it brings and WE have the special privilege of being the ones to share it. I LOVE Preach My Gospel. It is an incredible resource and so so so inspired. You can read and study and ponder about each principle 50 times and learn and re-learn truths that you grew up with in new ways. And the Youth and members of the wards are SO awesome to help in missionary work. Our ward here is incredible. The youth are so stoked on missionary work, that they go out after school and make street contacts, and then they’ll give us a list of referrals and contacts for us. Or they’ll get dressed in skirts/dresses, or shirt and tie to come out and teach lessons with us.
I was excited to hear about that sacrament meeting the youth did a few weeks ago in the Carlsbad ward. That’s so cool! And Jake Siaosi, I think you spoke in church a few weeks ago too… keep up the good work! Because I know that this is the Lord’s work, and I love being a part of it. One of the greatest things I’ve learned, is not to miss an opportunity to testify. For example not just talking “about” the church, and the church as an organization. But really talking about the gospel, and what it means to me. How the gospel has blessed my life, my family, etc. This is where I feel the spirit, and in turn hopefully help others feel the spirit.
Anyways, I love it. It is truth. There is no other truth but gospel truths. Also, this week was great, but now I don’t have time to tell you. Nothing super exciting happened. I probably gained weight, I dunno, what else is new. But TODAY after this we’re going to this open market place thingy in another city, and we’re going to meet up with SISTER HILL. I’m STOKED.
Sister Las, if only you could be with us. Don’t worry youre always with us in heart and alma.
Miss you,
Love you,
Sister Waddley
Hello to the GREATEST family in the WORLD!
THANK YOU SO MUCH for the package and letters! You (family and friends very much included) are the greatest family in the world.
So, we get our mail every 3-6 weeks / most random intervals / who knows when. We had an awesome zone conference and training last Tuesday, where I received the packages and TONS of letters. Yayyy you guys didn’t forget about me! But one of the mission rules is that I could only open packages and read the letters on PDay, so I have been waiting for s.e.v.e.n. long days to open all that stuff. Hah so I woke up literally at 4:30 this morning to open and read and write back. It was like CHRISTMAS.
Dad, I got the package with the bag, and love it! And all the Brazilians love it too. They all think its sweet, and they love that I’m reppin the colors of the brazilian flag. And Mom thanks for filling it with school supplies and the cheezits! Don’t worry about E.L.Fudgekins, they have a close impersonation here called passo tempos which are really good.Lasley – Eu freakin amo voce. Suas cartas foram ótimo, e eu não sei como você tive tempo para escrever tantas cartas. O BRE gada. M.A.S. Eu estava chorando e rindo o tempo inteiro.Annie – you cute little housewife, I’m glad to hear that things are good at home, and just so you know, things are super great here tôo.
Jette – MLIA thank you thank you, I was cracking up with those gems.
Punk sucka – I got nothing but love. Nothing but love.
Also, a huge thanks to the Siaosi’s, Maja, and Sister Auton. Your letters are so awesome!
In other news, Dish-Dish, where’s your baby? I know your due in October, and I’m so excited for a little baby lagendijk! What a little blessing. tell me about life and whats happening! I really want your address too ps, because that’d be neat and then I could write you. Thanks.
And Mom, I love you! I'm so excited for you to help out with this missionary business! the work is SO true and its SO great to get the members involved, especially the youth. Just tell them to be FEARLESS and not to worry about how it might be awkward or uncool to share the church with their friends, and that the GOSPEL is the most special thing that they can possible share with their friends, and that their friends need what they have. Everyone needs the gospel. Everyone needs the joy and blessings that it brings and WE have the special privilege of being the ones to share it. I LOVE Preach My Gospel. It is an incredible resource and so so so inspired. You can read and study and ponder about each principle 50 times and learn and re-learn truths that you grew up with in new ways. And the Youth and members of the wards are SO awesome to help in missionary work. Our ward here is incredible. The youth are so stoked on missionary work, that they go out after school and make street contacts, and then they’ll give us a list of referrals and contacts for us. Or they’ll get dressed in skirts/dresses, or shirt and tie to come out and teach lessons with us.
I was excited to hear about that sacrament meeting the youth did a few weeks ago in the Carlsbad ward. That’s so cool! And Jake Siaosi, I think you spoke in church a few weeks ago too… keep up the good work! Because I know that this is the Lord’s work, and I love being a part of it. One of the greatest things I’ve learned, is not to miss an opportunity to testify. For example not just talking “about” the church, and the church as an organization. But really talking about the gospel, and what it means to me. How the gospel has blessed my life, my family, etc. This is where I feel the spirit, and in turn hopefully help others feel the spirit.
Anyways, I love it. It is truth. There is no other truth but gospel truths. Also, this week was great, but now I don’t have time to tell you. Nothing super exciting happened. I probably gained weight, I dunno, what else is new. But TODAY after this we’re going to this open market place thingy in another city, and we’re going to meet up with SISTER HILL. I’m STOKED.
Sister Las, if only you could be with us. Don’t worry youre always with us in heart and alma.
Miss you,
Love you,
Sister Waddley
People weren't kidding when they said, "Your Mission is a Rollercoaster"
From an email dated October 6, 2009:
hi Family!!
ups, downs, all arounds, loops, drops, and whirly-doos.That pretty much explains the last two weeks.
The reason I didnt write an email home last week is because I was transferred out of my last area, and P-day was only about 3 hours long that day, and I ended up using all of that time to clean, pack, and prepare for a big change.
So here are just a few of the ups and downs of the last week in Ceilândia (my last area):
we were working to re-activate this family, and had 3 baptisms lined up and everything fell through, so that was a deeeefinate low.Then on the flip side, there was a miracle change of heart for this mother to give permission for her daughter to be baptized. This girl Janaina has a super strong testimony, but shes under 18 so couldnt be baptized without parental consent, so it was a huge miracle that the mom allowed it, and we worked so hard for it, and it was so sweet seeing how the mom changed over the course of a week as we testified like no other, and she even gave the closing prayer at her daughters baptism. it was sweet.Then back on the down side, we found out some real bad news that isnt even worth bringing up, but it was like my heart dropped out of my body.Then later like the same day we had really really really good cake, because the members knew i might get transfered, so they made my favorite cakes for me. not that i need any more cake, but i seriously love how they make cake here so much. ohhhh yum.
So then Monday morning we get the HIGHLY anticipated transfer phone call, and found out that Sister Canfield (my trainer and psuedo-mom on the mission) would be staying in ceilandia, and that I was getting transfered to an area called Guará 1. and that I would be companions with non other than the illustrious Sister Karlee Hill. Does that name ring a bell? IT SHOULD. we were companions in the CTM. aka we were meant to be together? yes. So finding that out brought me through a whole range of emotions. I absolutely love love love Sister Hill, and being companions with her in the CTM was the greatest thing in the world, so being comps again in the field should be great too, right? Right. The only thing is the enormous change of going from 1 transfer as a super newbie fresh in the field, to being a senior companion. Whaaaat? So anyways, its very interesting how God works, and I realize so much how He has everything perfectly perfectly planned. I see know that this is the reason I've been extremely blessed with learning this language, so that I can be companions with sister hill again and be able to speak and understand. And I can literally feel and see this mantel of how much the spirit blesses me to understand what these people are saying and then knowing what to say and teach. I could NOT do this without the divine help I'm receiving.
So then there are the ups and downs of this week in Guará...another baptism that fell the day before, after this elect girl had been prepared and interviewed and all set to go, but it didnt happen.the HUGE stress/blessings of being in this companionship again.the new blisters everywhere on my feetthe people too drugged up on illegal meds to listen/understand our messagethe disgusting feijoadas we ate at lunch 2 days in a rowthe people denying baptism even though they KNOW its right.
but the good sides -i love sis hilli love and miss being with sis canfieldwe live in an apartment with 4 sisters with sister Christiansen and Sister MJ from the CTM too.we had a day to go to the Zoo last week and play for an hourgift of tonguesgift of interpretation of tonguesdelicous pao de quijo.this adorable 80 yr old man who likes to speak english with uswe found an ELECT man yesterday and he is also fluent in englishthe scriptures are REALLLY REALLY goodSister MJ is hilarous when she speaks englishand yesterday i saw a grown man on a bus wearing a shakira shirt.i was pleased.
Also, a huge huge blessing this week was general conference. And yes, mom, i was blown away with elder hollands talk. We got to watch it in english with the other american missionaries, and it was incredibly powerful. all of our jaws were just dropped like the whole time.i also really loved elder bednars talk so so much, and I just want to tell my family at home how much i love love love you. I cant do a lot from here for you except pray a bunch and write a little email once a week, but you guys are so much to me, and thank you so much for your support. And I always testify to the people here in brazil about how i love the gospel and the message of joy about our Christ and how families can be together forever, but I havent shared that enough with you at home. I love the Savior and I know that He is the way. and I love His gospel and its perfection in all aspects. I am so grateful for His grace and mercy and love and spirit that he is pours out on us every day. The message of the restoration is true. and the message of the plan of salvation is a plan of love from a loving Heavenly Father. President Uchtdorfs talk was so powerful about the nature of God. And I loved the themes of conference about love. and how we need to be identified as a people of love. i LOVE the gospel, and i LOVE you all.
sister wardle
(oh and the people here can say my name, so i'm back to introducing myself as sister wardle. Sister Waddley stayed in the last area.)
hi Family!!
ups, downs, all arounds, loops, drops, and whirly-doos.That pretty much explains the last two weeks.
The reason I didnt write an email home last week is because I was transferred out of my last area, and P-day was only about 3 hours long that day, and I ended up using all of that time to clean, pack, and prepare for a big change.
So here are just a few of the ups and downs of the last week in Ceilândia (my last area):
we were working to re-activate this family, and had 3 baptisms lined up and everything fell through, so that was a deeeefinate low.Then on the flip side, there was a miracle change of heart for this mother to give permission for her daughter to be baptized. This girl Janaina has a super strong testimony, but shes under 18 so couldnt be baptized without parental consent, so it was a huge miracle that the mom allowed it, and we worked so hard for it, and it was so sweet seeing how the mom changed over the course of a week as we testified like no other, and she even gave the closing prayer at her daughters baptism. it was sweet.Then back on the down side, we found out some real bad news that isnt even worth bringing up, but it was like my heart dropped out of my body.Then later like the same day we had really really really good cake, because the members knew i might get transfered, so they made my favorite cakes for me. not that i need any more cake, but i seriously love how they make cake here so much. ohhhh yum.
So then Monday morning we get the HIGHLY anticipated transfer phone call, and found out that Sister Canfield (my trainer and psuedo-mom on the mission) would be staying in ceilandia, and that I was getting transfered to an area called Guará 1. and that I would be companions with non other than the illustrious Sister Karlee Hill. Does that name ring a bell? IT SHOULD. we were companions in the CTM. aka we were meant to be together? yes. So finding that out brought me through a whole range of emotions. I absolutely love love love Sister Hill, and being companions with her in the CTM was the greatest thing in the world, so being comps again in the field should be great too, right? Right. The only thing is the enormous change of going from 1 transfer as a super newbie fresh in the field, to being a senior companion. Whaaaat? So anyways, its very interesting how God works, and I realize so much how He has everything perfectly perfectly planned. I see know that this is the reason I've been extremely blessed with learning this language, so that I can be companions with sister hill again and be able to speak and understand. And I can literally feel and see this mantel of how much the spirit blesses me to understand what these people are saying and then knowing what to say and teach. I could NOT do this without the divine help I'm receiving.
