Hey everyone!
How are you all doing? It was good to hear from you all, and I`m so glad Grandpa´s doing well! Tell him to be patient for one more week, because his ice is almost on the way!:) It looks like a few of you got hacked, or I`m assuming that´s what the weird emails are....so be careful! But it was great to hear from everyone.
As for here.....things are getting a little crazy. Or really, it´s just me who´s getting crazy, because everything´s the same! It´s starting to get real to me that I`m almost done, and it´s a really weird feeling. Last night at Luciano´s, they were talking about plans for Christmas and "we want to invite you guys over to my dad´s house to spend Christmas with us....or, I guess, Sister da Silva and whoever comes in your place". And I actually got tears in my eyes, just knowing that I was so close to saying goodbye to them. There have been a few families here who are really special to me, and none have touched me more than the ones here in Uruguaiana.
But everything continues to go well, we´re still finding good people, and people we already had are progressing more. Yesterday, Silvia came to church! She´s a 70 year old woman we´ve been teaching, who is the mom and grandmother of a few members from another ward. She really enjoyed it, so that was great. Laura (15) also came and liked it again, and Luciano and his kids. (Alba wasn´t feeling well). So the people here are doing well, but everything continues about as normal. Lorena is already getting sad that I´m almost gone (wife of the former bishop), and even planned her baby shower to be this friday so I can come. So it´s really weird with kind of the "farewell" atmosphere and everything, but I`m trying hard to keep my head here in Uruguaiana.
There´s really not a ton of news other than that, except that it´s starting to get super super hot (which I`ll be glad to escape:P) Things are going great with Sister da Silva, and Í know she´ll do great at continuing the work here. I´m so, so grateful for this experience. I´ve grown in so many ways I can´t even count, and I know it´s changed the course of my life forever. It´s the greatest experience I´ve ever had, and I´m so glad I made the choice to come. I know it was Heavenly Father´s plan for me, and that´s why he put the idea in my head all these years. My testimony has grown leaps and bounds, and I know now, without a doubt, that the gospel is true. I have a love for the Book of Mormon which I always saw that other people had, but never had myself. I have a greater love for everything - the gospel, my family, everyone who´s loved and cared for me, and everything about life. So thank you all so much for supporting me in this decision!
I love you all, and can´t wait to see you soon. We watched The Other Side of Heaven last night with Luciano and Alba, and it was so weird to see what it was like for him to go home. I´m sure a few things will be like that for me - I might not go barefoot or sleep on the floor, but it will be so different to be home after so much time away. But I´m so grateful for the amazing memories I`ll bring with me. I love you all, and have a great week! I´ll see you soon! :D
Love,
Sister Madsen
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Another week!
Hey guys!
I´m so glad everyone´s doing well! I loved the videos of Caroline - she´s talking so much now! I can´t believe how big she´s getting. Thanks so much for all the updates and everything.
As for here, it was another normal week of work. Things went a lot smoother this time after our travel disaster last week, so that was nice. We found a few new people who were pretty cool - a lady named Simone who´s really young but already a widow, with three kids. She really understood everything we talked about, which was great - there are some people who seem to "get it" and others where their mind is just somewhere else. We also re-found Veronica, a really cool 20-something-ish girl Sister Cantuara and I had found, but when we went to the next appointment she had gone out of town, and then they said she´d moved. But we knocked again at the house where she works, and she was there! So we talked again, she was amazing again, and she gave us the address of her new house. So we went there and she was waiting out in front just like she said, so I got so happy thinking how she must really be interested....but then at the end of the lesson I think we re-lost her again. When we asked when we could come back, she said, "Oh yeah....I don´t know....my boyfriend is really into this church, God Is Love, and he wants to become a member this week, so then I don´t know if we can have you over here after he´s a member". So...that´s always disappointing. But it´s normal, some people are interested and some people aren´t!
What else happened this week? We had a few good lessons with Alba and Luciano, and the whole family came to church yesterday! So that was great. I´m so happy to see Alba´s progress - she´s gaining more of a testimony every day. There´s also kind of a funny coincidence in that we´re teaching one of their relatives! Luciano´s god-daughter Laura, who´s 15. But we didn´t even know they knew each other! Laura was a referral from a member from another ward in her sewing class, and she´s super interested. Then one day Laura´s mom was saying, "The missionaries visit one of my relatives!" and went describing where he lived, and we realized it was Luciano! It was so funny because we had been there right before coming to Laura´s house. So Laura came to church yesterday, and got to see Luciano´s whole family there, so that was nice. Laura´s really cool, and already is way more mature than a lot of adults, so I know if she prays sincerely she´ll get an answer. I´m really excited about her progress.
So, everything continues kind of normal here! It´s really crazy how little time is left, but I´m trying to make the most of the time I have. I´m more grateful every day for this experience and everything it´s taught me. It´s really changed my life for the better, and I´m so glad I made the decision to come. I really don´t know how things would have been if I hadn´t, but I´m so glad for all the ways my testimony had grown, and I know it´s positively changed the course of my eternity. I´m so grateful for all of you and for all your love and support. I love you all so much! Have an amazing week, and talk to you soon!
Love,
Sister Madsen
I´m so glad everyone´s doing well! I loved the videos of Caroline - she´s talking so much now! I can´t believe how big she´s getting. Thanks so much for all the updates and everything.
As for here, it was another normal week of work. Things went a lot smoother this time after our travel disaster last week, so that was nice. We found a few new people who were pretty cool - a lady named Simone who´s really young but already a widow, with three kids. She really understood everything we talked about, which was great - there are some people who seem to "get it" and others where their mind is just somewhere else. We also re-found Veronica, a really cool 20-something-ish girl Sister Cantuara and I had found, but when we went to the next appointment she had gone out of town, and then they said she´d moved. But we knocked again at the house where she works, and she was there! So we talked again, she was amazing again, and she gave us the address of her new house. So we went there and she was waiting out in front just like she said, so I got so happy thinking how she must really be interested....but then at the end of the lesson I think we re-lost her again. When we asked when we could come back, she said, "Oh yeah....I don´t know....my boyfriend is really into this church, God Is Love, and he wants to become a member this week, so then I don´t know if we can have you over here after he´s a member". So...that´s always disappointing. But it´s normal, some people are interested and some people aren´t!
What else happened this week? We had a few good lessons with Alba and Luciano, and the whole family came to church yesterday! So that was great. I´m so happy to see Alba´s progress - she´s gaining more of a testimony every day. There´s also kind of a funny coincidence in that we´re teaching one of their relatives! Luciano´s god-daughter Laura, who´s 15. But we didn´t even know they knew each other! Laura was a referral from a member from another ward in her sewing class, and she´s super interested. Then one day Laura´s mom was saying, "The missionaries visit one of my relatives!" and went describing where he lived, and we realized it was Luciano! It was so funny because we had been there right before coming to Laura´s house. So Laura came to church yesterday, and got to see Luciano´s whole family there, so that was nice. Laura´s really cool, and already is way more mature than a lot of adults, so I know if she prays sincerely she´ll get an answer. I´m really excited about her progress.
So, everything continues kind of normal here! It´s really crazy how little time is left, but I´m trying to make the most of the time I have. I´m more grateful every day for this experience and everything it´s taught me. It´s really changed my life for the better, and I´m so glad I made the decision to come. I really don´t know how things would have been if I hadn´t, but I´m so glad for all the ways my testimony had grown, and I know it´s positively changed the course of my eternity. I´m so grateful for all of you and for all your love and support. I love you all so much! Have an amazing week, and talk to you soon!
Love,
Sister Madsen
Monday, November 15, 2010
Summer begins!
Hey guys!
How are you all doing? I loved the videos of Carrie - it seems like she´s already changed in just a few weeks! Talking a ton more, and so clearly....it was great to see her. Thanks for sending updates and everything!
As for here, it was a crazy week. One of those times where it seems like not much else could go wrong! We started out strangely by spending two days with the sisters in Camobi - Sister Draut is STILL there! It´s only about six months - three with me and three the second time, but it seems like she´s spent her whole mission there. But it was really strange to go back. We got to visit the family of Gilmar and Vanusa, though, which was great! They´re all still doing well, but aren´t going to church as of right now because the chapel is still under construction and they´re having meetings downtown, a half hour away by bus:( There are......9 people in their family, and they just don´t have conditions to pay 18 bus fares every sunday. So that stinks, but they say they´re super excited for the chapel to be done. It was great to see them again!
But after that strange rewind to Camobi, we went to FINALLY get the visa done once and for all on Wednesday. We walked in the door....and the man at the desk looked up and said, "Oh, no. Not today. There´s no way. How many are there? Three? Nuh uh, no way, at least not until afternoon." We all looked at each other - it was either laugh or cry, because we had all been planning on getting it done in the morning and getting on the 12:30 bus, because there are only two buses from Santa Maria to Uruguaiana - noon and midnight. So we stuck around, he finished all his work by 10:30, but refused to do our visas because "he had already told us there was no way". So basically, he just doesn´t like the poor Secretary. Poor guy.
So we went back in the afternoon, he finished all three of our visas in 15 minutes, and then we had until midnight with nothing to do. Sister da Silva and I wandered aimlessly around the city, ate at Subway, and sat waiting in the bus station for about 5 hours. About 11:00, I realized something so awful we had to laugh - I had left the keys to our apartment in the mission president´s wife´s purse. I was carrying them around and she offered to put them in her bag, and I never asked for them back. So, we realized we´d be awake all night on the bus from midnight to 7, and then get home to an apartment with no way to get in. So...that was exactly what happened! We got home, asked for the number of a key maker in the bus station, and called one. He was very awesome and efficient, got us in in just a few minutes and then took our lock to make another key. It was pretty awesome, I didn´t know it was so easy, and he didn´t charge much at all. So that was good!
Then we tried to start working, but were so dead from staying awake all night that we didn´t get much done. Then Friday, I woke up sick with a cold! So, it was one of those weeks, where it seemed like everything combined against us. But we didn´t let it get us down! I couldn´t have gone through it with a better person - Sister da Silva just laughs at everything and never gets annoyed, even when I lost our keys:P So it´s great to work with her! I`m really excited to have her in the area - she´s so excited, I know she´ll do amazing work here. I´m starting to feel so weird knowing that it´s almost over - it doesn´t seem real yet. I´m working my hardest to not have any regrets when it does end. I´m so grateful for all the time I´ve spent here, every challenge and obstacle, and all I´ve learned. My future will be so different due to the fact that I came out here, all for the better. I´ve developed a love for the scriptures that I never had before - I felt like they were the lifeboat I was clinging to in the middle of a busy bus station at midnight. I´m so grateful for every way my testimony has grown and changed. Thank you all so much for supporting me in this decision! I love you all!
Until next week!
