Saturday, March 27, 2010

the 180 degree change

What up FAM?

welp this email is coming to you wayy late today because we were downtown in the federal district today with all of the sisters of the mission. Sister Pizzirani says its important for us to be friends. aww :) so she gave us a play day. i loved it. i'll get serious one of these days about figuring out how to upload pictures for you folks at home, so you can see the beauties of brasilia.

sidenote - yay i'm glad you got the cd that i sent with pictures.

in other news real fast - we had the most increduble lesson on saturday with this woman who made a 180 degree change in one hour. her name is Ana Lucia, and the first time we met her she made it clear that she was s u p e r anti-mormon. but we taught her just to clear up some of the ridiculous ideas and pre conceptions she had about the church. then we ended up teaching her brother who lived in the house in the front. Joao Batista (her brother) was incredible to teach. He was stoked to learn everything, read and prayed about the book of mormon, and was pratically converted in one night. it was amazing. so we were praparing joao batista for his baptism, and we went back to teach Ana Lucia, just so that she wouldnt throw a fit over joao batista's baptism.

anyways, we went with the purpose of just softening her up for her brothers baptism, but when we got there and sat down, the spirit took the lesson in a direction completely different. We read a couple passages with her in the book of mormon, (you have to know that she previously REFUSED that there was any chance that the book of mormon is the word of God WITH the Bible). so we read alma 32, talked about faith, then the subject changed, and ended up talking about some other stuff, and we were reading and explaining a scripture from the bible, and relating it to a passage in the Book of mormon that helps in the explanation. she started crying. she told us how this was ananswer to her prayer. how she's having some real issues in her marriage, and how fri night sher had opened her bible, read a scripture, but didnt understand it. then when we were there sat, we were explaining the things that she hadn't understood. it was so cool. at the end she absolutely couldn't stop thanking us.

this is what she said, "please keep teaching me, i promise i'm paying attention now. i know that you two were sent here by God tonight, and i know that what you are teaching me is true. what else can i read in the book of mormon? i promise i'll read it." i was like, 'look, we love you, but we cant teach all of the gospel in one night, etc. we'll leave this chapter (alma 32) with you, and we'll come back tomorrow afternoon." she responded, "ok good but what time will you come? can you come at 4:00? i know this is important and i dont want to miss your visit, so does 4:00 work? i'm so sorry but when i saw you in my doorway i didnt want to invite you in, but now i cant wait for you to come back?" we said yes, and she was like, k good, dont be late.

anyways it was sweet. the book of mormon is t r u e. it changes our lives! one time president pizzirani said, "we dont give people the book of mormon so that they'll read a couple of scriptures. it is a gift from God to change our lives. read it, study it, ponder about and live its principles." amen presidente!

welp, só isso. i love you guys and miss you a bunch. i hope you have a great week!

kat

Be grateful for your thumbs

FAM!

Be grateful for your thumbs, because someday you might fall and break your hand and you'll be stuck with a cast and you wont be able to use your thumb. This is a little lesson i learned this week. oopsie.

i have no time left and its extremely incommodating to type with one hand so i'll just tell you the story of how it happened...

Sister Lima and Barbara and I were leaving this building and there was a outdoor stairway and banister. You'd think that after sliding down thw banisters virtually every day south of campus at BYU, that I'd be able to slide down this banister too without problems. Turns out the coefficient of friction of my skirt is much lower than that of jeans, so the skirt slides a LOT faster. I almost made it down the whole handrail, but i fell at the end, and bounced off the last step and hit the ground way hard. I bruised my tail bone - a real pain -- and broke a bone in my hand. So now i have a huge cast that goes all the way up past my elbow (because he had to immobolize the entire arm so i wouldnt rotate my wrist.) i have to have the cast for 60 days!!! anyways it stinks, but whatevs. the good news is that it was my left hand :)

other good news: the church is true, and so is the book of mormon. it has so much power to change our lives. all we haves to do is read it. yayyy.

sorry this email is lame. mom, dont worry about it I'm fine :)welp love you!

kat

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Lima-isms

Hi Fam,

Very little time to write, but that's ok, because this week I have very
little to write anyways. Our week was good -- kinda. We had a few
difficulties with bringing people to church, and some other stuff, but
it's cool baby. This is one of the good things about the mission: when
you have a week that's not so great, there's always another week coming
right after it.