So then there are the ups and downs of this week in Guará...another baptism that fell the day before, after this elect girl had been prepared and interviewed and all set to go, but it didnt happen.the HUGE stress/blessings of being in this companionship again.the new blisters everywhere on my feetthe people too drugged up on illegal meds to listen/understand our messagethe disgusting feijoadas we ate at lunch 2 days in a rowthe people denying baptism even though they KNOW its right.
but the good sides -i love sis hilli love and miss being with sis canfieldwe live in an apartment with 4 sisters with sister Christiansen and Sister MJ from the CTM too.we had a day to go to the Zoo last week and play for an hourgift of tonguesgift of interpretation of tonguesdelicous pao de quijo.this adorable 80 yr old man who likes to speak english with uswe found an ELECT man yesterday and he is also fluent in englishthe scriptures are REALLLY REALLY goodSister MJ is hilarous when she speaks englishand yesterday i saw a grown man on a bus wearing a shakira shirt.i was pleased.
Also, a huge huge blessing this week was general conference. And yes, mom, i was blown away with elder hollands talk. We got to watch it in english with the other american missionaries, and it was incredibly powerful. all of our jaws were just dropped like the whole time.i also really loved elder bednars talk so so much, and I just want to tell my family at home how much i love love love you. I cant do a lot from here for you except pray a bunch and write a little email once a week, but you guys are so much to me, and thank you so much for your support. And I always testify to the people here in brazil about how i love the gospel and the message of joy about our Christ and how families can be together forever, but I havent shared that enough with you at home. I love the Savior and I know that He is the way. and I love His gospel and its perfection in all aspects. I am so grateful for His grace and mercy and love and spirit that he is pours out on us every day. The message of the restoration is true. and the message of the plan of salvation is a plan of love from a loving Heavenly Father. President Uchtdorfs talk was so powerful about the nature of God. And I loved the themes of conference about love. and how we need to be identified as a people of love. i LOVE the gospel, and i LOVE you all.
sister wardle
(oh and the people here can say my name, so i'm back to introducing myself as sister wardle. Sister Waddley stayed in the last area.)
Mail on a Monday!
From an email dated September 14, 2009:
Olá Família!!
Surprise Monday Email! Usually our prep-day to write emails and stuff is Tuesday, but tomorrow we have a conference with our zone here in ceilândia, so our P-Day is today. Yay.
It's been another excellent week in Brazil! Last Monday this family in the ward baptized their son Lucas, and it was a great baptism with a really strong spirit there. We knew there would be non-members there, and the family asked sister canfield and I to do a special musical number and play the piano and stuff. Lucas' uncle Joel was there, but he's not a member, even though he's been to church a bunch of times, and he knows a lot. But the Spirit was awesome and the talks were great, and so after the baptism we talked to Joel. We just went over the baptism and explained some things, and then we just asked him if he would like to be baptized. He said YES, and then we were stoked. We spent every day this week working with him and teaching him all the lessons. He was interviewed on Friday, and then Sunday afternoon he was baptized! Yeep yeeeeep!!! So that was cool.
Its SO awesome how you feel the spirit at these baptisms. Then since Joel was being baptized on Sunday, we invited another couple named João (John) and Edined to come and see how a baptismal service goes. We have been teaching them for a few weeks but its hard to get them to keep their commitments. So João saw how cool the baptism was, and then afterwards we just did the same thing, talked to him some more, and invited him to be baptized. He accepted and we set a date for this Sunday! We just have to get him to stop smoking... Every time we visit them, if we catch him smoking, we take his pack and tell him to stop buying more. We now have quite the little collection of illegal cigarettes in our apartment.
Hah and the first time we were teaching him about the word of wisdom, we taught the whole thing, and then went item by item to ask him if he used any of those things.
Do you drink coffee? Yes.
Do you drink black tea? No.
Do you use drugs? No.
Do you smoke cigarettes? And then he like shouted, "Rapaz, Eu FUMO!" and it doesn't really translate as funny, but its just funny because you have to see this man. He has really dark skin, with black hair that's graying/white in some areas, and he has 2-3 teeth missing from smoking so much his whole life. And when he answered he just threw his head back and rolled his eyes and was like, "oh man, yes! I smoke!" so we were all laughing and his wife and kids were cracking up, and so we made goals with him to stop smoking and stuff.
Then we asked if he drank alcoholic beverages and he said no. But 4 feet away from us, there were all these bottles of hard liquor that were on display. So we asked him about the bottles, and then every one started laughing again, and he was like, "no! no! that's just water!" So he opened the bottles and made us smell the liquid to prove that it was just water. He's a good person, he just has his antics.
In other news, the rain storms are still coming every few days or so. Except remember last time how I said that we've been lucky and we haven't gotten caught outside in the rain yet? I jinxed it. We were inside teaching a lesson when the downpour began, but then we had to leave for an appointment. And the dad of the family was like, "are you crazy? You don't have umbrellas and your gonna get soaked, you can just stay here until it stops." But we had to meet with Joel, so we told him we would just go for it. He left for 2 minutes and came back with these cardboard boxes for us. Haha so there's my companion and I (I was wearing fun Friday clothes I think with a little white peasant blouse and a bright yellow skirt and my moon shoes/sandals), and we just head out in the pouring rain at dusk and it was super dark and we're just skipping along in the streets/rivers with cardboard boxes over our heads. Love it. Love it. Love it. Who needs an umbrella?
OH And DAD, the other day we were picking up some members to go out and teach with us, and the dad asked us to translate some music for him. He had a few songs from Earth Wind and Fire and he wanted to know what the words meant. So we listened and translated for him. But then he was playing all this other music that made me think of you and miss you SO BAD. The mini-dad-play-list included, (but is not limited to) James Brown: make it funky, lock stock and two smoking barrels, this is a man's world, I'm a soul man, and then Tom Brown's Jamaica Funk. It made me totally miss Saturday mornings listening to dad music with waffles and strawberries from the field, or a Saturday afternoon with you tinkering on the Harley or making us wash a car. GOOD TIMES.
Anyways, love you guys! The church is super true and I hope you all have a fabo week!
Sister Waddle
Olá Família!!
Surprise Monday Email! Usually our prep-day to write emails and stuff is Tuesday, but tomorrow we have a conference with our zone here in ceilândia, so our P-Day is today. Yay.
It's been another excellent week in Brazil! Last Monday this family in the ward baptized their son Lucas, and it was a great baptism with a really strong spirit there. We knew there would be non-members there, and the family asked sister canfield and I to do a special musical number and play the piano and stuff. Lucas' uncle Joel was there, but he's not a member, even though he's been to church a bunch of times, and he knows a lot. But the Spirit was awesome and the talks were great, and so after the baptism we talked to Joel. We just went over the baptism and explained some things, and then we just asked him if he would like to be baptized. He said YES, and then we were stoked. We spent every day this week working with him and teaching him all the lessons. He was interviewed on Friday, and then Sunday afternoon he was baptized! Yeep yeeeeep!!! So that was cool.
Its SO awesome how you feel the spirit at these baptisms. Then since Joel was being baptized on Sunday, we invited another couple named João (John) and Edined to come and see how a baptismal service goes. We have been teaching them for a few weeks but its hard to get them to keep their commitments. So João saw how cool the baptism was, and then afterwards we just did the same thing, talked to him some more, and invited him to be baptized. He accepted and we set a date for this Sunday! We just have to get him to stop smoking... Every time we visit them, if we catch him smoking, we take his pack and tell him to stop buying more. We now have quite the little collection of illegal cigarettes in our apartment.
Hah and the first time we were teaching him about the word of wisdom, we taught the whole thing, and then went item by item to ask him if he used any of those things.
Do you drink coffee? Yes.
Do you drink black tea? No.
Do you use drugs? No.
Do you smoke cigarettes? And then he like shouted, "Rapaz, Eu FUMO!" and it doesn't really translate as funny, but its just funny because you have to see this man. He has really dark skin, with black hair that's graying/white in some areas, and he has 2-3 teeth missing from smoking so much his whole life. And when he answered he just threw his head back and rolled his eyes and was like, "oh man, yes! I smoke!" so we were all laughing and his wife and kids were cracking up, and so we made goals with him to stop smoking and stuff.
Then we asked if he drank alcoholic beverages and he said no. But 4 feet away from us, there were all these bottles of hard liquor that were on display. So we asked him about the bottles, and then every one started laughing again, and he was like, "no! no! that's just water!" So he opened the bottles and made us smell the liquid to prove that it was just water. He's a good person, he just has his antics.
In other news, the rain storms are still coming every few days or so. Except remember last time how I said that we've been lucky and we haven't gotten caught outside in the rain yet? I jinxed it. We were inside teaching a lesson when the downpour began, but then we had to leave for an appointment. And the dad of the family was like, "are you crazy? You don't have umbrellas and your gonna get soaked, you can just stay here until it stops." But we had to meet with Joel, so we told him we would just go for it. He left for 2 minutes and came back with these cardboard boxes for us. Haha so there's my companion and I (I was wearing fun Friday clothes I think with a little white peasant blouse and a bright yellow skirt and my moon shoes/sandals), and we just head out in the pouring rain at dusk and it was super dark and we're just skipping along in the streets/rivers with cardboard boxes over our heads. Love it. Love it. Love it. Who needs an umbrella?
OH And DAD, the other day we were picking up some members to go out and teach with us, and the dad asked us to translate some music for him. He had a few songs from Earth Wind and Fire and he wanted to know what the words meant. So we listened and translated for him. But then he was playing all this other music that made me think of you and miss you SO BAD. The mini-dad-play-list included, (but is not limited to) James Brown: make it funky, lock stock and two smoking barrels, this is a man's world, I'm a soul man, and then Tom Brown's Jamaica Funk. It made me totally miss Saturday mornings listening to dad music with waffles and strawberries from the field, or a Saturday afternoon with you tinkering on the Harley or making us wash a car. GOOD TIMES.
Anyways, love you guys! The church is super true and I hope you all have a fabo week!
Sister Waddle
primero baptismo
From an email dated September 08, 2009
HI FAMILY
so, good news, the church is true, and miracles happen. There is this
girl that a bunch of missionaries in this area have been working with,
and she loves the church, has a testimony, goes to seminary every night,
but the only problem is that her parents wouldnt let her get baptized.
oh... sike... miracle: she got baptized this sunday. can i get a woot
holler? it was awesome! And its the coolest thing, because all the youth
in the ward are super tight, and they gave the talks, and everyone was
there to support her, and she is all set.
k, a couple of quick things:
every time we eat lunch with the families in a ward, we share a little
spiritual message. i got nervous with the portuguese, and i didnt want
to give it one day, so we did the cop-out and sang a hymn. it was
t.e.r.r.i.b.l.e. bahahah it made me think of the "if you could hie to
kolob" elders that one time. so we left laughing and vowed never again
to do the duet thing.
last sunday i set a world record on consumption of rice in one sitting.
parabens para mim. my 2 favorite sentences in portuguese are:
1. "Eu quero me batizar" = I want to be baptized.