Sister Madsen :D
How are you all doing? I loved the videos of Carrie - it seems like she´s already changed in just a few weeks! Talking a ton more, and so clearly....it was great to see her. Thanks for sending updates and everything!
As for here, it was a crazy week. One of those times where it seems like not much else could go wrong! We started out strangely by spending two days with the sisters in Camobi - Sister Draut is STILL there! It´s only about six months - three with me and three the second time, but it seems like she´s spent her whole mission there. But it was really strange to go back. We got to visit the family of Gilmar and Vanusa, though, which was great! They´re all still doing well, but aren´t going to church as of right now because the chapel is still under construction and they´re having meetings downtown, a half hour away by bus:( There are......9 people in their family, and they just don´t have conditions to pay 18 bus fares every sunday. So that stinks, but they say they´re super excited for the chapel to be done. It was great to see them again!
But after that strange rewind to Camobi, we went to FINALLY get the visa done once and for all on Wednesday. We walked in the door....and the man at the desk looked up and said, "Oh, no. Not today. There´s no way. How many are there? Three? Nuh uh, no way, at least not until afternoon." We all looked at each other - it was either laugh or cry, because we had all been planning on getting it done in the morning and getting on the 12:30 bus, because there are only two buses from Santa Maria to Uruguaiana - noon and midnight. So we stuck around, he finished all his work by 10:30, but refused to do our visas because "he had already told us there was no way". So basically, he just doesn´t like the poor Secretary. Poor guy.
So we went back in the afternoon, he finished all three of our visas in 15 minutes, and then we had until midnight with nothing to do. Sister da Silva and I wandered aimlessly around the city, ate at Subway, and sat waiting in the bus station for about 5 hours. About 11:00, I realized something so awful we had to laugh - I had left the keys to our apartment in the mission president´s wife´s purse. I was carrying them around and she offered to put them in her bag, and I never asked for them back. So, we realized we´d be awake all night on the bus from midnight to 7, and then get home to an apartment with no way to get in. So...that was exactly what happened! We got home, asked for the number of a key maker in the bus station, and called one. He was very awesome and efficient, got us in in just a few minutes and then took our lock to make another key. It was pretty awesome, I didn´t know it was so easy, and he didn´t charge much at all. So that was good!
Then we tried to start working, but were so dead from staying awake all night that we didn´t get much done. Then Friday, I woke up sick with a cold! So, it was one of those weeks, where it seemed like everything combined against us. But we didn´t let it get us down! I couldn´t have gone through it with a better person - Sister da Silva just laughs at everything and never gets annoyed, even when I lost our keys:P So it´s great to work with her! I`m really excited to have her in the area - she´s so excited, I know she´ll do amazing work here. I´m starting to feel so weird knowing that it´s almost over - it doesn´t seem real yet. I´m working my hardest to not have any regrets when it does end. I´m so grateful for all the time I´ve spent here, every challenge and obstacle, and all I´ve learned. My future will be so different due to the fact that I came out here, all for the better. I´ve developed a love for the scriptures that I never had before - I felt like they were the lifeboat I was clinging to in the middle of a busy bus station at midnight. I´m so grateful for every way my testimony has grown and changed. Thank you all so much for supporting me in this decision! I love you all!
Until next week!
Sister Madsen :D
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Eventful week!
Hey everyone!
How are you guys? I loved the pictures of Carrie! The most adorable Buzz Lightyear! I can´t believe it was Halloween, I totally forgot. They don´t do anything here, just Nov. 2, which is like a Memorial Day when everyone goes to the cemetary...I think I explained last year? But yeah, no dressing up and Trick-or-Treating, sadly! But I´m glad to hear you´re all doing well.
Here was an eventful week! But let me start from the beginning. The awesome thing about this week was the new chapel! The church is exploding in Uruguaiana - a few weeks ago the ward a little ways away from us split in two, making the 7th ward here. Then this week the new chapel was finally ready. It´s a good ways away from downtown where we work, out where the city is expanding, and is huge and totally beautiful. Since we got here, a lot of times when we introduce ourselves people say, "Oh, is that church they´re building out on the edge of the city you guys´s? Man, that´s going to be a beautiful church." So it was finally ready this week, and there was stuff going on there all week. Tuesday and Wednesday there was an open house, and all of us missionaries went out to help. In the afternoon school groups came through to look, and at night it was open to families and whoever wanted to come in.
It was great - everyone was super impressed with it. A lot of people from the neighborhood came in just out of curiosity, from having watched it since the start of construction. People got really interested, and were touched by the Spirit that was there. We had a "missionary room" where we showed the baptismal font and watched a 3 minute video on missionary work, and had a table showing all kinds of church materials. We let people look and then had them write their names and addresses so we could deliver whatever materials they wanted and explain a little more for them. So everyone loved that.
Then Thursday was pretty much our only normal work day, Friday being the dedication of the chapel. President Ribeiro was in town for the dedication on Friday and Stake Conference on Sunday, so he had interviews with us Friday morning. My interview with him was great, and we tried to get my exit date figured out. I asked if it was possible for me to stay a little more, just because leaving a whole month early seems so long, but he decided it´s too hard to send me home alone, and I´d better just go home with the earlier group on Dec. 1. But then he said he´d talk to me about it in Santa Maria....what? "That´s right, in Santa Maria, because Sister Cantuara´s being transfered Monday."
Bam! He waited two weeks after the normal transfer day, when we thought it was all safe and she´d be staying with me til the end. I was sad! I guess I haven´t talked about her much, as Mom was asking about her, but I got really attached to Sister Cantuara. She´s just so easy to get along with - we´re really similar, easygoing and kind of quiet, and we made a really great team. And we were together longer than I´d ever been with another companion, about 5 months! So I was sad to hear I wouldn´t be finishing up with her after all, but happy too when he said Sister da Silva would be coming in her place, who I already lived with in Santa Maria and is also great. But after he told us, we had to spent most of friday and saturday getting everything ready for her to go. It was really hard for her to say goodbye to everyone, and for everyone to say goodbye to her! A good bit of tears were shed, especially with Marco and Lorena (used to be bishop) and Luciano and Alba. But we got everything ready, and drove to Santa Maria with Presidente and Sister Ribeiro. (I at first wrote "drove home" - do I feel like Santa Maria is my home now?:P) We left about 2:00, right after Stake Conference, and got here at 5:30....SO, so much better than getting on the bus there at 10:00 at night and getting in at 4:00 in the morning. Buses are so slow!
Also driving home with them was Elder Prieto, an area seventy who spoke at the Conference. He´s very cool, and we got to talk to him all afternoon! It was great to meet him. So we got home, stayed all afternoon at the president´s house, where their daughter, son in law and grandson are also staying with them, and all had dinner together. Then President drove us to a hotel since there was no room for us at their house and the "big house of the sisters" doesn´t exist anymore - now it´s 4 elders living there!:( So I stayed the night in a hotel for the first time in a year and a half, and then early this morning we got up to get my visa all taken care of once and for all. We went to the mission office, met Elder Hanks and Elder Witt, the other two Americans who arrived with me, and went over to the police station to finally get everything taken care of (remember the fiasco last time when we made the trip for nothing because there was missing paperwork?) So we turn the corner to the police station......and see it closed. Yesterday being elections and tomorrow being a holiday, they made it a long weekend......and yet again, a visa fiasco. But I already had to be here to get Sister da Silva, so it´s ok:P
But now we´re all four of us together for P-Day, me, S. Cantuara, S. da Silva and S. Hawkins. S. Cantuara and S. Hawkins will leave in a little bit for Santiago, and it looks like S. da Silva and I will be staying tonight and Tuesday night in Camobi! With Sister Draut!:) So that will be awesome. Then we´ll finally get back to Uruguaiana on Wednesday....yeesh. With all the stuff with the chapel, the transfer and now being stuck here, it feels like we haven´t worked for too long, so it will be good to get back. I´m glad to get a chance to work with S. da Silva, and I know we´ll make a great team. I know the Lord always has something to teach us in every situation, especially on the mission. I´m so grateful for all He´s taught me so far and I know He´ll continue to teach me all the rest of my life. I´m so grateful to be here serving as a missionary, and I can´t believe my time´s so close to being up. I´m just grateful for the last month I have, and will continue to give it my all til the end. Thank you all for everything you do for me! I love you all so much, and hope you have an amazing week!
Til next time!
Sister Madsen :D
How are you guys? I loved the pictures of Carrie! The most adorable Buzz Lightyear! I can´t believe it was Halloween, I totally forgot. They don´t do anything here, just Nov. 2, which is like a Memorial Day when everyone goes to the cemetary...I think I explained last year? But yeah, no dressing up and Trick-or-Treating, sadly! But I´m glad to hear you´re all doing well.
Here was an eventful week! But let me start from the beginning. The awesome thing about this week was the new chapel! The church is exploding in Uruguaiana - a few weeks ago the ward a little ways away from us split in two, making the 7th ward here. Then this week the new chapel was finally ready. It´s a good ways away from downtown where we work, out where the city is expanding, and is huge and totally beautiful. Since we got here, a lot of times when we introduce ourselves people say, "Oh, is that church they´re building out on the edge of the city you guys´s? Man, that´s going to be a beautiful church." So it was finally ready this week, and there was stuff going on there all week. Tuesday and Wednesday there was an open house, and all of us missionaries went out to help. In the afternoon school groups came through to look, and at night it was open to families and whoever wanted to come in.
It was great - everyone was super impressed with it. A lot of people from the neighborhood came in just out of curiosity, from having watched it since the start of construction. People got really interested, and were touched by the Spirit that was there. We had a "missionary room" where we showed the baptismal font and watched a 3 minute video on missionary work, and had a table showing all kinds of church materials. We let people look and then had them write their names and addresses so we could deliver whatever materials they wanted and explain a little more for them. So everyone loved that.
Then Thursday was pretty much our only normal work day, Friday being the dedication of the chapel. President Ribeiro was in town for the dedication on Friday and Stake Conference on Sunday, so he had interviews with us Friday morning. My interview with him was great, and we tried to get my exit date figured out. I asked if it was possible for me to stay a little more, just because leaving a whole month early seems so long, but he decided it´s too hard to send me home alone, and I´d better just go home with the earlier group on Dec. 1. But then he said he´d talk to me about it in Santa Maria....what? "That´s right, in Santa Maria, because Sister Cantuara´s being transfered Monday."
