families can be togeeeeeether forever

Hey fam-bam!

How much did we all love general conference? First up – how about the incredible themes about the importance of families, the relationship between parens and children, and raising strong youth in the gospel. Mom and dad, thank you for bringing us up in the church. Made me miss my fam. But thats ok because i felt close to you guys especially during the Sunday morning session... because... i saw aunt mary ellen singing in the choir! in the second to last hymn, i saw her for like 1 second, and obviously got all teary an couldnt handle it, but it was great. mary ellen, you're lookin good, as always. :) i LOVED the music of the sunday morning sesh. kelly and daniel you are SO lucky to have been there to soak it up live. carumba, This is The Chist was amazing.

Other thing i loved - we had two complete families of investigators with us, and it was m.a.r.v.e.l.o.u.s. we had the family of fransisco and aureni - cutest little family ever - wants to get baptized, but works every sunday, but wants to stop working on sunday to keep the sabbath day holy. Other family of Paulo and Ana Lucia. When we met them Ana Lucia was the lady who wanted nothing to do with the book ofmormon, but at the endf of the lesson she was loving it. Well she and her husband had split up, but they are kindof in the process of getting back together, but its VERY tense still. and ana lucia is paranoid about raising two teenage boys. anyways They came to conference together, and i was sitting next to her, and during the session i saw him reach for her hand and they stayed holding hands listening to the messages from the prophet and apostles anbout protecting and taking care of the family. sweetest thing ever. i love this gospel.

k i have to RUN and teach these wonderful people. This is going to be a gnarly week. :)

love, sister kat.

and ps just to clear up what seems to be a bit of confusion, i broke my HAND, not my arm.
k love you bye

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

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

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

its cool baby

This was sent home Feb 23, 2010

FAMILY!!

Yay, I finally have the chance to write you! So here’s the skinny: I LOVE Gama. Wow, where to begin? Lets start at the very beginning; a very good place to start.
The first week in Gama was full throttle. I love being transferred. Its like arriving in the mission field like a greenie all excited and running around because your stoked to figure stuff out, meet everybody, and get going. The first week – this area had a bunch of possible baptisms (people who had been to church before, people who had already been taught, but never quite committed to baptism.) So we just went after these people and we were blessed with 2 baptisms the first week. A young man named João and his little sister, Julianna. Sweetest little things. The Sunday morning when we went to get them before church, they were standing outside, completely ready to go, in the rain. (this is a big deal because whenever there is the tiniest bit of rain here, people absolutely refuse to leave the house. I’m still having trouble understanding this. Heaven forbid we get our shoes wet?)

The first week was also eventful because of my first trip to a Brazilian hospital. My companion, Sister Lima, got super sick and really needed a doctor. Luckily, we live in an apartment across the street from a hospital. So at like 9:30 pm, we left to go to the hospital, and it turns out I failed to learn adequate medical vocab in Portuguese in the last 8 months. So we get there, and I was responsible for her, and she could barely speak she was so sick. The doctors and attendants looked to me and started asking me 8 billion really hard questions. (for example, What’s her name? haha I didn’t even know. I was like, uhhh Sister?) But then it was worse when I had to call the mission president because I had to explain what was happening. Once again, I had no idea how to explain. But it all turned out ok, she got some medicine, and was hooked up to this IV thingy. The nurse who was hooking her up, put in the iv WITHOUT GLOVES. It was an abhorring scene to behold. I could honestly not believe it. She was touching bloody gauze of someone else with her bare skin. Has she never heard of body/substance isolation? Anyways, Sister Lima fell asleep while she was on the meds, and I hung out in the hospital chatting it up with the nurses and playing with the medical instruments until like midnight when she was dismissed. I love America. This experience helped me develop a real opinion on public health care – but I don’t want to go into it right now.

Lets talk about week 2 in Gama! Week 2 – I got a bunch of letterrrrrs. Christmas cards to be specific. Thank you Brazilian postal workers, for your incredible dedication to the punctual delivery of missionary mail. Not. But thanks a bunch for all the great Christmas cards and for the package from the Sunbeams in our ward! Loved it. The second week we had a gift wrapped baptism. There’s this lady in the ward who was inactive for like 12 years but now she’s coming back to church. She called us up one day and said, “Sisters, my son Gabriel wants to get baptized. Could you come teach him?” Me (stunned) on the other end of the phone, “yaaaa we could do that.” So it was literally a baptism handed to us on a silver platter. Thanks for the blessings! Gabriel’s baptism was the 14 of Feb. happy valentines day. 

