Conference was amazing!! I was REALLY looking forward to it this
week because this week was a little rough...I feel EVERY emotion EVERY day haha
one minute I´m so happy and confident and feel like I can talk with everyone,
then the next minute I’m down because I can't understand or I didn´t say
something right!! I know it´s normal but I just keep smiling and trying to stay
positive. To answer all your questions...No one came to conference that we
invited. I was disappointed because we
put forth a lot of effort to get them to come and then boom, nothing! But then
I think when we do something wrong or when we don´t use the Atonement in our
life our Heavenly Father must think the same thing of us. My apartment is pretty basic. There is not much to talk about except there
are ants EVERYWHERE!!!!!! I hate it but
oh well! My ala (ward) is small...I think it´s a branch, but I’ve only been one
Sunday because of conference. We only have sister missionaries in our ward,
Sister Coelho and I, my two roomies, Sister Morais and Sister Alarcon. We have lunch every day at someone’s house or
a family gives us money for lunch. Our
areas are so big we seriously have to walk FOR AGES to get to our lunch! For
example, this week we walked about 1 hour and a half to get to lunch 2 days in
a row...and let me just tell you that this is at 11-12 in the afternoon, the
hottest part of the day, the sun rises around 4:30-5 and sets around 5:00 and
IT IS HOT (I’m not complaining, I’m just painting the picture for everyone lol)
and when we get there we´re sweating BULLETTs and we´re like Oi tudo
bem...podemos ter agua..POR FAVOR!!!! (Translation: Everything is fine, can we
have some water, please!) Haha. It´s
funny to look back on that, but sometimes I’m like, well. .this is it...here we
go off to Never land for lunch haha!! The food is so good and I’m so hungry
that I don´t even care!! We only ride
the bus if we have meetings in another area so we walk EVERYWHERE!! We cook
ourselves and do our own laundry! We don´t have a dryer so we just hang up our
clothes to dry. We are close to the beach, but I can´t see it... we´re not
allowed to go onto the beach, but the sand dunes are so cool!! Next week we´re taking a trail as a ward and
we´re going to climb up to the dunes...I’m really excited for that haha!!
Nothing too weird that I have to eat...it´s always variations of chicken, rice
and beans...oh they have Açai here, with condensed milk!! SO GOOD!! It seems no
one drinks water here. I mean they do, but mostly juice!! THE JUICE AND THE
FRUIT HERE ARE SO GOOD!! A fruit that I have never even heard of before, that
is so good, Caju, The mango here...oh my... yeah it´s great to be in Brazil!!
Oh I had McDonalds this week and it was bittersweet because I was remembering
good times at BYU with all my friends. It´s
way more expensive here! And they don´t even have a dollar menu! What a crime
haha!!
okay so onto other stuff that happened this week...I´ve been really
trying to focus on the spirit and that´s what I LOVED about the conference talks
yesterday. There were so many talks
about Faith and the Spirit! I didn´t understand all of it because I listened to
all the sessions in Portuguese, but I felt the spirit and I understood what I
needed to hear!! Oh mom, you will be so proud, but I have been really into
singing now! When I´m down I try to sing hymns that I know will lift my spirits
up!! This week we marked 4 baptism
(ayyyeee). Rafael is a primo (cousin) of a recent convert Adreano and we have
to try really hard to talk and share messages with him! We set a meta para ter
seu batizmo (set a goal for his baptism) on the 17...I´m praying so hard for
him!! Another is Eduarda, she is 11 and she is so sweet and her mom too, but
she is a little more hesitant because her husband isn’t’ into listening to us!
But yesterday we asked her to come to conference (she didn´t ;( ) but we invited
her and her family to Family night tonight with a member and her husband Jose
was all for it! I was like oh ayyee. let’s go. Answer to my prayers! Little
steps in the right direction! The other baptism mark was with Joâo! Alright so
he is I think 76 years old and he doesn’t have teeth and I can BARELY
understand a word he says in our lessons, but we met his bisneto and her name
is Monique!! She is so ready for the gospel in her life! So I have to go but
just know to keep praying and have trust in the lord! Keep looking for the
positive in things and KEEP SMILING!! LOVE YOU ALL.
Sister Talentino
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| It's not a Cantaloupe - It's an avocado! |
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| President Monson's Quote |
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