Bam! He waited two weeks after the normal transfer day, when we thought it was all safe and she´d be staying with me til the end. I was sad! I guess I haven´t talked about her much, as Mom was asking about her, but I got really attached to Sister Cantuara. She´s just so easy to get along with - we´re really similar, easygoing and kind of quiet, and we made a really great team. And we were together longer than I´d ever been with another companion, about 5 months! So I was sad to hear I wouldn´t be finishing up with her after all, but happy too when he said Sister da Silva would be coming in her place, who I already lived with in Santa Maria and is also great. But after he told us, we had to spent most of friday and saturday getting everything ready for her to go. It was really hard for her to say goodbye to everyone, and for everyone to say goodbye to her! A good bit of tears were shed, especially with Marco and Lorena (used to be bishop) and Luciano and Alba. But we got everything ready, and drove to Santa Maria with Presidente and Sister Ribeiro. (I at first wrote "drove home" - do I feel like Santa Maria is my home now?:P) We left about 2:00, right after Stake Conference, and got here at 5:30....SO, so much better than getting on the bus there at 10:00 at night and getting in at 4:00 in the morning. Buses are so slow!
Also driving home with them was Elder Prieto, an area seventy who spoke at the Conference. He´s very cool, and we got to talk to him all afternoon! It was great to meet him. So we got home, stayed all afternoon at the president´s house, where their daughter, son in law and grandson are also staying with them, and all had dinner together. Then President drove us to a hotel since there was no room for us at their house and the "big house of the sisters" doesn´t exist anymore - now it´s 4 elders living there!:( So I stayed the night in a hotel for the first time in a year and a half, and then early this morning we got up to get my visa all taken care of once and for all. We went to the mission office, met Elder Hanks and Elder Witt, the other two Americans who arrived with me, and went over to the police station to finally get everything taken care of (remember the fiasco last time when we made the trip for nothing because there was missing paperwork?) So we turn the corner to the police station......and see it closed. Yesterday being elections and tomorrow being a holiday, they made it a long weekend......and yet again, a visa fiasco. But I already had to be here to get Sister da Silva, so it´s ok:P
But now we´re all four of us together for P-Day, me, S. Cantuara, S. da Silva and S. Hawkins. S. Cantuara and S. Hawkins will leave in a little bit for Santiago, and it looks like S. da Silva and I will be staying tonight and Tuesday night in Camobi! With Sister Draut!:) So that will be awesome. Then we´ll finally get back to Uruguaiana on Wednesday....yeesh. With all the stuff with the chapel, the transfer and now being stuck here, it feels like we haven´t worked for too long, so it will be good to get back. I´m glad to get a chance to work with S. da Silva, and I know we´ll make a great team. I know the Lord always has something to teach us in every situation, especially on the mission. I´m so grateful for all He´s taught me so far and I know He´ll continue to teach me all the rest of my life. I´m so grateful to be here serving as a missionary, and I can´t believe my time´s so close to being up. I´m just grateful for the last month I have, and will continue to give it my all til the end. Thank you all for everything you do for me! I love you all so much, and hope you have an amazing week!
Til next time!
Sister Madsen :D
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Another week!
Hey guys!
How are you all doing? I loved the video and "letter" from Caroline"! I can´t wait to get to know the 2 year old version of her:) I hope you guys are all doing well - not a lot of updates from you, but I´m sure you´re all doing fine.
As for us, everything´s going well here! We had another great week. But let´s see...what can I tell you about? Oh yeah, as for general Brasil-facts, elections are going on! Which I´m sure you guys have heard about. The city elections are over, which I`m SO happy about, because here the way politicians advertise is by hiring a bunch of cars to drive around with huge speakers, playing their jingle. Every one has a different jingle, but they´re all so, so obnoxious! So I was really happy when that was all over. But the presidential election tied, so it´s going to a second round, between Dilma and Serra. I was all for Marina, green party, for the totally senseless reason that she looked like she would be a really awesome president. But we can´t follow the campaigns, so that´s all I had to go off;) So now I`m hoping for Serra, just to change things up here. So we´ll see how things go! I´m kind of afraid Dilma will win, because she has way better music, and I think some people here vote based only on that:/ As a fun fact, voting is obligatory here!
But the best thing I can think of about the week is Alba. She´s really growing in leaps and bounds. She went to church for the third week in a row yesterday! And we had a great talk with her where she pretty much said that she is going to be baptized, she just wants to be really, really sure first. Which is amazing!! It doesn´t sound like much, but it´s SO far from where she was when we got here.
During this great talk, she brought up a concern about how people can bear their testimony and say they know the church is true and then fall away. I think that might be the big thing that´s holding her back. So we talked about it for a while, marked Lehi´s dream for her to read, and are going to talk about it more when we go back. Luciano said at church that she read what we had marked and continued on further (about a month ago she revealed that she´d never even picked up the Book of Mormon) and said she was going to go look at wedding rings this week (she´s been really iffy about getting married). So she´s really changing a lot!!
But then the best part happened last night when we were over. After our visit and right before the closing prayer, we were talking about their adorable 1 year old son, Samuel. He´s really an adorable kid, and really the center of their lives. He only says one word - "este", or "this one". So he´ll start to cry and point some direction, saying "this one!" and you have to take him around asking "this one? this one?" until you find out what he wants. So we were watching him be adorable, and Alba said,
"The funniest thing happened yesterday. You know how he loves to leaf through books? Yesterday he grabbed the hymn book, opened straight to Families Can Be Together Forever, and said, 'this one'."
She said it with such a sweet calmness, looking at him so adoringly - it was the first time I´ve heard her be serious about something like that. She´s such a complex person - she always says how honest she is, and it´s really true, but whenever we try to talk seriously about the church and her conversion she usually jokes about everything and avoids the subject. Sister Cantuara said, "He knows!" And Alba looked straight back at her, still with that peaceful calmness, and said, "Yeah, he knows."
So that was the amazing ending to our week. I´m so excited about her, and to get to see their wedding before I go. I love that family so much. I`m so glad I get to be here, meeting and trying in some way to help amazing people like them. I would be so lacking in spiritual growth if I hadn´t come on a mission - every day my testimony grows, to the point that I know it will never be shaken by anything. Thank you all so much for supporting me in my choice to come. I love you all, and can´t wait to hear from you next week! Have a great week!!
Until next time,
Sister Madsen :D
How are you all doing? I loved the video and "letter" from Caroline"! I can´t wait to get to know the 2 year old version of her:) I hope you guys are all doing well - not a lot of updates from you, but I´m sure you´re all doing fine.
As for us, everything´s going well here! We had another great week. But let´s see...what can I tell you about? Oh yeah, as for general Brasil-facts, elections are going on! Which I´m sure you guys have heard about. The city elections are over, which I`m SO happy about, because here the way politicians advertise is by hiring a bunch of cars to drive around with huge speakers, playing their jingle. Every one has a different jingle, but they´re all so, so obnoxious! So I was really happy when that was all over. But the presidential election tied, so it´s going to a second round, between Dilma and Serra. I was all for Marina, green party, for the totally senseless reason that she looked like she would be a really awesome president. But we can´t follow the campaigns, so that´s all I had to go off;) So now I`m hoping for Serra, just to change things up here. So we´ll see how things go! I´m kind of afraid Dilma will win, because she has way better music, and I think some people here vote based only on that:/ As a fun fact, voting is obligatory here!
But the best thing I can think of about the week is Alba. She´s really growing in leaps and bounds. She went to church for the third week in a row yesterday! And we had a great talk with her where she pretty much said that she is going to be baptized, she just wants to be really, really sure first. Which is amazing!! It doesn´t sound like much, but it´s SO far from where she was when we got here.
During this great talk, she brought up a concern about how people can bear their testimony and say they know the church is true and then fall away. I think that might be the big thing that´s holding her back. So we talked about it for a while, marked Lehi´s dream for her to read, and are going to talk about it more when we go back. Luciano said at church that she read what we had marked and continued on further (about a month ago she revealed that she´d never even picked up the Book of Mormon) and said she was going to go look at wedding rings this week (she´s been really iffy about getting married). So she´s really changing a lot!!
But then the best part happened last night when we were over. After our visit and right before the closing prayer, we were talking about their adorable 1 year old son, Samuel. He´s really an adorable kid, and really the center of their lives. He only says one word - "este", or "this one". So he´ll start to cry and point some direction, saying "this one!" and you have to take him around asking "this one? this one?" until you find out what he wants. So we were watching him be adorable, and Alba said,
"The funniest thing happened yesterday. You know how he loves to leaf through books? Yesterday he grabbed the hymn book, opened straight to Families Can Be Together Forever, and said, 'this one'."
She said it with such a sweet calmness, looking at him so adoringly - it was the first time I´ve heard her be serious about something like that. She´s such a complex person - she always says how honest she is, and it´s really true, but whenever we try to talk seriously about the church and her conversion she usually jokes about everything and avoids the subject. Sister Cantuara said, "He knows!" And Alba looked straight back at her, still with that peaceful calmness, and said, "Yeah, he knows."
So that was the amazing ending to our week. I´m so excited about her, and to get to see their wedding before I go. I love that family so much. I`m so glad I get to be here, meeting and trying in some way to help amazing people like them. I would be so lacking in spiritual growth if I hadn´t come on a mission - every day my testimony grows, to the point that I know it will never be shaken by anything. Thank you all so much for supporting me in my choice to come. I love you all, and can´t wait to hear from you next week! Have a great week!!
Until next time,
Sister Madsen :D
Monday, October 18, 2010
This Week
Hey everyone!
So today was "transfer day", even though President Ribeiro says for him transfers could be any time, not just in six and six weeks.....but it looks like I´m staying here til the end! With Sister Cantuara! Which is exactly how I would have picked it! There´s still so much to do here, I´m glad I´ll have the opportunity to finish it up at least a little bit.
So about this week.....let´s see. Yesterday was great as we had two great couples come to church! Alba came with Luciano for the second week in a row, something she´s not prone to do, so that was amazing. And *drumroll* Antonio and Danielle FINALLY came! Hurray! Danielle finally had a Sunday off, and they came. I hope they liked it - they said it dragged on a little at the end, but "I bet you get used to it with time, right?" So it sounds like they´re already planning to come again. I´m so happy about them - they´re an amazing family. And Julia, their 18 month old, behaved perfectly! So it was a good Sunday.
What else? We had lunch with Luciano´s family twice this week, so that was great. We stayed after, when he had gone back to work and the kids had gone to school, to talk to Alba alone. It was good - we asked her what her burning questions were, if the heavens opened and she could ask anything, what she would ask. We feel like there´s some huge doubt she´s not telling us about that prevents her from wanting to be baptized. But the question she said wasn´t like that, it was more or less "how to get along with people", but we thought about it, and when we came back marked 3 Nephi 14 for her in the BoM, about the golden rule and judge with righteous judgment. We really want her to get reading the BoM, because we know it can answer all her questions. So I hope she reads!
Other than that, it was a pretty normal week. We found some cool new investigators, but no one who really sticks out to tell about. It´s crazy how little time I have left - I really can´t believe it. I´m trying to work every day as if it´s the last, and praying we can get these people to a good place before I go. Thank you all so much for your updates and sending your love and support. I love you all, and have an amazing week! :)
Love always,
Sister Madsen
So today was "transfer day", even though President Ribeiro says for him transfers could be any time, not just in six and six weeks.....but it looks like I´m staying here til the end! With Sister Cantuara! Which is exactly how I would have picked it! There´s still so much to do here, I´m glad I´ll have the opportunity to finish it up at least a little bit.