2. "Come mais, sister!" = "Eat more, fatty!"
and i do :) the members LOVE when you eat a lot, and they go all out
and expect you to be ravished with hunger, and they want you to just eat
and eat. i swear its like the easiest way to make friends ever! Love
it... especially when its hard to hold conversation at lunch. i can talk
about the gospel ok, but other conversation is a little harder. so when
i cant think of stuff to say, i just eat. welp good thing my skirts have
elastic waistbands.
OH YA, and its been raining like NO OTHER. just about every day or every
other day, there will be a huge downpour of rain. the other day, the
streets were literally flooding and it was like rivers instead of
streets. And it was so cool because our area is one big hill, so the
water was flowing down from the upper area, and it was coming back up
and out of the drains because they were so full, so there were these
huge gushing fountains with the water coming up like 2 feet. i gots some
good pictures. Lucky for us, it always seems to come when we're inside a
house or inside the church, and we havent gotten caught in the rain yet,
but its only a matter of time.
another thing - today was my first time on a true brasilian bus. the
experience was akin to that of the Knight Bus, only without stan
shunpike. We were zigging and zagging, and stopping and starting so
fast. and the buses seem to have this game where they like to cut off
the cars. its like a roller coaster ride for $1 everytime. yeep yeep!
oh and i bought these sandals here that are like moon shoes. baha
they're so ugly, but pretty comfy and good for walking. but seriously
they are hideous. and does anyone remember those moon bouncy shoes from
childhood? They're great. so now whenever i wear them my nickname is
sister lua.
And thats really crazy about the shark attack in Carlsbad!! Crazyness.
how funny that the lifeguards swam out afterwards and "went looking for
the shark." What were they going to do if they found it? Smile, wave at
it, turn around swim back and say, "yep its a shark alright." dont you
just love the state guards.
anyways, i hope all is well at home. How was labor day? I sent home some
pictures from the CTM. Sorry its like 6 weeks late, but i never figured
out how to attach them to the computer and just email them. hope you
enjoy.
sidenote - I wrote a fatty long email last week and then when i tried to
send it, the email logged out and it got deleted. sorry bout that.
LOVE YOU
LOVE YOU
LOVE YOU!
sister kat wardle
HI FAMILY
so, good news, the church is true, and miracles happen. There is this
girl that a bunch of missionaries in this area have been working with,
and she loves the church, has a testimony, goes to seminary every night,
but the only problem is that her parents wouldnt let her get baptized.
oh... sike... miracle: she got baptized this sunday. can i get a woot
holler? it was awesome! And its the coolest thing, because all the youth
in the ward are super tight, and they gave the talks, and everyone was
there to support her, and she is all set.
k, a couple of quick things:
every time we eat lunch with the families in a ward, we share a little
spiritual message. i got nervous with the portuguese, and i didnt want
to give it one day, so we did the cop-out and sang a hymn. it was
t.e.r.r.i.b.l.e. bahahah it made me think of the "if you could hie to
kolob" elders that one time. so we left laughing and vowed never again
to do the duet thing.
last sunday i set a world record on consumption of rice in one sitting.
parabens para mim. my 2 favorite sentences in portuguese are:
1. "Eu quero me batizar" = I want to be baptized.
2. "Come mais, sister!" = "Eat more, fatty!"
and i do :) the members LOVE when you eat a lot, and they go all out
and expect you to be ravished with hunger, and they want you to just eat
and eat. i swear its like the easiest way to make friends ever! Love
it... especially when its hard to hold conversation at lunch. i can talk
about the gospel ok, but other conversation is a little harder. so when
i cant think of stuff to say, i just eat. welp good thing my skirts have
elastic waistbands.
OH YA, and its been raining like NO OTHER. just about every day or every
other day, there will be a huge downpour of rain. the other day, the
streets were literally flooding and it was like rivers instead of
streets. And it was so cool because our area is one big hill, so the
water was flowing down from the upper area, and it was coming back up
and out of the drains because they were so full, so there were these
huge gushing fountains with the water coming up like 2 feet. i gots some
good pictures. Lucky for us, it always seems to come when we're inside a
house or inside the church, and we havent gotten caught in the rain yet,
but its only a matter of time.
another thing - today was my first time on a true brasilian bus. the
experience was akin to that of the Knight Bus, only without stan
shunpike. We were zigging and zagging, and stopping and starting so
fast. and the buses seem to have this game where they like to cut off
the cars. its like a roller coaster ride for $1 everytime. yeep yeep!
oh and i bought these sandals here that are like moon shoes. baha
they're so ugly, but pretty comfy and good for walking. but seriously
they are hideous. and does anyone remember those moon bouncy shoes from
childhood? They're great. so now whenever i wear them my nickname is
sister lua.
And thats really crazy about the shark attack in Carlsbad!! Crazyness.
how funny that the lifeguards swam out afterwards and "went looking for
the shark." What were they going to do if they found it? Smile, wave at
it, turn around swim back and say, "yep its a shark alright." dont you
just love the state guards.
anyways, i hope all is well at home. How was labor day? I sent home some
pictures from the CTM. Sorry its like 6 weeks late, but i never figured
out how to attach them to the computer and just email them. hope you
enjoy.
sidenote - I wrote a fatty long email last week and then when i tried to
send it, the email logged out and it got deleted. sorry bout that.
LOVE YOU
LOVE YOU
LOVE YOU!
sister kat wardle
First week and loving it!
From an email dated August 25, 2009:
hi fam,
howey chow, this week was interesting. Especially because I haven't been able to write you for two weeks, there's a boatload to say, and practically no time to say it in. I'll sum up my last week in the CTM as great. I learned a bunch, had a great time, and the chorale experience was awesome. Then last tuesday we flew to Brasilia, and since then things have been really good too.
The first day we were picked up by the mission president, we had lunch and orientation at his house, then we got our trainers... that night we had 8 sisters having a sleep over in one apartment, and then next morning 4 of us left for our areas. Saying goodbye to sister hill was sad, but we just played it off like it was nbd and that we would see each other in 6 more weeks, so it was ok.
Then we came to our area and since then its just been full on real deal missionary work, and I'm loving it. Sister Canfield is really good at Portuguese and she has helped me a lot already. She is a good trainer and a good teacher. The only things thats frustrating is how long it takes to get to places. We walk e v e r y w h e r e. And there's only so many hours in a day, and there are more teaching opportunities than time, so I always want to run places. Our area is one huge gentle sloping hill. So I was thinking how we could get places so much faster if we had skateboards and we could just roll down the hill. yaaa picture us longboarding with helmets and knee/elbow pads and a skirt and vans and books of mormons in our hands. Anyways, that idea didnt really pan out.
Um so ya, the field is great, i just want to do stuff faster. But its good, and the first few days I couldnt really do much I would just bear my testimony and say the prayers or recite the first vision, but now my companion is gaining a little more confidence in me and she lets me teach some too which is good. but its a little intimidating because i can teach a principle, but its hard when the people respond because somepeople have accents that are really difficult to understand. so i try hard to listen and learn.
The people here are AWESOME. they are friendly and open and receptive and love to talk to you. Especially the members. they love having sister missionaries in their homes, and they feed us a little too well every day.
mom, you asked about how i'm liking being in a suburb of the city, and i'm SO happy. i dont know what i was thinking before the mission when i was saying i wanted to be in the jungle. who was I kidding? its the freakin amazon out there?! when i hear about sisters who go to manaus, i just cringe and am grateful to be in brasilia where we have a legit apartment with a refridgerator and a blendor and a stove and a washing machine and a microwave, and a toilet that flushes. so I really like ceilândia and I dont want to go to the jungle. besides theres bugs and wildlife out there. I havent seen any big bugs or anything here. The most exciting thing was a tiny gecko on someones house and I caught it and gave it to their kids. but ya, the weather and the climate is great here. except for one evening/night when it rained REALLY hard and the power in the city went out for like 4 hours. So the entire city was dark except for the stars and we couldnt teach so that was frustrating and a waste of 4 hours.
And I loved going to church here. the ward is reallly nice and they are happy to have 2 american sisters. i played the piano in sacrament and it was the funniest thing. i was cracking up because basically all of brasil is tone deaf, and most people dont know a lot about music. so the chorister, the congregation, and the pianist (me) were all doing really different stuff. i was trying to follow the chorister but it was weirdddd and hard, but funny.
then at church we were talking to this guy, and we didnt know who he was, so we were getting to know him. and after some conversation he said how he wanted to be baptized we were were STOKED and so we invited him to be baptized and he said he would like to. and so sis canfield (my comp) was like, "great, who do you want to baptize you?" and he said, (pointing to me,) "How about the new sister, she hasnt been here very long." so he was a little confused and so we explained it needed to be a man with the proper priesthood authority, etc... but it was funny. then the weird let-down was that it turns out he's already a member. he was baptized over a year ago, but he didnt stay active in the church so he thought he needed to be baptized again to come back. anyways, we get to teach him again now... so whatevs.
Its so so great being here though. Our mission leadership is incredible. I love President Pizzirani and his cute little wife. They're tiny, like 5'2" and 5'0". And the Elders who have given us some training are awesome. We focus mostly on finding, teaching, and baptizing married men so that we can bring families into the gospel and build up the priesthood authority in brazil. Our goal is for each companionship to baptize once a week. We have a great investigator who has come to church several times and received the lessons, and hopefully he'll be baptized this Sunday. woot hollerrr.
Anyways, i gotsta go. I love you a bunch!
Sister Wahddleeey
PS por favor write me letters? cool thanks.and I had to delete my facebook, so maybe my sisters could put my mission home address accessible on their page so i can get letters from friends? thats probably wishful thinking but oh well. oh, but side note about f.book, if you guys get friend requests from brasilians, accept them, because they are friends of mine. there's an awesome member of our ward named priscila and we were talking about lady gaga the other day and then it made me think of my sisters blah blah blah and basically she said she would find you guys on facebook. so say hi to her for me. k tchau for reals.
hi fam,
howey chow, this week was interesting. Especially because I haven't been able to write you for two weeks, there's a boatload to say, and practically no time to say it in. I'll sum up my last week in the CTM as great. I learned a bunch, had a great time, and the chorale experience was awesome. Then last tuesday we flew to Brasilia, and since then things have been really good too.
The first day we were picked up by the mission president, we had lunch and orientation at his house, then we got our trainers... that night we had 8 sisters having a sleep over in one apartment, and then next morning 4 of us left for our areas. Saying goodbye to sister hill was sad, but we just played it off like it was nbd and that we would see each other in 6 more weeks, so it was ok.