So since there's nothing fantasic to report, I'll share with you a few
of my favorite Sister Lima quotes:

One day I was kinda out of it, and she looked at me and said in English,
"Gringa, do you be fine?" bahahaha right after she said that I felt
great again.

Another day I said some little sassy comment (as a JOKE) and this one
she said in portuguese, "Sister, in English you must be a real pill
because you're turning into quite the smart alec in Portuguese."

One of the days I was sick and was going to take tylenol. And I was
going to take three pills at the same time. She flipped, and said, "I'm
going to write a note in your letter of recommendation that says,
"Whatever you do, don't let her medicate the children!"

And another day when I wasn't eating my usual mountain of food she goes,
"You know there's something wrong with the Gringa when she doesn't eat,
so you tell me what it is right now and we're going to fix it."

I LOVE HER.

But I love you guys more. I miss you a bunch. Sister Nickole Canfield
(my trainer) is going home next week. Sad. Ah welp. It happens.

I LOVE YOU MUITO.
beijo
tchau,
Sister Wardle

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

i got sick :(

HI fam.

WELP this week was not the greatest. I got pretty sick but I'm feeling like 90% right now, so thats good :)

Last thursday i woke up at 2:00 am and i was feeling really sick so i got up went to the bathroom and started throwing up a bunch. so i took a shower and while i was in the shower my companion woke up and she called through the door, "gringa, are you ok?" and i responded, "tô passando mal" (i'm not feeling well). haha but with the noise of the shower what she heard was, "estou lavando a mão." (i'm washing my hand). haha so she just went back to bed.

But the next morning i didnt get any better. So I after lunch on friday i was in no state to work, so we ended up going to the hospital. They gave me an iv and said it was to treat my symptoms, and that i would be able to sleep. My symptoms that I had include: headache, stomach ache, sore throat, diarrea, fever, dizziness, and vomit. The medicine that they gave me treated NONE of those symptoms. We were in the hospital for like 3 hours, and then the nurse came back and was like, "ok are you feeling good to go?" and i was like, no, lets try this again please. so the second round of stuff they gave me was excellent. Also the elders came and gave me a blessing. i love the priesthood. afterwards i slept like a baby and went home and slept some more.

The next day was saturday and it was the day of Carine's baptism. Except that i still needed to sleep A LOT so I stayed at a members house and slept most of the day and sister lima went on splits to teach some people. Saturday evening for the baptism - obviously i had to go - and it was wonderful. Carine is an angel. sweetest thing ever. She's dating this member and he baptized her, and it was a great baptism. afterwards she went around handing out party favors and thanking everyone for coming. sweet heart.

Sunday i still had zero energy to get out of bed, and even though it was church i wanted to go so bad but i couldnt. But my ANGEL of a companion took care of everything. She set up splits so that someone would stay at home with me, and she went to church and took care of everything with the confirmations, and with everything and i slept like a baby some more. Then once the entire ward found out that Sister Wardle was sick we started getting alllll the phone calls from everyone in the ward to check on me and see how i was. brazilians are seroiusly such nice people! like half of the relief society called to see how i was. and after church the young mens president and the entire young mens organization came over to our apartment to bless and administer the sacrament. little sweeties. plus Barbara came to visit. we know how i love her. i think that was the best one because she lives SO far away now, and it was a complete surprise.

But anyways, I'm feeling good now. I'm still not really sure exactly what it was. doctor hottie from the hospital said that I had an intestinal infection, and that it was because of something i ate. so thats good to know that i dont have worms or any weird diseases. yay.
(bre- i was thinking of you the majority of the time that i was conciously awake and capable of thinking. and of your experience in brazilian hospitals. and how you wished you had someone to whom you could say, "i got worms" so that they would laugh. ah welp. sugar.)

So that was pretty much the week. We're going downtown today to meet up with Barbara and Sister Canfield. YAY. LOVE them. Sister canfield has like 2 weeks left in her mission and then she's going home. haha Barbara and I are planning a special musical number that we're going to sing the day that she leaves. I'll see if i can record it for you guys to enjoy.

LOVE YOU SO MUCH.
have a wonderful week!
Sister Wardle