So about this week.....let´s see. Yesterday was great as we had two great couples come to church! Alba came with Luciano for the second week in a row, something she´s not prone to do, so that was amazing. And *drumroll* Antonio and Danielle FINALLY came! Hurray! Danielle finally had a Sunday off, and they came. I hope they liked it - they said it dragged on a little at the end, but "I bet you get used to it with time, right?" So it sounds like they´re already planning to come again. I´m so happy about them - they´re an amazing family. And Julia, their 18 month old, behaved perfectly! So it was a good Sunday.
What else? We had lunch with Luciano´s family twice this week, so that was great. We stayed after, when he had gone back to work and the kids had gone to school, to talk to Alba alone. It was good - we asked her what her burning questions were, if the heavens opened and she could ask anything, what she would ask. We feel like there´s some huge doubt she´s not telling us about that prevents her from wanting to be baptized. But the question she said wasn´t like that, it was more or less "how to get along with people", but we thought about it, and when we came back marked 3 Nephi 14 for her in the BoM, about the golden rule and judge with righteous judgment. We really want her to get reading the BoM, because we know it can answer all her questions. So I hope she reads!
Other than that, it was a pretty normal week. We found some cool new investigators, but no one who really sticks out to tell about. It´s crazy how little time I have left - I really can´t believe it. I´m trying to work every day as if it´s the last, and praying we can get these people to a good place before I go. Thank you all so much for your updates and sending your love and support. I love you all, and have an amazing week! :)
Love always,
Sister Madsen
Monday, October 11, 2010
This week!
Hey everyone!
How are you all doing? It was great to see the video of Carrie in Disneyworld! She´s always getting more and more adorable. I bought some surprises for her today, so I hope she likes them! I was thinking about Grandma and Grandpa all day on Saturday, so I hope the party turned out great!
As for us, this week was good. We contacted two good referrals, and found some good new people. We contacted Silvia, a referral from a missionary in another ward, who´s the mom of several members. She´s very cool, a 70-ish year old woman from Uruguay who has quite a bit of an accent. She´s great, kind of a brusque old woman who told us we´d have to answer all her questions, and she has a lot, but she was willing to let us try. I really liked her even just the first visit. We also contacted Laura, the 14 year old friend of a 50-ish year old woman in another ward, the wife of one of the ward mission leaders. They´re friends from a sewing class, and the member friend offered her a Book of Mormon. So Laura is very cool, very active in her Catholic youth group, super spiritual and interested in the BoM.
Unfortunately, we´re going to have to give up Laura to another ward, as our boundaries changed yesterday! Yesterday the 7th ward in Uruguaiana was created, another Ipiranga Ward like in Santa Maria. So they stole one street from us, right where Laura lives. But I´m excited for her, she seems really interested and I´m sure it will go great with her and the elders.
Also in exciting news, we got a bishop yesterday! A man who nobody thought they would pick, as he was already bishop a little while ago. Another Marco (the same name as the last bishop). But he´s very cool, so it will be great! We also got a new ward mission leader, which will be really cool. The new one is a young guy who got home from his mission a few years ago, so that will be nice -- the other one was great, but he only had like a year and a half in the church, so didn´t know how a lot of things worked. But he´s now Elder´s Quorum president, so that´s cool.
But as for the story I said I would tell! Let me see. It all starts with the fact that it seems like all of a sudden we have bad luck with men! It seems like all the men we make missionary contacts with end up getting the wrong idea. So we talk to a lot of people, lots of them men, just "making contacts" as missionaries do. And up til now, it´s always been so normal. But lately it´s getting all weird! Just one of the various examples is Cristiano.
Cristiano is a street sweeper who we passed one day and he asked us what time the meetings were at church. So we made a contact with him, told him when to be there on Sunday, and asked for his address. He lived far, so we called and gave it to the elders in the other ward. But imagine our surprise when he showed up on Sunday!! It was amazing, I mean even the people we´ve been teaching forever often don´t come to church, so we were overjoyed to see someone we´d met only once. He got there as our sacrament meeting was ending and the other ward´s was starting, so he went to the other ward. We were all happy, and reinforced the commitment of the elders to go there, telling them how excited he was.
So then we didn´t hear more from him for a bit, until we passed him in the street again! This time he was kind of weird, saying, "Oh yeah, now that I saw you guys, I´ll definitely be there Sunday!" So we went on our way. But imagine our surprise when he showed up again Sunday! This time with a friend. "Wow," we thought, "he´s a super elect! Even bringing his friends to church!" So after, we had Gospel Principles class, but they left soon after we explained that the next class was just for them with the other men. But yet again, we were surprised when we walked out of church and Cristiano pulled up on his motorcycle!
That was the first time the "weird-alarm" rang in my mind. He pulled up and started talking to us, not beating around the bush much before asking, "But umm....do you guys go to the movies and stuff?" A pause. Dang it, I thought, he´s not so elect after all. "Umm, no. No, we don´t." "So you don´t date?" "No...no. But the elders are coming to your house, don´t forget."
So...that was the long story of how we got asked to the movies. It wasn´t a scary stalker experience, as it just occurred to me you guys could interpret it, just another funny mission experience like when I got knocked over by the dog:P Later when we went to Luciano´s house, the first thing he said was those guys had weirded him out a little and we should be careful, but then when we said we already knew and had already crushed his hopes, he and Alba proceeded to tease us about it, and still do.
But that´s about it for this week! Things continue to go well, and I´m making the most of the time I have. Thanks so much for all your love and support! I love you all so much! Have an amazing week!
Love always,
Sister Madsen
How are you all doing? It was great to see the video of Carrie in Disneyworld! She´s always getting more and more adorable. I bought some surprises for her today, so I hope she likes them! I was thinking about Grandma and Grandpa all day on Saturday, so I hope the party turned out great!
As for us, this week was good. We contacted two good referrals, and found some good new people. We contacted Silvia, a referral from a missionary in another ward, who´s the mom of several members. She´s very cool, a 70-ish year old woman from Uruguay who has quite a bit of an accent. She´s great, kind of a brusque old woman who told us we´d have to answer all her questions, and she has a lot, but she was willing to let us try. I really liked her even just the first visit. We also contacted Laura, the 14 year old friend of a 50-ish year old woman in another ward, the wife of one of the ward mission leaders. They´re friends from a sewing class, and the member friend offered her a Book of Mormon. So Laura is very cool, very active in her Catholic youth group, super spiritual and interested in the BoM.
Unfortunately, we´re going to have to give up Laura to another ward, as our boundaries changed yesterday! Yesterday the 7th ward in Uruguaiana was created, another Ipiranga Ward like in Santa Maria. So they stole one street from us, right where Laura lives. But I´m excited for her, she seems really interested and I´m sure it will go great with her and the elders.
Also in exciting news, we got a bishop yesterday! A man who nobody thought they would pick, as he was already bishop a little while ago. Another Marco (the same name as the last bishop). But he´s very cool, so it will be great! We also got a new ward mission leader, which will be really cool. The new one is a young guy who got home from his mission a few years ago, so that will be nice -- the other one was great, but he only had like a year and a half in the church, so didn´t know how a lot of things worked. But he´s now Elder´s Quorum president, so that´s cool.
But as for the story I said I would tell! Let me see. It all starts with the fact that it seems like all of a sudden we have bad luck with men! It seems like all the men we make missionary contacts with end up getting the wrong idea. So we talk to a lot of people, lots of them men, just "making contacts" as missionaries do. And up til now, it´s always been so normal. But lately it´s getting all weird! Just one of the various examples is Cristiano.
Cristiano is a street sweeper who we passed one day and he asked us what time the meetings were at church. So we made a contact with him, told him when to be there on Sunday, and asked for his address. He lived far, so we called and gave it to the elders in the other ward. But imagine our surprise when he showed up on Sunday!! It was amazing, I mean even the people we´ve been teaching forever often don´t come to church, so we were overjoyed to see someone we´d met only once. He got there as our sacrament meeting was ending and the other ward´s was starting, so he went to the other ward. We were all happy, and reinforced the commitment of the elders to go there, telling them how excited he was.
So then we didn´t hear more from him for a bit, until we passed him in the street again! This time he was kind of weird, saying, "Oh yeah, now that I saw you guys, I´ll definitely be there Sunday!" So we went on our way. But imagine our surprise when he showed up again Sunday! This time with a friend. "Wow," we thought, "he´s a super elect! Even bringing his friends to church!" So after, we had Gospel Principles class, but they left soon after we explained that the next class was just for them with the other men. But yet again, we were surprised when we walked out of church and Cristiano pulled up on his motorcycle!
That was the first time the "weird-alarm" rang in my mind. He pulled up and started talking to us, not beating around the bush much before asking, "But umm....do you guys go to the movies and stuff?" A pause. Dang it, I thought, he´s not so elect after all. "Umm, no. No, we don´t." "So you don´t date?" "No...no. But the elders are coming to your house, don´t forget."
So...that was the long story of how we got asked to the movies. It wasn´t a scary stalker experience, as it just occurred to me you guys could interpret it, just another funny mission experience like when I got knocked over by the dog:P Later when we went to Luciano´s house, the first thing he said was those guys had weirded him out a little and we should be careful, but then when we said we already knew and had already crushed his hopes, he and Alba proceeded to tease us about it, and still do.
But that´s about it for this week! Things continue to go well, and I´m making the most of the time I have. Thanks so much for all your love and support! I love you all so much! Have an amazing week!
Love always,
Sister Madsen
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Conference Week!
Hey Everyone!
Wow, I can´t believe you guys already went to Disney World! I was thinking it was at the end of October. I hope it was just as amazing as you hoped! It looks like it was so awesome! Carrie was adorable in her costume, just from what I could see, and it looks like you guys had an amazing time. I´m excited to hear all about it!
As for us, it was kind of an eventful week. The best part was General Conference over the weekend!! I had been counting down the days since last April. It´s amazing how it´s become my favorite time of year - I had never looked forward to it before the mission. But it was incredible! Again, my favorite talks were by Elder Holland and Elder Eyring. They´ve both had a string of amazing talks. The bad part was that we had spent ALL week inviting everyone we came in contact with, with a special lesson about prophets to get everyone excited, and.....almost no one we invited came. But the good part was that the ward mission leader of another ward brought two friends who live in our area! So we have two great references, I`m excited to go teach them tomorrow and Friday.
So Conference was amazing, and then Monday and Tuesday followed it with an amazing Zone Conference! The President came alone, so we were sad we didn´t get to see Sister Ribeiro, but we had two amazing days of training on the new info from Salt Lake, the Simplified Curriculum. We watched more of The District 2, which is so amazing. The hard part was it´s not dubbed in Portuguese yet, so I had to translate it simultaneously for S. Cantuara! It´s a lot harder than I thought. But the training was so amazing. I learned SO much about how to be a better missionary...I just wish I had been doing that stuff all along. But I still have two months to make it count!