Then we came to our area and since then its just been full on real deal missionary work, and I'm loving it. Sister Canfield is really good at Portuguese and she has helped me a lot already. She is a good trainer and a good teacher. The only things thats frustrating is how long it takes to get to places. We walk e v e r y w h e r e. And there's only so many hours in a day, and there are more teaching opportunities than time, so I always want to run places. Our area is one huge gentle sloping hill. So I was thinking how we could get places so much faster if we had skateboards and we could just roll down the hill. yaaa picture us longboarding with helmets and knee/elbow pads and a skirt and vans and books of mormons in our hands. Anyways, that idea didnt really pan out.
Um so ya, the field is great, i just want to do stuff faster. But its good, and the first few days I couldnt really do much I would just bear my testimony and say the prayers or recite the first vision, but now my companion is gaining a little more confidence in me and she lets me teach some too which is good. but its a little intimidating because i can teach a principle, but its hard when the people respond because somepeople have accents that are really difficult to understand. so i try hard to listen and learn.
The people here are AWESOME. they are friendly and open and receptive and love to talk to you. Especially the members. they love having sister missionaries in their homes, and they feed us a little too well every day.
mom, you asked about how i'm liking being in a suburb of the city, and i'm SO happy. i dont know what i was thinking before the mission when i was saying i wanted to be in the jungle. who was I kidding? its the freakin amazon out there?! when i hear about sisters who go to manaus, i just cringe and am grateful to be in brasilia where we have a legit apartment with a refridgerator and a blendor and a stove and a washing machine and a microwave, and a toilet that flushes. so I really like ceilândia and I dont want to go to the jungle. besides theres bugs and wildlife out there. I havent seen any big bugs or anything here. The most exciting thing was a tiny gecko on someones house and I caught it and gave it to their kids. but ya, the weather and the climate is great here. except for one evening/night when it rained REALLY hard and the power in the city went out for like 4 hours. So the entire city was dark except for the stars and we couldnt teach so that was frustrating and a waste of 4 hours.
And I loved going to church here. the ward is reallly nice and they are happy to have 2 american sisters. i played the piano in sacrament and it was the funniest thing. i was cracking up because basically all of brasil is tone deaf, and most people dont know a lot about music. so the chorister, the congregation, and the pianist (me) were all doing really different stuff. i was trying to follow the chorister but it was weirdddd and hard, but funny.
then at church we were talking to this guy, and we didnt know who he was, so we were getting to know him. and after some conversation he said how he wanted to be baptized we were were STOKED and so we invited him to be baptized and he said he would like to. and so sis canfield (my comp) was like, "great, who do you want to baptize you?" and he said, (pointing to me,) "How about the new sister, she hasnt been here very long." so he was a little confused and so we explained it needed to be a man with the proper priesthood authority, etc... but it was funny. then the weird let-down was that it turns out he's already a member. he was baptized over a year ago, but he didnt stay active in the church so he thought he needed to be baptized again to come back. anyways, we get to teach him again now... so whatevs.
Its so so great being here though. Our mission leadership is incredible. I love President Pizzirani and his cute little wife. They're tiny, like 5'2" and 5'0". And the Elders who have given us some training are awesome. We focus mostly on finding, teaching, and baptizing married men so that we can bring families into the gospel and build up the priesthood authority in brazil. Our goal is for each companionship to baptize once a week. We have a great investigator who has come to church several times and received the lessons, and hopefully he'll be baptized this Sunday. woot hollerrr.
Anyways, i gotsta go. I love you a bunch!
Sister Wahddleeey
PS por favor write me letters? cool thanks.and I had to delete my facebook, so maybe my sisters could put my mission home address accessible on their page so i can get letters from friends? thats probably wishful thinking but oh well. oh, but side note about f.book, if you guys get friend requests from brasilians, accept them, because they are friends of mine. there's an awesome member of our ward named priscila and we were talking about lady gaga the other day and then it made me think of my sisters blah blah blah and basically she said she would find you guys on facebook. so say hi to her for me. k tchau for reals.
I made it!
From an email dated August 22, 2009:
HI FAM,
I made it to Brasilia safe and sound :)
Sorry I didn't write on Tuesday - that was the day we left the CTM and flew out to Brasilia. Then instead of having P-day, we met our Mission President, had a little training/orientation to the mission, and got our new trainers. I'm being trained by Sister Canfield. She's American, she's from Logan, UT, and she's great.
Sorry I can't really write right now, because this is just an update to let you know I'm here and send you these pictures that were taken on Tuesday when we arrived. And to let you know I love you! The field is great, and I'm excited to work. Our area is called Ceilândia... googlemap it if you want.
Also - One of the mission rules is that I am not allowed to receive or send emails from/to anyone except immediate family members. So can you forward this and let people know that I'm not ignoring them, and that I cant read it, so written letters would be great.
My mission address is:
Sister Kat Wardle
SHIN CA 05
Lote B1 Sala 304/307
Brasilia DF
71503-505
BRASIL
write me uppppp!
LOVE YOU, love you, love you!
--Sister Wahdleeeey
(this is how the peeps here pronounce my name.)
Bringing back Rainbow Bright
From an email dated August 11, 2009
olá people,
You know you've been in the CTM for too long when you start to get reaaaaally creative with stuff to do. We have been here 8 weeks, and this is our last week, and then we leave for the field next Tuesday! CRAZY. We will find out our flight information next monday, and then next time you hear from me, I'll be in Brasilia, most likely with a Brazilian companion who dont speak no english.
But until that time, we're living it up in the CTM. Sister Hill and I were craving camping for some reason this week, so we decided to have a camp-out in our room. Employing a few creative methods of acquisition, we got a campfire, a tree, and then used my gnarlsbad teddy bear to represent the wildlife. Then we put our mattresses on the floor, and we've been having sleep-overs every night on the floor all week.
Our other made up games to stay entertained include finding random staircases in the CTM. there are fire escapes that we never knew about until like 3 days ago, right next to the main stairs, so now we just exclusively use those stairs. WILD ISN'T IT? jk, we're not that bored, its just there's only so much you can do in the same buiding for 8 weeks... oh ya, so we started taking the disposable plastic cups from the cafeteria and we're hoarding them in our room, and we're going to have a bowling night soon. the room keys are huge and we're going to use them as bowling balls and the cups are the pins you have to knock down. woot holler, good thing i'm such a good bowler/baller.
Our dress up day for the week was Rainbow Bright day (aka reign beau bright - corinne and jette i hope you remember that). i WISH i could get these pictures to work, because it turned out way cute. Sis Hill, Sis Christiansen, Sis Forste and I all wore bright solid colors. So our skirts and shirts and accessories were all just one solid color. and they were BRIGHT. It turns out you can have a lot of fun just being monochomatic. i was all yellow, hill was all red, christiansen was all green, and forste was all blue. Then as we walked around the CTM everyone would react with a different interpretation of the colors. we got everything from foods (i loved being called mustard and ketchup), to skittles, powder puff girls, YW virtues, stoplight, earth/wind/fire/water, and a bunch of other stuff. basically we looked like a box of crayons walking around.
The other day one of our teachers thought it would be a good idea for us to commit more to Portuguese, so he had us get together allllll of our materials in English. Then we had to take everything in English and go put it in our suitcases, and not take it out again. no scriptures, preach my gospel, ensigns, pamphlets.... nada. just Portuguese and a dictionary. yikes, and its just intimidating to think that next week we wont hear or read english for a long long time. so we're basically just copying Lasley's district and writing Dear John letters to English.
In ther news, we went proselyting again this week. It was cool because we know how to say and understand a lot more just compared to the last time we went 2 weeks ago. We didnt have any outstanding experiences like when we went in and taught a full lesson in someone's home, but there were a lot of cool people we talked to on the street, and its great getting to testify and talk to people who dont have what we have, and then sharing it with them for the first time. Sis Hill and I are a great match together. She's really good at picking the people to talk to, and I just rely on her a bunch. love her...
and this hasnt happened yet, but on sunday i'm leading the mtc choir. so the lady in charge asked me what song i wanted to do, and we're going to do a special little version of "put your Shoulder to the Wheel." I got the idea from our teacher, and then with some input from others, we're going to change the lyrics around to jazz it up a bit. In portuguese, the song doesnt have the pioneer connotation like in english. instead the verses are all about this great fight and how we have to work and work and stuff. but i wrote different lyrics for one verse in english, and then the choruses are all going to be different. so the first verse goes,
the Lord has need of missionaries
to serve here in brasil
prepare here in the ctm
put your shoulder to the wheel
then the 1st chorus in portuguese is about studying and preparying (Nossa lei é estudar, estudar, Estudar com alegria, preparar) Then the next time we sing the chorus it will be about working and singing, then the last 2 verses are about baptizing and confirming. (That was the part where all the inspiration came from when one of our teachers told us that was how they used to sing it. "Batisar con água fria, confirmar.") so hopefully that should go well.
umm and we're getting 104 new missionaries this week! this place is going to be packed. i'm excited to leave, and hit the field! we leave the ctm on August 18, and i'm SUPER glad sister hill and i are going to the same mission together. my address in the field is:
Sister Kat Wardle
Brazil Brasilia Mission
SHIN CA 05 Salas 304/307
LOTE B1 Brasilia DF
71503-305
BRASIL
write me in the field! woooot thats when i'll really start to need it.
klove you bye!
sis waaaaddle
olá people,
You know you've been in the CTM for too long when you start to get reaaaaally creative with stuff to do. We have been here 8 weeks, and this is our last week, and then we leave for the field next Tuesday! CRAZY. We will find out our flight information next monday, and then next time you hear from me, I'll be in Brasilia, most likely with a Brazilian companion who dont speak no english.
But until that time, we're living it up in the CTM. Sister Hill and I were craving camping for some reason this week, so we decided to have a camp-out in our room. Employing a few creative methods of acquisition, we got a campfire, a tree, and then used my gnarlsbad teddy bear to represent the wildlife. Then we put our mattresses on the floor, and we've been having sleep-overs every night on the floor all week.
Our other made up games to stay entertained include finding random staircases in the CTM. there are fire escapes that we never knew about until like 3 days ago, right next to the main stairs, so now we just exclusively use those stairs. WILD ISN'T IT? jk, we're not that bored, its just there's only so much you can do in the same buiding for 8 weeks... oh ya, so we started taking the disposable plastic cups from the cafeteria and we're hoarding them in our room, and we're going to have a bowling night soon. the room keys are huge and we're going to use them as bowling balls and the cups are the pins you have to knock down. woot holler, good thing i'm such a good bowler/baller.
Our dress up day for the week was Rainbow Bright day (aka reign beau bright - corinne and jette i hope you remember that). i WISH i could get these pictures to work, because it turned out way cute. Sis Hill, Sis Christiansen, Sis Forste and I all wore bright solid colors. So our skirts and shirts and accessories were all just one solid color. and they were BRIGHT. It turns out you can have a lot of fun just being monochomatic. i was all yellow, hill was all red, christiansen was all green, and forste was all blue. Then as we walked around the CTM everyone would react with a different interpretation of the colors. we got everything from foods (i loved being called mustard and ketchup), to skittles, powder puff girls, YW virtues, stoplight, earth/wind/fire/water, and a bunch of other stuff. basically we looked like a box of crayons walking around.