Week three: This was really the week that Sister Lima and I totally clicked. Not that we didn’t have a great first two weeks, because we did, but this last week especially, I have been LOVING this companionship. She is hilarious. She has SO much personality and I LOVE it. We just crack ourselves up in the streets all day long, and she is a joy. And she TEACHES! I love having a Brazilian companion because she understands whats going on in the lesson. I can toss control of the lesson over to her at any given moment, and she knows how to pick it up. Plus she knows how to talk to the people because she is one of the people. It’s fantastic.

Other things I like about Sister Lima -- she always refers to me as Gringa, and I honestly love it. (zero sarcasm here, I think it’s the greatest thing). She just does and says funny things, we make fun of each other in the fun happy way, and we get along really well. She basically refers to the mission as marriage prep. She has all these things I need to learn to do so that I’ll be ready to get married, and then whenever I learn how to do something right she says, “that’s one more point for your letter of recommendation.” Or whenever I do something stupid she says, “oh Gringa, that’s minus one point on the letter of recommendation.” I think my over all favorite thing is how she talks to Carlsbad. (The teddy bear that Janie Chapman gave me for my 18 bday that I honestly cannot sleep without.) When we come home at night, the first thing she does is calls to Carlsbad and goes to check on him to make sure he’s ok. She has this teddy bear she sleeps with too, and she named him Oceanside. And at the most random moments she’ll talk about Carlsbad. One time it was raining and we had left the windows open by accident, and she shouts (with an expression of genuine concern), “Carlsbad vai tomar banho!!” (Carlsbad will take a bath!) I was dying of laughter. And we’re practicing with her English. Omg funnest thing ever, teaching her how to say stuff. Faith = faif. Bathroom = bafroom. This = ziz. So she always says, “ah gringa, you’re choosing the hardest words to teach me, isn’t there another way to say, I need to go to the bathroom?” So we’ve adopted the newer and easier phrase, “I need to go potty.”

But I have to tell you: the number one best phrase to teach anybody: “Its cool, baby.”

She says it all the time. With the funniest accent. I LOVE IT. Please, share the joy of this phrase. You cant help but smile when you say it. And its pretty much guaranteed that the receiver of will smile as well.

Sorry I got super side tracked there, but other good stuff that happened in week 3. For example, the baptism of João Paulo. Great guy. Loves the gospel, loves the church, understood and accepted everything perfectly. His baptism was on 21 of Feb. After the baptism ended, I was playing post-lude on the piano, and João Paulo came up with his nephew holding his hand. And the nephew is this little 9 year old. The first time I met the nephew, Ed, he was this little tough kid, but after I started making stupid faces and winking at him all day long, he really warmed up. When he came up he was all shy, and he was like, “you tell her” and joao Paulo was like, “no you do it.” And then Ed said, “I want to get baptized too.” MELTED MY HEART. Also present at the baptism of João Paulo was this other investigator we’ve been teaching named Karina. She loved the baptism, is super excited for this Saturday when she’ll get baptized too, and she asked to make sure that her baptism was announced in all the meetings last week, so everyone would be there. SOLID.

I LOVE Gama. I love my mission. I love the church and the gospel. I love my Savior and I love His work. This transfer in this area it doesn’t even feel like work because we are being so incredibly blessed. The members are super involved, the bishop and ward mission leader are excellent, and there’s just an all around good vibe here.

I love you all and I hope you have a great week!!
Gringa

forgive me for the lack of correspondance

hi fam.

k so here's the deal. i just wrote a long email apologizing for not
writing the last couple weeks, and explaining eeeeverything thats been
going on, in relatively good detail. um and then i sent it and the whole
thing deleted. and now i dont have time.

stinking internet. its literally heartbreaking to sit here and put my
heart and soul into an email for my family and friends who i love more
than anything, and then it all gets deleted.

sum up:
i was transfered to Gama Centro
i have a brazilian companion named Sister Lima
we have had 3 great baptisms in 2 weeks, and we have 3 more firm
baptisms for this sunday.
i love this area.
i LOVE this work. i want to RUN to appointments to teach these people.
the mission is wonderful.

love you so much
until next week.