So this week was great, a lot learned and a lot to put in practice! I´m really excited. It´s starting to get hot! Already. I´m pretty sure there are two out of twelve months here with good weather, one in spring and the other in fall. The rest is either scorchingly hot or bitterly cold. But that´s how it is in the south of Brasil! And really, I wasn´t that impressed with their winter (now that it´s over at least - I seem to remember complaining while it was going on). But compared to summer, it´s really nothing. So I hope you guys are doing great! I can´t wait to hear more about your trip and everything. And especially Grandma and Grandpa´s anniversary! Give them both a huge hug for me!! I love you all so much and can´t wait to hear from you next week.
Until next time!
Sister Madsen :D
Wow, I can´t believe you guys already went to Disney World! I was thinking it was at the end of October. I hope it was just as amazing as you hoped! It looks like it was so awesome! Carrie was adorable in her costume, just from what I could see, and it looks like you guys had an amazing time. I´m excited to hear all about it!
As for us, it was kind of an eventful week. The best part was General Conference over the weekend!! I had been counting down the days since last April. It´s amazing how it´s become my favorite time of year - I had never looked forward to it before the mission. But it was incredible! Again, my favorite talks were by Elder Holland and Elder Eyring. They´ve both had a string of amazing talks. The bad part was that we had spent ALL week inviting everyone we came in contact with, with a special lesson about prophets to get everyone excited, and.....almost no one we invited came. But the good part was that the ward mission leader of another ward brought two friends who live in our area! So we have two great references, I`m excited to go teach them tomorrow and Friday.
So Conference was amazing, and then Monday and Tuesday followed it with an amazing Zone Conference! The President came alone, so we were sad we didn´t get to see Sister Ribeiro, but we had two amazing days of training on the new info from Salt Lake, the Simplified Curriculum. We watched more of The District 2, which is so amazing. The hard part was it´s not dubbed in Portuguese yet, so I had to translate it simultaneously for S. Cantuara! It´s a lot harder than I thought. But the training was so amazing. I learned SO much about how to be a better missionary...I just wish I had been doing that stuff all along. But I still have two months to make it count!
So this week was great, a lot learned and a lot to put in practice! I´m really excited. It´s starting to get hot! Already. I´m pretty sure there are two out of twelve months here with good weather, one in spring and the other in fall. The rest is either scorchingly hot or bitterly cold. But that´s how it is in the south of Brasil! And really, I wasn´t that impressed with their winter (now that it´s over at least - I seem to remember complaining while it was going on). But compared to summer, it´s really nothing. So I hope you guys are doing great! I can´t wait to hear more about your trip and everything. And especially Grandma and Grandpa´s anniversary! Give them both a huge hug for me!! I love you all so much and can´t wait to hear from you next week.
Until next time!
Sister Madsen :D
Another Week
Hey guys!
How are you all doing? I LOVED the videos of Carrie dancing, and I can´t believe how big she is!! I couldn´t stop laughing in the middle of the internet place. Thanks so much for sending them! It´s so good to see you guys in video!
As for here, it was another week! We continued our search for new people, without a ton of success. We´re meeting real opposition in finding people - we´ll find great people, who then on the second visit somehow don´t work out. (You might say we can´t get a second date;)) Like Matilde and her family - an amazing family who let us in knocking doors, a mom, her son and daughter, and the daughter´s boyfriend. They all were doing something, but all stopped and sat to listen, listened with such attention and loved the message. Then when we came back, only the son was at home, so we tried another day. That day, we were coming down the street as we saw Matilde coming home. We stopped because we got a phone call, talked for a minute, and then went to knock.....and knock.....but no one answered. So I don´t know why people do things like that, see us coming down the street and run in the house and hide, after they liked the first message so much. But the work will continue, and I know there are people here who need the gospel! So I know we´ll find them!
Things continue to be super weird with Cinthia. This week she called once, "just to see how we were doing", but at the end said we were invited over any time to have some wine or coffee. So....I don´t know what she wants or what she´s trying to do, but it´s really weird. Then she texted saying they wanted to have us over for lunch and then take us to their church meeting. We´re thinking about doing it if she agrees to come to General Conference this weekend, but I´m still not sure if it´s a good idea, so we´re getting a few people´s advice about it.
We had a great ward activity this week! We haven´t really been having activities, not having a bishop, but the first counselor is really stepping up and trying to bring the ward together. So he threw together a pretty last minute activity with us, which I was worried wouldn´t turn out, but it was great. The theme was the Book of Mormon, and we showed "Small and Simple Things", this awesome short film about a boy whose friend gives him a Book of Mormon, and then a few people bore their testimonies. Then we ate Brazilian hot dogs (they cut up the hot dogs into pieces and put them in a tomato-y sauce and then eat it on bread! They think our hot dogs are weird.) and just talked. 40 people came, more than sacrament meeting last week! A lot of the people who we´re trying to get to come back, and Antonio and Danielle, a couple we´re teaching. So that was great.
So that´s pretty much the news of the week! As well as the fact that I now know the day I´m coming home - December 1. But I don´t want to think about that too much yet. I´m so glad to be here doing the work of the Lord, and I`m trying to make every minute count. Every day there´s something new to learn, someone new to help, and some new way for my testimony to be strengthened. This really is the greatest experience I´ve ever had. Thank you all so much for supporting me! I love you all and hope you have an amazing week.
Until next time!
Sister Madsen
P.S. Happy birthday tomorrow, Katie!!! :D And happy late birthday, Mom! I wrote your birthday in my planner and thought about you all day on the 17, but forgot to write it last email. So happy birthday, guys! :D
How are you all doing? I LOVED the videos of Carrie dancing, and I can´t believe how big she is!! I couldn´t stop laughing in the middle of the internet place. Thanks so much for sending them! It´s so good to see you guys in video!
As for here, it was another week! We continued our search for new people, without a ton of success. We´re meeting real opposition in finding people - we´ll find great people, who then on the second visit somehow don´t work out. (You might say we can´t get a second date;)) Like Matilde and her family - an amazing family who let us in knocking doors, a mom, her son and daughter, and the daughter´s boyfriend. They all were doing something, but all stopped and sat to listen, listened with such attention and loved the message. Then when we came back, only the son was at home, so we tried another day. That day, we were coming down the street as we saw Matilde coming home. We stopped because we got a phone call, talked for a minute, and then went to knock.....and knock.....but no one answered. So I don´t know why people do things like that, see us coming down the street and run in the house and hide, after they liked the first message so much. But the work will continue, and I know there are people here who need the gospel! So I know we´ll find them!
Things continue to be super weird with Cinthia. This week she called once, "just to see how we were doing", but at the end said we were invited over any time to have some wine or coffee. So....I don´t know what she wants or what she´s trying to do, but it´s really weird. Then she texted saying they wanted to have us over for lunch and then take us to their church meeting. We´re thinking about doing it if she agrees to come to General Conference this weekend, but I´m still not sure if it´s a good idea, so we´re getting a few people´s advice about it.
We had a great ward activity this week! We haven´t really been having activities, not having a bishop, but the first counselor is really stepping up and trying to bring the ward together. So he threw together a pretty last minute activity with us, which I was worried wouldn´t turn out, but it was great. The theme was the Book of Mormon, and we showed "Small and Simple Things", this awesome short film about a boy whose friend gives him a Book of Mormon, and then a few people bore their testimonies. Then we ate Brazilian hot dogs (they cut up the hot dogs into pieces and put them in a tomato-y sauce and then eat it on bread! They think our hot dogs are weird.) and just talked. 40 people came, more than sacrament meeting last week! A lot of the people who we´re trying to get to come back, and Antonio and Danielle, a couple we´re teaching. So that was great.
So that´s pretty much the news of the week! As well as the fact that I now know the day I´m coming home - December 1. But I don´t want to think about that too much yet. I´m so glad to be here doing the work of the Lord, and I`m trying to make every minute count. Every day there´s something new to learn, someone new to help, and some new way for my testimony to be strengthened. This really is the greatest experience I´ve ever had. Thank you all so much for supporting me! I love you all and hope you have an amazing week.
Until next time!
Sister Madsen
P.S. Happy birthday tomorrow, Katie!!! :D And happy late birthday, Mom! I wrote your birthday in my planner and thought about you all day on the 17, but forgot to write it last email. So happy birthday, guys! :D
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Spring Weather
Hey everyone!
How are you guys? I loved the pictures of Carrie, and I can´t believe how big she´s getting. I also couldn´t believe Ella! So weird that it´s fall on the other side of the world and the Fair is going on...I can´t believe how fast it´s all going. Looks like it was a good week for everyone.
It was good for us as well! So good to be out and working normally again. We really tried to find new people this week, as a lot of the amazing people we found a while ago are kind of fizzling out. Cinthia told us she and her husband have now been offered jobs as Pastors in the Church of the Real Priesthood, and that the Pastora is going to pay for their wedding in November. That was a real blow. She gave us a list of scriptures to study, and now text messages new verses to us every once in a while, trying to prove how lost we are. She changed a LOT - we were really friends, I still have so much affection for her and her kids and everything, but the last time we visited she was cold and different. It´s so sad when that happens.
I find it really weird she feels like she has to prove we´re wrong with scriptures about false prophets and being led away by the devil, when we never tried to prove anything to her. We just presented her the truth and told her that the only way she could know if it really was the truth or not was to ask God. If we get the chance to talk again that´s what I´m going to tell her. A lot of other churches seem really preoccupied with stuff like that, just from the contact we have - they seem to spend a good part of Bible studies and things teaching "Why other religions are wrong, and what you can say to prove it to them". But the church of Christ isn´t like that - it´s not about proving anyone wrong, always focusing on the fact that the only way to know any truth is to ask God and trust the answer He gives you.
So we went knocking, the 5 references our Stake President keeps trying to get for us not appearing yet, and had some interesting experiences. We met an old man named Bernardo who told us his life story, and at the end couldn´t stop saying how much he loved our visit and how different he felt. I think he really felt the Spirit. So that was really nice. It´s so crazy how many people I´ve met in the last year or so! All so different, with so many stories. Every kind of person imagineable. I´m so grateful to have met all of them, even when things don´t turn out so happy, like with Cinthia.
I´m so grateful for the testimony of this gospel I`ve been building over the years. I didn´t join for the sisters who taught me, or for who the bishop was when I was baptized, or for the friends I had in the church. I really just felt like it was the right thing to do, and it´s been proven to me over and over through the years. I know this church has all the truths that had been lost through the centuries, because the Holy Ghost has testified it to me so many times. And because of that, no scripture anyone shows me is going to shake my testimony. I know the answer God has given me, and that knowledge can never be taken away. It´s not a knowledge that I want to brag about and prove everyone else wrong, just a peaceful, calm assurance that makes me want to share the joy it brings with everyone. I`m so grateful for the opportunity to do that here.