The other day one of our teachers thought it would be a good idea for us to commit more to Portuguese, so he had us get together allllll of our materials in English. Then we had to take everything in English and go put it in our suitcases, and not take it out again. no scriptures, preach my gospel, ensigns, pamphlets.... nada. just Portuguese and a dictionary. yikes, and its just intimidating to think that next week we wont hear or read english for a long long time. so we're basically just copying Lasley's district and writing Dear John letters to English.
In ther news, we went proselyting again this week. It was cool because we know how to say and understand a lot more just compared to the last time we went 2 weeks ago. We didnt have any outstanding experiences like when we went in and taught a full lesson in someone's home, but there were a lot of cool people we talked to on the street, and its great getting to testify and talk to people who dont have what we have, and then sharing it with them for the first time. Sis Hill and I are a great match together. She's really good at picking the people to talk to, and I just rely on her a bunch. love her...
and this hasnt happened yet, but on sunday i'm leading the mtc choir. so the lady in charge asked me what song i wanted to do, and we're going to do a special little version of "put your Shoulder to the Wheel." I got the idea from our teacher, and then with some input from others, we're going to change the lyrics around to jazz it up a bit. In portuguese, the song doesnt have the pioneer connotation like in english. instead the verses are all about this great fight and how we have to work and work and stuff. but i wrote different lyrics for one verse in english, and then the choruses are all going to be different. so the first verse goes,
the Lord has need of missionaries
to serve here in brasil
prepare here in the ctm
put your shoulder to the wheel
then the 1st chorus in portuguese is about studying and preparying (Nossa lei é estudar, estudar, Estudar com alegria, preparar) Then the next time we sing the chorus it will be about working and singing, then the last 2 verses are about baptizing and confirming. (That was the part where all the inspiration came from when one of our teachers told us that was how they used to sing it. "Batisar con água fria, confirmar.") so hopefully that should go well.
umm and we're getting 104 new missionaries this week! this place is going to be packed. i'm excited to leave, and hit the field! we leave the ctm on August 18, and i'm SUPER glad sister hill and i are going to the same mission together. my address in the field is:
Sister Kat Wardle
Brazil Brasilia Mission
SHIN CA 05 Salas 304/307
LOTE B1 Brasilia DF
71503-305
BRASIL
write me in the field! woooot thats when i'll really start to need it.
klove you bye!
sis waaaaddle
Her first Churrascaria
And here is an email from one of Kat's MTC (CTM) instructors dated August 6, 2009:
Dear Parents, your kids are asking me to send this pictures to you, so here are some pictures, at the temple and in the barbecue restaurant.
They are really excited with this experience here at the MTC, and they are doing really good with the languange and the gospel.
Thank you for preparing your them.
Brother Perrupato (MTC Instructor)
Life without Lasley
Here is her email dated August 4, 2009:
HI HI HI
Sorry i really cant even write much. i just killed a good 8 minutes of precious time trying to figure out how to attach a few pictures, but everytime i thought i got it to attach the email would delete. anyways, i'll try and print them of and mail some home, then maybe you can scan and attach them to another email? whatevs.
Anyways, this week has been pathetic. (Things are going well, i love the church, i love my companion, i love everything about the CTM.) EXCEPT that sister lasley left, and now sister hill and i just walk around missing her = we're pathetic. so, life without sister lasley is definitely different around here.
But, tudo bem, all is well. we were made up our own new games. We played watermelon wars at dinner the other night. sister hill and i would take a HUGE bite, then get all the seeds as ammo and spit them across the table. (nostalgic for sister lasley who first introduced us to shooting the seeds.) then this morning we took our extra mattresses out and had a good time with running jumping/flying/falling with style on the mattresses. (these would be the alleged photos i was trying to send.)
In other news, the church is superrr true. we taught the plan of salvation in TRC this week. it was a hard lesson because there is SO much to teach, and it had a lot of vocab, but it went ok. yesterday we finished our 3rd lesson in portuguese, and that one is a lot easier because its the doctrine of christ and stuff.
Our district goes proseletyzing again this week on Friday! last time we went just around the neighborhood of the CTM, but this time we get in buses and we go down to the center of the city. They will drop us off in downtown sao paulo (5th largest city in the world) and say, "ok be back in 3 hours." wish us luck! :)
ummm, i have no time left. sorry for the lamo letter. I LOVE YOU!!!
Sister Wardle
PS. Sister Lasley nos amamos vocês tanto tanto tanto. and i LOVED your forwarded email. good luck with basquetch, and we'll be joining you no campo in a few semanas!
HI HI HI
Sorry i really cant even write much. i just killed a good 8 minutes of precious time trying to figure out how to attach a few pictures, but everytime i thought i got it to attach the email would delete. anyways, i'll try and print them of and mail some home, then maybe you can scan and attach them to another email? whatevs.
Anyways, this week has been pathetic. (Things are going well, i love the church, i love my companion, i love everything about the CTM.) EXCEPT that sister lasley left, and now sister hill and i just walk around missing her = we're pathetic. so, life without sister lasley is definitely different around here.
But, tudo bem, all is well. we were made up our own new games. We played watermelon wars at dinner the other night. sister hill and i would take a HUGE bite, then get all the seeds as ammo and spit them across the table. (nostalgic for sister lasley who first introduced us to shooting the seeds.) then this morning we took our extra mattresses out and had a good time with running jumping/flying/falling with style on the mattresses. (these would be the alleged photos i was trying to send.)
In other news, the church is superrr true. we taught the plan of salvation in TRC this week. it was a hard lesson because there is SO much to teach, and it had a lot of vocab, but it went ok. yesterday we finished our 3rd lesson in portuguese, and that one is a lot easier because its the doctrine of christ and stuff.
Our district goes proseletyzing again this week on Friday! last time we went just around the neighborhood of the CTM, but this time we get in buses and we go down to the center of the city. They will drop us off in downtown sao paulo (5th largest city in the world) and say, "ok be back in 3 hours." wish us luck! :)
ummm, i have no time left. sorry for the lamo letter. I LOVE YOU!!!
Sister Wardle
PS. Sister Lasley nos amamos vocês tanto tanto tanto. and i LOVED your forwarded email. good luck with basquetch, and we'll be joining you no campo in a few semanas!
Isn't she cute?
Here are some pictures that Kat's mission president emailed us. They were taken on one of their trips to the Sao Paulo temple. The other missionaries are people in her district and the sister missionaries are her companions.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Brazil Gets Cold
For those that are following the blog, sorry I haven't posted in a while. Here is the latest from Kat.
Hi hi hi,
Thank you guys for the emails and the letters this week! I loved them and the pictures were great too (Elizabeth, Siaoisis and Mangums - you're great!) Life at the CTM is great, except that I'm FREEZING. I dont know why I failed to think about checking the weather in São Paulo during the winter, to plan for cold weather. Its sooo cooooold. All I packed was light weight clothes, planning for walking around in heat, so I'm pretty chilly, but thaaats ok. I just asked for extra blankets and double up my chabamas to bed.
This week we got new Brazilian roommates. They're nice but not quite as clean as our old roommates. But they're super helpful with the language, and one of them is trying to learn English, so we take turns practicing both languages. This week we're getting 60 new Americans, and next week like 80 more. The CTM is really going to be filling up and we're supposed to have around 450 by end of August.
The other day Sister Hill and I were in the bathroom, and these two Elders accidentally walked into the girls one, but they didnt see us because we were in the stalls. So we didnt say anything, but we heard them talking and saying,' whoa, did they change this one? when did they change it? ... [pause] where are the urinals? .. wait, are we in a girls bathroom?" By that time, sister hill and I were trying SO hard not to laugh, and by the time they realized it and ran out of the bathroom, we were laughing super hard. So then we went back to class and we were telling our district about it, and we looked over and two of the elders in our district were looking all awkward, and it turns out it was them, which just made it 10x funnier. ohhh they were so embarrassed.
This week we had a practice teaching experience in TRC. Its when they have members of the church come and sit there and pretend to be investigators and we just teach them. They film you while your teaching a 10-15 min lesson, then you come out, watch yourself, get some feedback, and teach it again. When we went there weren't members to teach, so we were doing our lesson for some brazilian missionaries. I felt like the first time went pretty well, then we came out and our tape didnt work, so we couldnt watch ourselves. And then the second time we taught, we kinda bombed it. Then watching the video afterwards was pretty painful. I sounded like a croaking toad (I've had a little baby sore throat lately) and I was flipping back and forth in the scriptures because its a lot harder to find the exact verse you want in a portuguese, un-tabbed, non-king-james-version of the bible, and there was some other stuff too... plus i didnt realize how much my posture sucked (sorry mom, i'm still working on it.) Anyways, it was good to see though, so now I know what things to work on.
In sad news, Sister BreAnn Lasley is leaving next week. Today is our last P-dizzle with her, and then she leaves for the field next tuesday. She's going to Florianopolis - an island of the coast of brasil with "32 of the worlds most beautiful beaches." It will be a sad sad goodbye. So, to lessen the blow, Sister Hill and I are ordering matching shirts (of course) for the fab five (Buckley, Palmer, Lasley, Hill, Wardle). Which reminds me... corinne and juliette, you should look up her sister and be friends with Jessica Lasley. dont worry, its not that creepy.
Sister Lasley is sitting at the computer next to me and here's a little note for you from her:
Lama, connie, jet, and babalab!! i love love love your sister!! and i already love you and cant wait to shred the gnar gnar together! i really am so excited. i have heard so much about you. Dont worry about your fatter sister, i am taking good care of her!! babalab...good work in the husband department!! jet , connie and lama i hope you are having a fun summer i´ll send you some floripa sand to add to your carlsbad stomping grounds. save your money and come and pick us up!! Mom and Dad wardel i love you too!! Be friends with my family!
--sister lasley
Do you see why I love her? haha and she remembered all your nicknames from like 4 weeks ago when I first started talking about you.
Anywaysssss, this week we heard an incredible talk from Elder Jeffrey R. HOlland, from a re-broadcasted devotional he gave a few months ago at the provo mtc. It was really really cool. Basically it was like, "Wake up and be a good missionary!!" He touched on SO many different topics, and it was really really great to hear.
Today we went out for a district lunch, and our teacher took us to this sweet restaurant. It was full on brazilian style - like how tucano's in provo tries to imitate it. the meat is SO SO SO good. I dont know where the flavor comes from, but it was delicious. and it was like $7.00 in american money. i love this country.
Welp, time's up. I love you all so much. the church is WAY TRUE. my new favorite thing to do during personal study is from chapter 5 of Preach My Gospel about the Book of Mormon. it has a list of questions of the soul, and how all of the answers are found in the livro de mórmon. super true.
LOVE,
Sister Waddle
Hi hi hi,
Thank you guys for the emails and the letters this week! I loved them and the pictures were great too (Elizabeth, Siaoisis and Mangums - you're great!) Life at the CTM is great, except that I'm FREEZING. I dont know why I failed to think about checking the weather in São Paulo during the winter, to plan for cold weather. Its sooo cooooold. All I packed was light weight clothes, planning for walking around in heat, so I'm pretty chilly, but thaaats ok. I just asked for extra blankets and double up my chabamas to bed.
This week we got new Brazilian roommates. They're nice but not quite as clean as our old roommates. But they're super helpful with the language, and one of them is trying to learn English, so we take turns practicing both languages. This week we're getting 60 new Americans, and next week like 80 more. The CTM is really going to be filling up and we're supposed to have around 450 by end of August.
The other day Sister Hill and I were in the bathroom, and these two Elders accidentally walked into the girls one, but they didnt see us because we were in the stalls. So we didnt say anything, but we heard them talking and saying,' whoa, did they change this one? when did they change it? ... [pause] where are the urinals? .. wait, are we in a girls bathroom?" By that time, sister hill and I were trying SO hard not to laugh, and by the time they realized it and ran out of the bathroom, we were laughing super hard. So then we went back to class and we were telling our district about it, and we looked over and two of the elders in our district were looking all awkward, and it turns out it was them, which just made it 10x funnier. ohhh they were so embarrassed.
This week we had a practice teaching experience in TRC. Its when they have members of the church come and sit there and pretend to be investigators and we just teach them. They film you while your teaching a 10-15 min lesson, then you come out, watch yourself, get some feedback, and teach it again. When we went there weren't members to teach, so we were doing our lesson for some brazilian missionaries. I felt like the first time went pretty well, then we came out and our tape didnt work, so we couldnt watch ourselves. And then the second time we taught, we kinda bombed it. Then watching the video afterwards was pretty painful. I sounded like a croaking toad (I've had a little baby sore throat lately) and I was flipping back and forth in the scriptures because its a lot harder to find the exact verse you want in a portuguese, un-tabbed, non-king-james-version of the bible, and there was some other stuff too... plus i didnt realize how much my posture sucked (sorry mom, i'm still working on it.) Anyways, it was good to see though, so now I know what things to work on.
In sad news, Sister BreAnn Lasley is leaving next week. Today is our last P-dizzle with her, and then she leaves for the field next tuesday. She's going to Florianopolis - an island of the coast of brasil with "32 of the worlds most beautiful beaches." It will be a sad sad goodbye. So, to lessen the blow, Sister Hill and I are ordering matching shirts (of course) for the fab five (Buckley, Palmer, Lasley, Hill, Wardle). Which reminds me... corinne and juliette, you should look up her sister and be friends with Jessica Lasley. dont worry, its not that creepy.
Sister Lasley is sitting at the computer next to me and here's a little note for you from her:
Lama, connie, jet, and babalab!! i love love love your sister!! and i already love you and cant wait to shred the gnar gnar together! i really am so excited. i have heard so much about you. Dont worry about your fatter sister, i am taking good care of her!! babalab...good work in the husband department!! jet , connie and lama i hope you are having a fun summer i´ll send you some floripa sand to add to your carlsbad stomping grounds. save your money and come and pick us up!! Mom and Dad wardel i love you too!! Be friends with my family!
--sister lasley
Do you see why I love her? haha and she remembered all your nicknames from like 4 weeks ago when I first started talking about you.
Anywaysssss, this week we heard an incredible talk from Elder Jeffrey R. HOlland, from a re-broadcasted devotional he gave a few months ago at the provo mtc. It was really really cool. Basically it was like, "Wake up and be a good missionary!!" He touched on SO many different topics, and it was really really great to hear.
Today we went out for a district lunch, and our teacher took us to this sweet restaurant. It was full on brazilian style - like how tucano's in provo tries to imitate it. the meat is SO SO SO good. I dont know where the flavor comes from, but it was delicious. and it was like $7.00 in american money. i love this country.
Welp, time's up. I love you all so much. the church is WAY TRUE. my new favorite thing to do during personal study is from chapter 5 of Preach My Gospel about the Book of Mormon. it has a list of questions of the soul, and how all of the answers are found in the livro de mórmon. super true.
LOVE,
Sister Waddle
Thursday, July 16, 2009
I Love Chocolate Milk
E aí? Welp, it was another fantastico week in the CTM. I love it here. This week we had a visit from President Mills. He is the coordinator of all of the international missionary training centers around the world (of which there are 16 I think?) He was really charismatic and showed us pictures from all the other training centers. The one here in São Paulo is the biggest one outside of the US and its great. He told us how the church is trying to keep missionaries healthy, with all this sillyness about the swine flu going around. We were told that we are not allowed any physical contact - like hugs or handshakes or elbow bumps. He told us we were allowed to BOW to each other. baaahaha. So now we bow. and I think we look like weirdos, but whatevs.
There are some other fun little changes about food here too. One night after a large group meeting they told us that we would now be served a "fourth meal" at the end of the night. The teacher making the announcement said (and you have to picture it in english with a portuguese accent), "You will be served cake and chocolate milk, not rice." Ohhh let me just tell you how much i love it. Now every night at 9:30 we get cake and the best chocolate milk i've ever had in my life. even better than the byu creamery. If we werent getting fat before... let me just tell you, the kilos are going to be coming on soon with bolo and chocolate leche todos noites. but its WORTH it because its SO GOOD.
In other news, I've taken up drum-line. Sister Lasley has a side shoulder bag that she was swinging around one night, and then she swung it around the front and pretended to set it up like a drum for a marching band. Then we put one of our books to use, and set it on top for her to drum. Then we joined up with some other sisters and made a drum line complete with baton/flag twirler girls. Sister Hill took the lead as our drum major. Sis Hill used to be in ballroom dance, and so she was allll over the place. We marched up and down our hall making announcements to different rooms, and having an all around goooood time. thats going down in history as a classic mtc moment.
Another good moment with language confusion was when we were prying into our teachers personal lives. Somebody was trying to ask him if he was single. The word is sabedoria or something, but depending on where you put the accent and the pronunciation of the vowels, there are different meanings. She accidentally asked him, "Are you a tapeworm?" he was SO confused and told us like 50 times after that to be careful with what we say. whoopsies...
I had a really exciting breakthrough on sunday. Every Sunday and Tuesday evening we have big group devotionals/firesides, and they're always in portuguese, with an interpreter. So the speaker will say one sentence or a phrase and then someone will say it in english right after. K so the breakthrough moment was that I understood the portuguese before the translator said it in english. Woot holler for that. i was STOKED. I felt like my brain was working like quadruple time though. Because I was trying to get the words in portuguese, and then i would scribble down the words i didnt know as fast as I could and try and look them up. then i would listen to the actual message and take notes on what he was saying in english. plus I was trying to look up references he used in my english and portuguese scriptures. I had my notebook, dictionary, scriptures in both languages, pen, and a highlighter in my lap and stuff was every where but it was great. So then I was all excited because I was understanding so much from the speaker. Then this brazilian sister missionary got up to say the closing prayer, and I only understood like 3 words. it kinda popped my bubble. her accent was tricky and she was going so fast. oh well, more practice please.
K welp, I love you muitos.
If anyone wants to read an incredible talk, look of Cecil O Samuelson's talk called "What Does the Atonement mean to You?"
Also can I have the siaosi's address por favor? I have to tell you about a few d-rock moments, but i'm out of time.
There are some other fun little changes about food here too. One night after a large group meeting they told us that we would now be served a "fourth meal" at the end of the night. The teacher making the announcement said (and you have to picture it in english with a portuguese accent), "You will be served cake and chocolate milk, not rice." Ohhh let me just tell you how much i love it. Now every night at 9:30 we get cake and the best chocolate milk i've ever had in my life. even better than the byu creamery. If we werent getting fat before... let me just tell you, the kilos are going to be coming on soon with bolo and chocolate leche todos noites. but its WORTH it because its SO GOOD.
In other news, I've taken up drum-line. Sister Lasley has a side shoulder bag that she was swinging around one night, and then she swung it around the front and pretended to set it up like a drum for a marching band. Then we put one of our books to use, and set it on top for her to drum. Then we joined up with some other sisters and made a drum line complete with baton/flag twirler girls. Sister Hill took the lead as our drum major. Sis Hill used to be in ballroom dance, and so she was allll over the place. We marched up and down our hall making announcements to different rooms, and having an all around goooood time. thats going down in history as a classic mtc moment.
Another good moment with language confusion was when we were prying into our teachers personal lives. Somebody was trying to ask him if he was single. The word is sabedoria or something, but depending on where you put the accent and the pronunciation of the vowels, there are different meanings. She accidentally asked him, "Are you a tapeworm?" he was SO confused and told us like 50 times after that to be careful with what we say. whoopsies...
I had a really exciting breakthrough on sunday. Every Sunday and Tuesday evening we have big group devotionals/firesides, and they're always in portuguese, with an interpreter. So the speaker will say one sentence or a phrase and then someone will say it in english right after. K so the breakthrough moment was that I understood the portuguese before the translator said it in english. Woot holler for that. i was STOKED. I felt like my brain was working like quadruple time though. Because I was trying to get the words in portuguese, and then i would scribble down the words i didnt know as fast as I could and try and look them up. then i would listen to the actual message and take notes on what he was saying in english. plus I was trying to look up references he used in my english and portuguese scriptures. I had my notebook, dictionary, scriptures in both languages, pen, and a highlighter in my lap and stuff was every where but it was great. So then I was all excited because I was understanding so much from the speaker. Then this brazilian sister missionary got up to say the closing prayer, and I only understood like 3 words. it kinda popped my bubble. her accent was tricky and she was going so fast. oh well, more practice please.
K welp, I love you muitos.
If anyone wants to read an incredible talk, look of Cecil O Samuelson's talk called "What Does the Atonement mean to You?"
Also can I have the siaosi's address por favor? I have to tell you about a few d-rock moments, but i'm out of time.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
She Can Find Fun Anywhere
There really is no need for summary or cutting stuff out of this email form her, it is long but you need to just read it from her, in her words.
HI FAM FAM.
so there were a few things that i forgot to say in the last email home. As always, a quick disclaimer to apologize in advance for pretty poor grammar/spelling/punctuation because of these tricky keyboards and my lack of time to proofread or anything.
k, so last week i wanted to have dress-up days. spirit days spirit days, who needs an excuse to get dressed up and match with people? so to kick things off we had JUMPER DAY. it was the bessssst. everyone who had a jumper wore it, and then if girls had extra ones they loaned them to other people, and we had all the sisters wearing jumpers. the elders thought we were weird. Then it kind of started to catch on, and someone else wanted to have a dress up day, so the next one was all black skirts and white tops (this one was pretty boring because then we all looked just like the elders, and you really need the girls to wear color to off-set how they look all the time.) then 4th of july came around, and we got everybody - including the elders - to wear red white and blue. It was super fun.