I love you all so much, and I`m so grateful to have an amazing family like you! Thank you all for everything you do for me. I hope you all have an amazing week, and give Carrie a big hug for me. I love you guys!
Sister Madsen
How are you guys? I loved the pictures of Carrie, and I can´t believe how big she´s getting. I also couldn´t believe Ella! So weird that it´s fall on the other side of the world and the Fair is going on...I can´t believe how fast it´s all going. Looks like it was a good week for everyone.
It was good for us as well! So good to be out and working normally again. We really tried to find new people this week, as a lot of the amazing people we found a while ago are kind of fizzling out. Cinthia told us she and her husband have now been offered jobs as Pastors in the Church of the Real Priesthood, and that the Pastora is going to pay for their wedding in November. That was a real blow. She gave us a list of scriptures to study, and now text messages new verses to us every once in a while, trying to prove how lost we are. She changed a LOT - we were really friends, I still have so much affection for her and her kids and everything, but the last time we visited she was cold and different. It´s so sad when that happens.
I find it really weird she feels like she has to prove we´re wrong with scriptures about false prophets and being led away by the devil, when we never tried to prove anything to her. We just presented her the truth and told her that the only way she could know if it really was the truth or not was to ask God. If we get the chance to talk again that´s what I´m going to tell her. A lot of other churches seem really preoccupied with stuff like that, just from the contact we have - they seem to spend a good part of Bible studies and things teaching "Why other religions are wrong, and what you can say to prove it to them". But the church of Christ isn´t like that - it´s not about proving anyone wrong, always focusing on the fact that the only way to know any truth is to ask God and trust the answer He gives you.
So we went knocking, the 5 references our Stake President keeps trying to get for us not appearing yet, and had some interesting experiences. We met an old man named Bernardo who told us his life story, and at the end couldn´t stop saying how much he loved our visit and how different he felt. I think he really felt the Spirit. So that was really nice. It´s so crazy how many people I´ve met in the last year or so! All so different, with so many stories. Every kind of person imagineable. I´m so grateful to have met all of them, even when things don´t turn out so happy, like with Cinthia.
I´m so grateful for the testimony of this gospel I`ve been building over the years. I didn´t join for the sisters who taught me, or for who the bishop was when I was baptized, or for the friends I had in the church. I really just felt like it was the right thing to do, and it´s been proven to me over and over through the years. I know this church has all the truths that had been lost through the centuries, because the Holy Ghost has testified it to me so many times. And because of that, no scripture anyone shows me is going to shake my testimony. I know the answer God has given me, and that knowledge can never be taken away. It´s not a knowledge that I want to brag about and prove everyone else wrong, just a peaceful, calm assurance that makes me want to share the joy it brings with everyone. I`m so grateful for the opportunity to do that here.
I love you all so much, and I`m so grateful to have an amazing family like you! Thank you all for everything you do for me. I hope you all have an amazing week, and give Carrie a big hug for me. I love you guys!
Sister Madsen
Monday, September 13, 2010
Quiet Week #2
Hey everyone!
It was so good to hear the latest news from you guys. I loved the pictures of Carrie in her Halloween costume!! Thanks so much for everything. As for me, I´m afraid there´s not a ton to update about this week. We really didn´t work, just stayed in. And of course, the whole time we stayed in it was beautiful spring weather, and now that we think we´re good to go out again (we still have to go back to the doctor) it´s dreary and rainy.
Staying in when you´re a missionary really is no good, but I didn´t get depressed or feel too down or anything. I started Jesus the Christ again and made a goal for when I would finish it, and also am in the middle of Doctrine and Covenants with a goal of when to finish, so I actually got really involved in those two things, which I think kept me from getting depressed.
I had read all of Doctrine and Covenants before, and started Jesus the Christ, but it´s like the first time for both of them. It´s amazing how you understand the scriptures so differently at different times of your life. I feel like I understand things better here than I ever have before. I can try to understand a little more of what it was like for those first missionaries to go out without purse or scrip...and James E. Talmage explains the New Testament in a way I had never been able to understand it before. So I actually feel like I did grow and learn a lot this week, despite not being able to work.
That´s really all we did, only going out to eat at the member´s houses because they were all already planning on us, and going to the doctor for my comp´s injections (that looked like a lot of fun:( ) One fun thing was our lunch was at Alba´s house on Thursday, the day after her birthday, and two days before Luciano´s. So I made them cookies and an apple pie! Which were both minor disasters - I accidentally put baking powder in the cookies instead of baking soda, using an english recipe and not knowing the translation, so they stayed in little balls instead of flattening out like cookies. But they said they´d eat them anyway;) And when she cut into the pie, it was a lake!! Somehow it ended up with a TON of apple juices inside. So it was kind of a juicy pie, but Luciano fell in love with it anyway (he´s kind of an americano-phile. How do you say that? Likes American things.) So that was our adventure of the week.
It was great to see them - we´d really been missing them. I don´t want to get too excited about it yet, but I think a small miracle might be happening with Alba. In all this year and a half with the missionaries, she had NEVER opened the Book of Mormon. But out of the blue, she said, "Hey, I read both of the pamphlets you gave me. And I started the testimony of Joseph Smith at the beginning of the Book of Mormon." So we tried to contain our wanting to jump up and down, and talked with her about it. She said she still has questions about a lot of stuff - it´s hard for her to believe the angel Moroni really appeared to Joseph Smith and such - but we said it just comes down to her prayer. She said she´d get around to it:) And all of them, the whole family, came to church on Sunday:D
So all things considered, it was a good week! BUt I´m looking forward to a new week of real work. I´m so glad to be here, learning all that I am, and I don´t want to take any of it for granted or waste any of this precious time. I know that everything we teach is true, not because someone told me, but because of the witness from God I get every time I teach it and every time I read the scriptures. I´m so grateful to be here, helping out in whatever tiny way in the Lord´s work. Thank you all so much for helping me to get here. I love you!!!
Sister Madsen :)
P.S. Thanks for the updates, Clyde and Jan! So good to hear from you guys, and glad you´re doing well!
P.P.S. Lola, I need pictures!!! :) Email them to my parents, if that´s easier for you (madsenltd@msn.com). But send them!
It was so good to hear the latest news from you guys. I loved the pictures of Carrie in her Halloween costume!! Thanks so much for everything. As for me, I´m afraid there´s not a ton to update about this week. We really didn´t work, just stayed in. And of course, the whole time we stayed in it was beautiful spring weather, and now that we think we´re good to go out again (we still have to go back to the doctor) it´s dreary and rainy.
Staying in when you´re a missionary really is no good, but I didn´t get depressed or feel too down or anything. I started Jesus the Christ again and made a goal for when I would finish it, and also am in the middle of Doctrine and Covenants with a goal of when to finish, so I actually got really involved in those two things, which I think kept me from getting depressed.
I had read all of Doctrine and Covenants before, and started Jesus the Christ, but it´s like the first time for both of them. It´s amazing how you understand the scriptures so differently at different times of your life. I feel like I understand things better here than I ever have before. I can try to understand a little more of what it was like for those first missionaries to go out without purse or scrip...and James E. Talmage explains the New Testament in a way I had never been able to understand it before. So I actually feel like I did grow and learn a lot this week, despite not being able to work.
That´s really all we did, only going out to eat at the member´s houses because they were all already planning on us, and going to the doctor for my comp´s injections (that looked like a lot of fun:( ) One fun thing was our lunch was at Alba´s house on Thursday, the day after her birthday, and two days before Luciano´s. So I made them cookies and an apple pie! Which were both minor disasters - I accidentally put baking powder in the cookies instead of baking soda, using an english recipe and not knowing the translation, so they stayed in little balls instead of flattening out like cookies. But they said they´d eat them anyway;) And when she cut into the pie, it was a lake!! Somehow it ended up with a TON of apple juices inside. So it was kind of a juicy pie, but Luciano fell in love with it anyway (he´s kind of an americano-phile. How do you say that? Likes American things.) So that was our adventure of the week.
It was great to see them - we´d really been missing them. I don´t want to get too excited about it yet, but I think a small miracle might be happening with Alba. In all this year and a half with the missionaries, she had NEVER opened the Book of Mormon. But out of the blue, she said, "Hey, I read both of the pamphlets you gave me. And I started the testimony of Joseph Smith at the beginning of the Book of Mormon." So we tried to contain our wanting to jump up and down, and talked with her about it. She said she still has questions about a lot of stuff - it´s hard for her to believe the angel Moroni really appeared to Joseph Smith and such - but we said it just comes down to her prayer. She said she´d get around to it:) And all of them, the whole family, came to church on Sunday:D
So all things considered, it was a good week! BUt I´m looking forward to a new week of real work. I´m so glad to be here, learning all that I am, and I don´t want to take any of it for granted or waste any of this precious time. I know that everything we teach is true, not because someone told me, but because of the witness from God I get every time I teach it and every time I read the scriptures. I´m so grateful to be here, helping out in whatever tiny way in the Lord´s work. Thank you all so much for helping me to get here. I love you!!!
Sister Madsen :)
P.S. Thanks for the updates, Clyde and Jan! So good to hear from you guys, and glad you´re doing well!
P.P.S. Lola, I need pictures!!! :) Email them to my parents, if that´s easier for you (madsenltd@msn.com). But send them!
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Quiet Week
Hey everyone!
It was so good to hear from you and see the videos and pics of Carrie! I can´t believe how she´s already talking! It´s all passing SO fast. Also, I got your package with the letters and everything! Thanks so much for everything you sent! The chocolate is amazing. Thanks so much for always taking care of me:)
As for us, we´re grounded this week! S. Cantuara went to the doctor on Friday, again, after a huge long process. This is how the public doctor works in Brasil: We went there, waited forever, got in, she told the doctor her symptoms (cold that wouldn´t go away) in a two minute visit , doctor didn´t even look at her or anything, prescribed antibiotics and gave her an order to go get an X-Ray of her chest. We went downtown to get the order approved, not sure why, then went waaay out to the hospital to set up an appointment for an X-Ray. This was all at the beginning of August. So the date they gave her to come back for her X-Ray was August 20. We went back that day, waited forever, got the X-Ray....then she picked it up a week later. Then on Friday we took the X-Ray to the doctor for her to look at. So more than a month after deciding she was sick and needed to go to the doctor, she finally found out that there´s a lot of infiltration in her lung (is that what you call it?) and she´s at the beginning of pneumonia.