4th of july was great. in addition to patriotic dress up, the cafeteria place had american style burgers and fries and a huge ice cream bar. except the fries were completely undercooked... whatever throw on some salt and microwave it and you're back in business. so the 4th was good. i definitely didnt miss having to work at the beach on the craziest beach holiday of the year, but i did miss the ward breakfast and primary kids parade. oh well.
I got a huge gash in my forehead this week. i accidentally smashed my forehead on the corner of an open closet door. I stepped up on a chair to put something on the top shelf and the door was open, so i didnt just walk into it, i stepped up into it REALLY hard. it bled all over the place (typical head wound) and then we went down to the doctor to get some sympathy and a band-aid but instead he made fun of me. he's the funniest old man. then i got to enjoy 50 people a day asking me what happened and why i had a huge cut on my face, so i just started telling people that sister hill beats me. but thanks to my trusty neosporin, the forehead is back on the mend. what can i say, i'm just a harry potter fanatic who wanted to have a matching scar on my forehead. sweet.
in other news, we live in a war-zone. Every night when we're winding down or trying to fall asleep. we hear a noise like gunfire/machine guns/and bombs going off. i didnt know what it was for the longest time, but i just found out last week that its fireworks. there is a soccer stadium not far from here, and whenever the team wins they have fireworks that are SO loud. but from where our building is next to other buildings in the way we cant see them. we just live with the gunshots and hope that we dont get bombed.
Also, mom and dad, thanks a bunch for 8 years of piano lessons. and thank you sisters for playing the piano and singing virtually every day i've been home in the last 3 years. i'm really glad to be able to play the hymns and do some little accompanying. the funny thing is...i never know what i'm playing until i'm a line or two into the song. the hymns are in p o r t u g u ê s. so they say, 'sister wardle, can you play hino 133?" and i say suuuuure. but i never know what it is and the numbers are different and sometimes the songs are a little tweaked in portuguese. anyways it usually works out, but there have been a few times where i totally butcher it. one night i was playing the opening song of a devotional, and in the portuguese hymnbook there are 3 verses, but the rest of the congregation of 200 people were singing from the lyrics that were put up on a big projector screen, and they only had 2 verses up. the chorister had a portuguese book, so he lead for 3 and i played for 3. i'm retarded. whatevvvvs.
i lOVE the brazilians. these people are so great. we became really good friends with a district of brazilians who are also going to the same mission in brasilia. they are so fun/funny. My favorite one is elder ribeiro because: 1) he is adorable and honestly looks like he is 12 years old. 2) he's ridiculously enthusiastic and whenever we see him he throws a fist up in air and shouts "just baptize!" #3) He is THE BEST beat-boxer. he can throw down a beat like no other. he drums on his chest plus these claps and snaps and he has perfect rhythm. plus then he'll sing american songs with totally different syncopation (-sp?).
Anyways, we spent a few days during meals learning how to do elder ribeiro's beat and then trying to rap with it. He always starts singing that one song, "eh baby..." but i didnt think it was appropriate to sing american rap songs because we're only supposed to listen to spiritually uplifting music right? but it just so happens that whenever we testify, we say "I know that..." which is "Eu sei que..." in portuguese. maybe you can guess where this is going. i decided to write my testimony in a rap. it was SO HARD. knowing enough words to say it wasn't hard, but being able to rhyme in portuguese and then get it to sound good with a beat was just funny. brazilians and americans alike got a pretty good kick out of it. here are two of my favorite couplets:
O Evangelho - sim, é muito bom
Eu amo ler O Livro de Mórmon
Thomas S. Monson é o profeta atual
Ele foi chamou de Pai Celestial.
(Paul you can read it for the fam. it sounds dumb in english though)
Anyways... in other news, we love every moment we can steal outside of the buliding to sit in the glorious sunshine of são paulo. a few days ago sister hill and sister lasley and I were sitting outside in the front by the gate to the outside world. We were studying grammar or something when this car drove by and we could hear the music being blasted out of the windows. At EXACTLY the same time we all acknowledged what we were hearing and we all looked up and our faces were pure joy. the one phrase of the song we heard was, "apple bottom jeans and the boots with the fur." we were so happy. just a little taste of the outside world. it was great great great.
K, but all outside world things aside, I'm loving being in the CTM. we have incredible experiences every day and I know that this is exactly where I need to be right now. I'm learning so much so fast - its awesome. and I know its not at all because of me. God helps us so much and all we do is lean on him for help and we receive it.
Today sister hill and I had an awesome experience. Being P-day, we went on a walk and found this little psuedo park to sit and write letters. this man walked up and immediately recognized us as missionaries, and so he came over and started talking with us. We talked for over an hour. i think i used just about every single word of portuguese i've learned. he was really religious, and had a lot of knowledge about the bible, but he didnt believe in joseph smith. it was so cool because we have spent the first 3 weeks studying the first lesson about joseph smith, and the restoration of the true gospel of christ through him. plus, i just finished preparing my first lesson in portuguese, so miraculously i knew how to explain dispensations, and how God has established this pattern of calling prophets throughout time, and all this stuff. then we talked about the book of mormon and how joseph smith translated it by the power of God, and how the book of mormon testifies of Christ. it was SO cool. and it wasn't me. I wasnt scared or nervous, or tripping over my portuguese, it was just perfect. it was totally all just the spirit working through me. And since i had just finished writing my lesson in portuguese, i was able to extend the invitations to read the book of mormon and pray to ask God if its true, with a sincere heart, and then promised him that he would receive an answer. the Then these elders were walking by and they have been here for 7 weeks and one of them knew a bunch more portuguese, so it was so helpful having him there, compared to my 3 weeks. We sat around this little park table for over an hour and we touched on points from all the lessons. We talked about the restoration, the plan of salvation, and the doctrine of christ exactly as outlined in 3 nephi11. It was incredible. Every thing he said was just opening up doors perfectly for us to talk about things. It was like he had all the questions the lessons teach and he just opened the door for us to talk about them. he kept asking why we are out here on the streets, and we go walking around the streets in pairs... what are we doing out here? and i said, Let us tell you why we are here. Then we went through our purpose as missionaries. and the other elder who didnt know conversational portuguese quite as well was able to recite our purpose exactly as stated in preach my gospel. We told him that we are here to invite all people to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It was SO cool. Anyways, we just kept testifying and testifying "Eu sei que, ..." and I could just feel the spirit. it was legal demais people. so I loved it. and it totally lit a fire under me to hurry up and learn portuguese better so I can get out into the field and really start doing this every day. I loooove it.
So I love you guys, and I hope all is well at home, because let me tell ya, things are great here.
LOVE,
SISTER WARDLE
HI FAM FAM.
so there were a few things that i forgot to say in the last email home. As always, a quick disclaimer to apologize in advance for pretty poor grammar/spelling/punctuation because of these tricky keyboards and my lack of time to proofread or anything.
k, so last week i wanted to have dress-up days. spirit days spirit days, who needs an excuse to get dressed up and match with people? so to kick things off we had JUMPER DAY. it was the bessssst. everyone who had a jumper wore it, and then if girls had extra ones they loaned them to other people, and we had all the sisters wearing jumpers. the elders thought we were weird. Then it kind of started to catch on, and someone else wanted to have a dress up day, so the next one was all black skirts and white tops (this one was pretty boring because then we all looked just like the elders, and you really need the girls to wear color to off-set how they look all the time.) then 4th of july came around, and we got everybody - including the elders - to wear red white and blue. It was super fun.
4th of july was great. in addition to patriotic dress up, the cafeteria place had american style burgers and fries and a huge ice cream bar. except the fries were completely undercooked... whatever throw on some salt and microwave it and you're back in business. so the 4th was good. i definitely didnt miss having to work at the beach on the craziest beach holiday of the year, but i did miss the ward breakfast and primary kids parade. oh well.
I got a huge gash in my forehead this week. i accidentally smashed my forehead on the corner of an open closet door. I stepped up on a chair to put something on the top shelf and the door was open, so i didnt just walk into it, i stepped up into it REALLY hard. it bled all over the place (typical head wound) and then we went down to the doctor to get some sympathy and a band-aid but instead he made fun of me. he's the funniest old man. then i got to enjoy 50 people a day asking me what happened and why i had a huge cut on my face, so i just started telling people that sister hill beats me. but thanks to my trusty neosporin, the forehead is back on the mend. what can i say, i'm just a harry potter fanatic who wanted to have a matching scar on my forehead. sweet.
in other news, we live in a war-zone. Every night when we're winding down or trying to fall asleep. we hear a noise like gunfire/machine guns/and bombs going off. i didnt know what it was for the longest time, but i just found out last week that its fireworks. there is a soccer stadium not far from here, and whenever the team wins they have fireworks that are SO loud. but from where our building is next to other buildings in the way we cant see them. we just live with the gunshots and hope that we dont get bombed.
Also, mom and dad, thanks a bunch for 8 years of piano lessons. and thank you sisters for playing the piano and singing virtually every day i've been home in the last 3 years. i'm really glad to be able to play the hymns and do some little accompanying. the funny thing is...i never know what i'm playing until i'm a line or two into the song. the hymns are in p o r t u g u ê s. so they say, 'sister wardle, can you play hino 133?" and i say suuuuure. but i never know what it is and the numbers are different and sometimes the songs are a little tweaked in portuguese. anyways it usually works out, but there have been a few times where i totally butcher it. one night i was playing the opening song of a devotional, and in the portuguese hymnbook there are 3 verses, but the rest of the congregation of 200 people were singing from the lyrics that were put up on a big projector screen, and they only had 2 verses up. the chorister had a portuguese book, so he lead for 3 and i played for 3. i'm retarded. whatevvvvs.
i lOVE the brazilians. these people are so great. we became really good friends with a district of brazilians who are also going to the same mission in brasilia. they are so fun/funny. My favorite one is elder ribeiro because: 1) he is adorable and honestly looks like he is 12 years old. 2) he's ridiculously enthusiastic and whenever we see him he throws a fist up in air and shouts "just baptize!" #3) He is THE BEST beat-boxer. he can throw down a beat like no other. he drums on his chest plus these claps and snaps and he has perfect rhythm. plus then he'll sing american songs with totally different syncopation (-sp?).
Anyways, we spent a few days during meals learning how to do elder ribeiro's beat and then trying to rap with it. He always starts singing that one song, "eh baby..." but i didnt think it was appropriate to sing american rap songs because we're only supposed to listen to spiritually uplifting music right? but it just so happens that whenever we testify, we say "I know that..." which is "Eu sei que..." in portuguese. maybe you can guess where this is going. i decided to write my testimony in a rap. it was SO HARD. knowing enough words to say it wasn't hard, but being able to rhyme in portuguese and then get it to sound good with a beat was just funny. brazilians and americans alike got a pretty good kick out of it. here are two of my favorite couplets:
O Evangelho - sim, é muito bom
Eu amo ler O Livro de Mórmon
Thomas S. Monson é o profeta atual
Ele foi chamou de Pai Celestial.