The problem being that she didn´t take the antibiotics the first time, so I think her sinus infection (what I was 90% sure she had, not being a doctor) never went away and stuff got down into her lungs. So now the doctor said she has to take oral antibiotics as well as 7 injections, one per day, and we´re not supposed to leave the house during that period. Bah! Seven days inside for a missionary is like...the end of the world. So we talked to the president´s wife, the health coordinator for the mission, and she agreed that we shouldn´t leave the house. So we stayed in that day.....only, the next day, our whole zone was supposed to go to Livramento for a Mission Tour with the first president of our mission. We couldn´t miss that, so we went! We also went to church on sunday, and are out today.....but really, I´m pretty sure it´s impossible to just stay in that apartment for 7 days. We had to escape! So that´s the story of how we´re grounded.
So, it´s really hard to stay in as a missionary. I think it makes you depressed, because you´re so used to constantly having something to do, and then just staying in with absolutely nothing to do except read (a selection of 4 books), write or clean....it´s pretty tough. But we´re already on the fourth day, so it´s going fast!
So there´s not a whooole lot to tell this week. There was kind of a scary story that happened on Thursday. I never know if I should tell these stories or not, if they´re like talking bad about people or something. But they really happen - some people don´t receive us well. So on Thursday we knocked doors in the neighborhood of a girl who had gone to church with a friend in another ward last Sunday, and the elders had called to tell us her address. So turns out she´s kind of Jehovah´s Witness, goes there with her sister a lot, but was super receptive and liked the message. So we started knocking around her house, and the whole neighborhood was Jehovah´s Witness. Not making any snap judgments or being prejudiced or anything, but when you´re a missionary, Jehovah´s Witnesses don´t let you in. At least not in my experience. But a teenage boy at one of the houses let us in and said his family was home, so we went in and started talking to him.
So it turns out his family is also Jehovah´s Witness, but he hasn´t gone for a few years. He actually thought we were missionaries from his church, which was why he let us in. But he was pretty cool, listening to our message, until his mom came out from the other room. He sat with his head down and stopped really answering our questions...then at the end, we invited him to pray to know whether our message was true, and kind of heard a scoff from the other side of the bookshelf.
Then when I said, "Ok, can we say a prayer before we go?" his mom jumped out and said, "NO. Prayer, no."
Silence.
"Can you tell me who you pray to?" she asked, angry.
"Umm, God..." I replied, afraid to get into a fight.
"In the name of whom?"
"In the name of Jesus Christ, like it says in the Bible." I was already getting ready to leave because I could tell she just wanted to argue.
"And what is God´s name?"
Dang it, she really wanted to argue. "God the Father´s name is Elohim," I said, knowing I was playing into her argument but not knowing what else to say.
"Can you show me where it says that in the Bible?" still angry.
"We´re not here to argue, just to share a message about Jesus Christ..." I said, super scared. I know I shouldn´t have been, being a missionary and everything, but...it was really scary. She just had a really scary demeanor, and I´ve always hated being yelled at. We basically said we had to go, but said we could come back another day if she really wanted to talk, but we weren´t here to argue with her. So we kind of ran out of there to avoid a fight, saying all we could tell her was we know God loves us, and thanked her for receiving us.
Of course after the fact I´ve thought of a million better things to say to her, but I don´t know if we´ll ever see her again. We said we´d be around there on Tuesday, but know that we´re grounded I`m not sure if we´ll go. The weirdest part was she said, with the strangest attitude, "We cross paths in the street a lot. I see you guys all the time - I even pointed you out to my friend the other day. The other day you guys went to the Baklizi (supermarket) and bought food." Like she was revealing some horrible secret about us. It was like...yeah, we´re real people, who eat food...I don´t know, the way she said it it was like she really hated us. S. Cantuara basically said, "Yeah, we´re normal people, children of God just like you..." It was the strangest experience, and made us feel really terrible at the time, that bad adrenaline rush. But after, as we weren´t feeling in the spirit to knock more doors, we went to Alba´s house, who, although she doesn´t actually believe in our Church and doesn´t want to be baptized, is the most amazing Christlike person and comforted us saying there are a lot of closed-minded people in the world. And I got the impression, "She just doesn´t know." If she know what our message was and what our purpose is, she wouldn´t have treated us like that. I really hope she can open her heart to at least say hi to us next time we cross paths.
It was funny, right after leaving I felt like I was tired of being a missionary, tired of being recognized and thought of as an ET...but immediately after, I realized, no way. If people want to judge me for being a representative of Jesus Christ, it´s a privilege to be judged. I would gladly withstand worse things to be able to represent the Savior. I thought about when Paul said he would never be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and how much worse things he had to put up with. So, I´m really glad for that experience. A little opposition is always good for us. I´m really glad I realized that I never will be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and that I´d gladly withstand any punishment or any judgment for standing up for what´s right.
So those are my stories from the week! Lots of stories for a quiet week. But as always, I´m so glad to be here on the mission. It´s really the greatest possible experience I could have had. Every day I come to know our Savior better and better, and my testimony of Him gets stronger. I´m so grateful for this opportunity to grow spiritually. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God lives and that He loves us. I know Jesus Christ overcame death and sin so we could return to the presence of God someday. I know God hears and answers our prayers, and that His ultimate goal is our happiness.
Thank you guys for always loving me and supporting me on my mission! I love you all so much. Have an amazing week!
Sister Madsen
It was so good to hear from you and see the videos and pics of Carrie! I can´t believe how she´s already talking! It´s all passing SO fast. Also, I got your package with the letters and everything! Thanks so much for everything you sent! The chocolate is amazing. Thanks so much for always taking care of me:)
As for us, we´re grounded this week! S. Cantuara went to the doctor on Friday, again, after a huge long process. This is how the public doctor works in Brasil: We went there, waited forever, got in, she told the doctor her symptoms (cold that wouldn´t go away) in a two minute visit , doctor didn´t even look at her or anything, prescribed antibiotics and gave her an order to go get an X-Ray of her chest. We went downtown to get the order approved, not sure why, then went waaay out to the hospital to set up an appointment for an X-Ray. This was all at the beginning of August. So the date they gave her to come back for her X-Ray was August 20. We went back that day, waited forever, got the X-Ray....then she picked it up a week later. Then on Friday we took the X-Ray to the doctor for her to look at. So more than a month after deciding she was sick and needed to go to the doctor, she finally found out that there´s a lot of infiltration in her lung (is that what you call it?) and she´s at the beginning of pneumonia.
The problem being that she didn´t take the antibiotics the first time, so I think her sinus infection (what I was 90% sure she had, not being a doctor) never went away and stuff got down into her lungs. So now the doctor said she has to take oral antibiotics as well as 7 injections, one per day, and we´re not supposed to leave the house during that period. Bah! Seven days inside for a missionary is like...the end of the world. So we talked to the president´s wife, the health coordinator for the mission, and she agreed that we shouldn´t leave the house. So we stayed in that day.....only, the next day, our whole zone was supposed to go to Livramento for a Mission Tour with the first president of our mission. We couldn´t miss that, so we went! We also went to church on sunday, and are out today.....but really, I´m pretty sure it´s impossible to just stay in that apartment for 7 days. We had to escape! So that´s the story of how we´re grounded.
So, it´s really hard to stay in as a missionary. I think it makes you depressed, because you´re so used to constantly having something to do, and then just staying in with absolutely nothing to do except read (a selection of 4 books), write or clean....it´s pretty tough. But we´re already on the fourth day, so it´s going fast!
So there´s not a whooole lot to tell this week. There was kind of a scary story that happened on Thursday. I never know if I should tell these stories or not, if they´re like talking bad about people or something. But they really happen - some people don´t receive us well. So on Thursday we knocked doors in the neighborhood of a girl who had gone to church with a friend in another ward last Sunday, and the elders had called to tell us her address. So turns out she´s kind of Jehovah´s Witness, goes there with her sister a lot, but was super receptive and liked the message. So we started knocking around her house, and the whole neighborhood was Jehovah´s Witness. Not making any snap judgments or being prejudiced or anything, but when you´re a missionary, Jehovah´s Witnesses don´t let you in. At least not in my experience. But a teenage boy at one of the houses let us in and said his family was home, so we went in and started talking to him.
So it turns out his family is also Jehovah´s Witness, but he hasn´t gone for a few years. He actually thought we were missionaries from his church, which was why he let us in. But he was pretty cool, listening to our message, until his mom came out from the other room. He sat with his head down and stopped really answering our questions...then at the end, we invited him to pray to know whether our message was true, and kind of heard a scoff from the other side of the bookshelf.
Then when I said, "Ok, can we say a prayer before we go?" his mom jumped out and said, "NO. Prayer, no."
Silence.
"Can you tell me who you pray to?" she asked, angry.
"Umm, God..." I replied, afraid to get into a fight.
"In the name of whom?"
"In the name of Jesus Christ, like it says in the Bible." I was already getting ready to leave because I could tell she just wanted to argue.
"And what is God´s name?"
Dang it, she really wanted to argue. "God the Father´s name is Elohim," I said, knowing I was playing into her argument but not knowing what else to say.
"Can you show me where it says that in the Bible?" still angry.
"We´re not here to argue, just to share a message about Jesus Christ..." I said, super scared. I know I shouldn´t have been, being a missionary and everything, but...it was really scary. She just had a really scary demeanor, and I´ve always hated being yelled at. We basically said we had to go, but said we could come back another day if she really wanted to talk, but we weren´t here to argue with her. So we kind of ran out of there to avoid a fight, saying all we could tell her was we know God loves us, and thanked her for receiving us.
Of course after the fact I´ve thought of a million better things to say to her, but I don´t know if we´ll ever see her again. We said we´d be around there on Tuesday, but know that we´re grounded I`m not sure if we´ll go. The weirdest part was she said, with the strangest attitude, "We cross paths in the street a lot. I see you guys all the time - I even pointed you out to my friend the other day. The other day you guys went to the Baklizi (supermarket) and bought food." Like she was revealing some horrible secret about us. It was like...yeah, we´re real people, who eat food...I don´t know, the way she said it it was like she really hated us. S. Cantuara basically said, "Yeah, we´re normal people, children of God just like you..." It was the strangest experience, and made us feel really terrible at the time, that bad adrenaline rush. But after, as we weren´t feeling in the spirit to knock more doors, we went to Alba´s house, who, although she doesn´t actually believe in our Church and doesn´t want to be baptized, is the most amazing Christlike person and comforted us saying there are a lot of closed-minded people in the world. And I got the impression, "She just doesn´t know." If she know what our message was and what our purpose is, she wouldn´t have treated us like that. I really hope she can open her heart to at least say hi to us next time we cross paths.
It was funny, right after leaving I felt like I was tired of being a missionary, tired of being recognized and thought of as an ET...but immediately after, I realized, no way. If people want to judge me for being a representative of Jesus Christ, it´s a privilege to be judged. I would gladly withstand worse things to be able to represent the Savior. I thought about when Paul said he would never be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and how much worse things he had to put up with. So, I´m really glad for that experience. A little opposition is always good for us. I´m really glad I realized that I never will be ashamed of the gospel of Christ, and that I´d gladly withstand any punishment or any judgment for standing up for what´s right.