(Paul you can read it for the fam. it sounds dumb in english though)
Anyways... in other news, we love every moment we can steal outside of the buliding to sit in the glorious sunshine of são paulo. a few days ago sister hill and sister lasley and I were sitting outside in the front by the gate to the outside world. We were studying grammar or something when this car drove by and we could hear the music being blasted out of the windows. At EXACTLY the same time we all acknowledged what we were hearing and we all looked up and our faces were pure joy. the one phrase of the song we heard was, "apple bottom jeans and the boots with the fur." we were so happy. just a little taste of the outside world. it was great great great.
K, but all outside world things aside, I'm loving being in the CTM. we have incredible experiences every day and I know that this is exactly where I need to be right now. I'm learning so much so fast - its awesome. and I know its not at all because of me. God helps us so much and all we do is lean on him for help and we receive it.
Today sister hill and I had an awesome experience. Being P-day, we went on a walk and found this little psuedo park to sit and write letters. this man walked up and immediately recognized us as missionaries, and so he came over and started talking with us. We talked for over an hour. i think i used just about every single word of portuguese i've learned. he was really religious, and had a lot of knowledge about the bible, but he didnt believe in joseph smith. it was so cool because we have spent the first 3 weeks studying the first lesson about joseph smith, and the restoration of the true gospel of christ through him. plus, i just finished preparing my first lesson in portuguese, so miraculously i knew how to explain dispensations, and how God has established this pattern of calling prophets throughout time, and all this stuff. then we talked about the book of mormon and how joseph smith translated it by the power of God, and how the book of mormon testifies of Christ. it was SO cool. and it wasn't me. I wasnt scared or nervous, or tripping over my portuguese, it was just perfect. it was totally all just the spirit working through me. And since i had just finished writing my lesson in portuguese, i was able to extend the invitations to read the book of mormon and pray to ask God if its true, with a sincere heart, and then promised him that he would receive an answer. the Then these elders were walking by and they have been here for 7 weeks and one of them knew a bunch more portuguese, so it was so helpful having him there, compared to my 3 weeks. We sat around this little park table for over an hour and we touched on points from all the lessons. We talked about the restoration, the plan of salvation, and the doctrine of christ exactly as outlined in 3 nephi11. It was incredible. Every thing he said was just opening up doors perfectly for us to talk about things. It was like he had all the questions the lessons teach and he just opened the door for us to talk about them. he kept asking why we are out here on the streets, and we go walking around the streets in pairs... what are we doing out here? and i said, Let us tell you why we are here. Then we went through our purpose as missionaries. and the other elder who didnt know conversational portuguese quite as well was able to recite our purpose exactly as stated in preach my gospel. We told him that we are here to invite all people to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It was SO cool. Anyways, we just kept testifying and testifying "Eu sei que, ..." and I could just feel the spirit. it was legal demais people. so I loved it. and it totally lit a fire under me to hurry up and learn portuguese better so I can get out into the field and really start doing this every day. I loooove it.
So I love you guys, and I hope all is well at home, because let me tell ya, things are great here.
LOVE,
SISTER WARDLE
Friday, July 3, 2009
She's Still Funny
Sister Wardle titled her email home this week "MJ is not dead." She wrote very little because the time that she has on the internet is very limited and seeing that we all wrote her long emails she spent 23 minutes reading emails and only 6.5 writing an email home. Because of how short the email was it is easier to post it and invite you to read her own words.
"The news that micheal jackson died traveled around the MTC at txt msg speed. even without having cell phones down here, we can still spread news really fast apparently. when we found out that he died, sister lasley (my new favorite person) decided to have a flashlight vigil for him in her room. we all dressed up in black and white (it dont matter if you´re black or white) and danced and sang to michael jackson songs. There is one brazilian sister missionary who came in wearing all black, and she had black sunglasses on, and a white sock on one hand. She has the same haircut and somehow she looked exactly like micheal jackson... in an uncanny way. it was so funny, and now we all call her sister MJ instead of Sister Moreira.
Another hilarious thing was Sister Hill´s little language mess up. She was feeling overwhelmed with portuguese one day, and she said, When I get out into the field i´m going to chocar every day. (She thought that was the verb for to cry) Our teacher started laughing sooo hard, he couldn´t stop to even tell us what she said. finally he got it together and apparently she accidenctally said "i´m going to go out in the field and hatch an egg every day." it was really classic."
So closed saying that the language is coming along, well and that she loves us.
Then came "MJ is not dead part 2"
In the second email she gave the sisters and Mom and Dad a little shout out individually then shared a short story about Sister Lasley. She meet and spoke to a Professor from The University Sao Paulo. At the beginning of their interaction the man came off very arrogant and not interested in the Book of Mormon. In Sister Kat's words, "He started talking about how proud he was to represent the universtiy of sao paulo and being this big deal teacher. Sis lasley said, "well let me tell you who I represent. I am a representative of Jesus Christ..." and then she kept on bearing her testimony. When she was done, the man had a complete change of heart, and accepted the Book of mormon, and said that he would put it on his nightstand and read it before any other book. it was sooo cool."
She's a good girl and would really love hand written letters. If you email keep them short so she can read them fast. Again her address is,
Sister Katherine Wardle
Brasilia
District 25-A Box 17
Brasil CTM
Rua Padre Antônio D'Angelo, 121
Casa Verde, São Paulo, SP
Brazil 02516-040
"The news that micheal jackson died traveled around the MTC at txt msg speed. even without having cell phones down here, we can still spread news really fast apparently. when we found out that he died, sister lasley (my new favorite person) decided to have a flashlight vigil for him in her room. we all dressed up in black and white (it dont matter if you´re black or white) and danced and sang to michael jackson songs. There is one brazilian sister missionary who came in wearing all black, and she had black sunglasses on, and a white sock on one hand. She has the same haircut and somehow she looked exactly like micheal jackson... in an uncanny way. it was so funny, and now we all call her sister MJ instead of Sister Moreira.
Another hilarious thing was Sister Hill´s little language mess up. She was feeling overwhelmed with portuguese one day, and she said, When I get out into the field i´m going to chocar every day. (She thought that was the verb for to cry) Our teacher started laughing sooo hard, he couldn´t stop to even tell us what she said. finally he got it together and apparently she accidenctally said "i´m going to go out in the field and hatch an egg every day." it was really classic."
So closed saying that the language is coming along, well and that she loves us.
Then came "MJ is not dead part 2"
In the second email she gave the sisters and Mom and Dad a little shout out individually then shared a short story about Sister Lasley. She meet and spoke to a Professor from The University Sao Paulo. At the beginning of their interaction the man came off very arrogant and not interested in the Book of Mormon. In Sister Kat's words, "He started talking about how proud he was to represent the universtiy of sao paulo and being this big deal teacher. Sis lasley said, "well let me tell you who I represent. I am a representative of Jesus Christ..." and then she kept on bearing her testimony. When she was done, the man had a complete change of heart, and accepted the Book of mormon, and said that he would put it on his nightstand and read it before any other book. it was sooo cool."
She's a good girl and would really love hand written letters. If you email keep them short so she can read them fast. Again her address is,
Sister Katherine Wardle
Brasilia
District 25-A Box 17
Brasil CTM
Rua Padre Antônio D'Angelo, 121
Casa Verde, São Paulo, SP
Brazil 02516-040
Friday, June 26, 2009
Sister Kat's First Email Home
Sister Kat's first email was so much fun to read. I don't know how she had so much time, or maybe she just types a lot faster the the typical missionary. It seemed like she wrote a 500 word essay. I am sure that my mom loved that, she filled us in on what the first few days of her mission have been like. I will pull some excerpts from that her email said and include them in to this post. If you'd like the full email please let me know and I'll pass it along.
Sister Kat's first MTC companion is Sister Hill, who is from Idaho Falls, Idaho. "She is GREAT." Her Branch President in MTC is President Woffinden from South Orange County, who knows some good family friends of ours, the Vidmars, who we grew up with. We got our dog Scout from the Vidmars so we like to think that we are more family, than friends. The MTC president is, President Woodward, who has meet Fred Siaosi, and Al Bertha, another family and friend from Carlsbad. Sister Kat said, "Its so funny that even 5000 miles from home, we all get here and start playing the "Do you know so-and-so Game." It really is just a small world after all."
As for her MTC teachers, "Luckily I love our teachers. They are super funny and they make jokes all day long. Well, sometimes they dont really mean to be funny, but their accent just makes everything better." Kat has never had a problem finding things funny so she probably sits in class all day smerking, trying to hold in the laughter. Many people smile when the feel the spirit, so hopefully her teachers just think that she is just very "in tune".
The Tounge Twisters Story- Told by Sister Kat
We also really like learning portuguese tongue twisters. K, so the milk here isn't fortified with vitamin D like it is at home, so one of the people giving us an orientation to the MTC told us that we should take some time every day to make sure we sit outside in the sunshine (in my head I'm thinking, okidokie, no problem there) because apparently the sun is a source of vitamin D? Anyways, so we have this spot where I like to bask in the sunlight and drill vocab words, everyday after lunch. So this one day some Brazilian sister missionaries were out there too, and they started teaching us Portuguese tongue twisters. There are some really hard ones, but there's this one girl who can do all of them. She's one of the Brazilians rooming with Sister Hill and I, and when she does the tongue twisters her face gets super serious and she gets going with her arms and the rhythm. She looks like a little 5'0'' rapper when she does it.
Pizza Night!
A little Katherine manorism when she eats pizza is to dabb off the pools of grease from her pizza, I don't think she needed to do that with this story. "There are so many funny/random things that happen everyday, that its hard to know where to begin to tell you funny stories. Thursday is pizza night here, and apparently they like to get pretty creative with their toppings. We ate chocolate banana pizza, and it was SO GOOD. I dont know why or how, but it was delicious even though it doesnt make sense. And its not chocolate banana like a smoothie, but they used some sort of chcolate spread instead of tomato sauce, and then sliced bananas as a topping. So picture that, plus cheese...? I dont know, it was good... go figure." I am personally looking forward to hearing what kind of Pizza Sister Kat will get to try this next week.
Music
During the Sister 's hall meeting on Thursday nights they pick a song to sing, Sister Kat said they go with the Hokey Pokey. Apparently the Brizilians love this song. Sister Kat has also been ask to be the unofficial piano accompanist for the MTC choir. One of Katherine's favorite things to do it play the piano! When she was in high school while studying and craming for AP test, she'd take little study breaks with Juliette to play the piano, I am sure that she wishes she could still do that, but from what she says I think she's got her priorities right this time. "Too bad we're always in class and I can never practice, but they want me to arrange a medley of songs. And they want me to learn the Brazilian national anthem. Look it up on youtube, its super rápido and really fun to play. I got the sheet music, but it will take me a while to get it down where its accurate and fast enough to be acceptable to the Brazilians." Lets pray for Sister Kat that she will find some time to practice this one, it sounds tough! I looked on youtube and this was the best version of their national anthem I could find. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK6EZmmSqvw
We love her and she is doing fantastic, please keep her in your prayers. And of course she would appreciate letters and pictures.
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