So those are my stories from the week! Lots of stories for a quiet week. But as always, I´m so glad to be here on the mission. It´s really the greatest possible experience I could have had. Every day I come to know our Savior better and better, and my testimony of Him gets stronger. I´m so grateful for this opportunity to grow spiritually. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God lives and that He loves us. I know Jesus Christ overcame death and sin so we could return to the presence of God someday. I know God hears and answers our prayers, and that His ultimate goal is our happiness.
Thank you guys for always loving me and supporting me on my mission! I love you all so much. Have an amazing week!
Sister Madsen
Monday, August 30, 2010
Another week!
Hey guys!
How are you all doing? It was so good to read all the news from everyone! Unfortunately, I spent a ton of time reading and now have just a little to respond:/ But I´m so glad to hear you´re all doing well and see pictures of adorable Caroline and everything! :D
So this week was good! Let me see, what happened? Wow, it really seems like a really average week and not a lot to tell about. Sister Cantuara hasn´t been feeling that well - she hasn´t been sleeping at night, getting dizzy and headaches and stuff, so we ended up staying in one day. I´m a little worried, and hope we can get it resolved soon. But she´s fine most of the time, don´t worry!
Let´s see, what else? This week, August 28 passed Luciano and Alba by. It´s the date they´ve been planning for his baptism for the year and a half they (or he) has been coming to church. But his dad had a heart attack earlier in the month, and everything else possible combined to keep them from having the money they needed to get married. But we went to their son´s first birthday party on the 27, which their parents threw for him. It was great, and Luciano was really excited - he told us we´d be eating wedding cake next month and that nothing was going to stop it this time. We just have to make the goal and fast and pray that it works out, and then nothing will stop it!
I´ve been learning so much about faith lately - how miracles never happen until after we show our faith. Watching Finding Faith in Christ yet agan this week, I´m able to see that so clearly in that movie now. That every miracle Christ works, he asks beforehand if the person believes he can do it. I´m trying to develop faith like the people in those stories, who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if they could just see Christ or touch Him they would be healed. It´s the process of a lifetime, but I´m so grateful for this experience to develop my faith.
So things continue to go well here! Really no exciting or different stories about this week, but everything´s going great. I´m happy and healthy and loving every day I get to be here. I can´t believe how fast it´s going by - it seems like the weeks are going by twice as fast. Next week is another transfer! I´m getting a little desperate at how little time there is left. I still feel like I have so much left to accomplish. But I just have to make every day count! I love you all so much and I´m so grateful for all your help and your unfailing love and support. I love you all more every day. Have an amazing week!
Love always,
Sister Madsen
How are you all doing? It was so good to read all the news from everyone! Unfortunately, I spent a ton of time reading and now have just a little to respond:/ But I´m so glad to hear you´re all doing well and see pictures of adorable Caroline and everything! :D
So this week was good! Let me see, what happened? Wow, it really seems like a really average week and not a lot to tell about. Sister Cantuara hasn´t been feeling that well - she hasn´t been sleeping at night, getting dizzy and headaches and stuff, so we ended up staying in one day. I´m a little worried, and hope we can get it resolved soon. But she´s fine most of the time, don´t worry!
Let´s see, what else? This week, August 28 passed Luciano and Alba by. It´s the date they´ve been planning for his baptism for the year and a half they (or he) has been coming to church. But his dad had a heart attack earlier in the month, and everything else possible combined to keep them from having the money they needed to get married. But we went to their son´s first birthday party on the 27, which their parents threw for him. It was great, and Luciano was really excited - he told us we´d be eating wedding cake next month and that nothing was going to stop it this time. We just have to make the goal and fast and pray that it works out, and then nothing will stop it!
I´ve been learning so much about faith lately - how miracles never happen until after we show our faith. Watching Finding Faith in Christ yet agan this week, I´m able to see that so clearly in that movie now. That every miracle Christ works, he asks beforehand if the person believes he can do it. I´m trying to develop faith like the people in those stories, who knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if they could just see Christ or touch Him they would be healed. It´s the process of a lifetime, but I´m so grateful for this experience to develop my faith.
So things continue to go well here! Really no exciting or different stories about this week, but everything´s going great. I´m happy and healthy and loving every day I get to be here. I can´t believe how fast it´s going by - it seems like the weeks are going by twice as fast. Next week is another transfer! I´m getting a little desperate at how little time there is left. I still feel like I have so much left to accomplish. But I just have to make every day count! I love you all so much and I´m so grateful for all your help and your unfailing love and support. I love you all more every day. Have an amazing week!
Love always,
Sister Madsen
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Spring Weather
Hey everyone! :D
How are you all doing? So good to hear from you. Everything here´s great! This week was crazily warm, with temperatures around 30 degrees. Not hot for here, but jumping in straight from winter it feels terrible. But it´s nice! People here hate the cold and don´t go anywhere (including church), so it´s nice to have it a little warmer.
The best thing that happened this week was Saturday! Leda (11) and Vitoria (9), Berenice´s oldest daughters, were baptized. Berenice wanted to be baptized too, but her husband is....not helping very much. At first he did want to marry her, but then they fought, and now he´s just kind of there.....but one day she´ll be baptized too. It was great - a beautiful spring day, a nice reunion (meeting? What do you call a baptismal...thing?), lots of people came....the girls were so happy. The next day when they got confirmed, both of them brought flowers they had picked along they way to church and pictures they had painted and written notes to us, for me and Sister Cantuara. It was the greatest gift I could have gotten. They´re amazing girls - part of an amazing family. They and their mom already have such strong testimonies, I have no doubt they´ll stay strong their whole lives.
What else happened this week? There are so many good member families here. This area is really the first one where I´m making lots of friendships with member families. I don´t know why, it just never really happened before. But Marco and Lorena had great news this week - she´s been super sick, and we were all worried, but she found out she´s pregnant. So they were all really happy, and she even came back to church (she hadn´t been for a good bit). We also had a great family night with a family who´s also coming back to church, Carla and Cleberson. We watched Finding Faith in Christ (I really love that video) and....hard to explain, but it was just really nice to spend time with them. We also spent a nice night with Luciano and Alba. Luciano´s a little discouraged because everything happened to impede him and the kids from getting baptized next Saturday, but he´s not losing hope. I know they´ll be baptized soon, as soon as they can get the money together for the marriage.
So....everything kind of continues normal here! Just working, trying to find good new families, helping the ones we have work through their difficulties. I really love being here, and wouldn´t trade it for anything. I´m so grateful to have the opportunity to be an instrument in the Lord´s hands. I learn so much every day that I couldn´t learn any other way, and feel a happiness that doesn´t come from anything else. I know that´s what the Lord wants for all of us - happiness, joy and eternal life. Thank you all for supporting me in this work. I love you all more than I can explain! Have an amazing week.
Til next time!
Sister Madsen
How are you all doing? So good to hear from you. Everything here´s great! This week was crazily warm, with temperatures around 30 degrees. Not hot for here, but jumping in straight from winter it feels terrible. But it´s nice! People here hate the cold and don´t go anywhere (including church), so it´s nice to have it a little warmer.
The best thing that happened this week was Saturday! Leda (11) and Vitoria (9), Berenice´s oldest daughters, were baptized. Berenice wanted to be baptized too, but her husband is....not helping very much. At first he did want to marry her, but then they fought, and now he´s just kind of there.....but one day she´ll be baptized too. It was great - a beautiful spring day, a nice reunion (meeting? What do you call a baptismal...thing?), lots of people came....the girls were so happy. The next day when they got confirmed, both of them brought flowers they had picked along they way to church and pictures they had painted and written notes to us, for me and Sister Cantuara. It was the greatest gift I could have gotten. They´re amazing girls - part of an amazing family. They and their mom already have such strong testimonies, I have no doubt they´ll stay strong their whole lives.
What else happened this week? There are so many good member families here. This area is really the first one where I´m making lots of friendships with member families. I don´t know why, it just never really happened before. But Marco and Lorena had great news this week - she´s been super sick, and we were all worried, but she found out she´s pregnant. So they were all really happy, and she even came back to church (she hadn´t been for a good bit). We also had a great family night with a family who´s also coming back to church, Carla and Cleberson. We watched Finding Faith in Christ (I really love that video) and....hard to explain, but it was just really nice to spend time with them. We also spent a nice night with Luciano and Alba. Luciano´s a little discouraged because everything happened to impede him and the kids from getting baptized next Saturday, but he´s not losing hope. I know they´ll be baptized soon, as soon as they can get the money together for the marriage.
So....everything kind of continues normal here! Just working, trying to find good new families, helping the ones we have work through their difficulties. I really love being here, and wouldn´t trade it for anything. I´m so grateful to have the opportunity to be an instrument in the Lord´s hands. I learn so much every day that I couldn´t learn any other way, and feel a happiness that doesn´t come from anything else. I know that´s what the Lord wants for all of us - happiness, joy and eternal life. Thank you all for supporting me in this work. I love you all more than I can explain! Have an amazing week.
Til next time!
Sister Madsen
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
This week
Hey guys!
Almost out of time for this week, but wanted to let you know I´m doing well and everything´s ok. This week was pretty good - not much to report. Berenice´s wedding looks like it´s going to take a long time, so the three kids will be baptized next saturday! So that´s awesome - they´re super excited. Other than that, everything´s kind of normal but great! Just continuing missionary life as usual.
We got to speak in church yesterday, and my topic was the restoration. I was really glad for the opportunity - my favorite thing to talk about! I´m so grateful that God loves us enough that He restored the original church on the earth again, with everything that had been lost over the years. I´m so grateful for the way that gospel positively affects my life every day. Thank you all so much for all your love and support. I love you all more than I could ever possibly explain, and realize it more and more every day here on the mission. Have an amazing week!
Love always,
Sister Madsen
Almost out of time for this week, but wanted to let you know I´m doing well and everything´s ok. This week was pretty good - not much to report. Berenice´s wedding looks like it´s going to take a long time, so the three kids will be baptized next saturday! So that´s awesome - they´re super excited. Other than that, everything´s kind of normal but great! Just continuing missionary life as usual.
We got to speak in church yesterday, and my topic was the restoration. I was really glad for the opportunity - my favorite thing to talk about! I´m so grateful that God loves us enough that He restored the original church on the earth again, with everything that had been lost over the years. I´m so grateful for the way that gospel positively affects my life every day. Thank you all so much for all your love and support. I love you all more than I could ever possibly explain, and realize it more and more every day here on the mission. Have an amazing week!
Love always,
Sister Madsen
Saturday, August 14, 2010
No Heat
Hey guys!
Practically out of time for today! But everything´s going great. It was a good week! We got two good referrals from members - the mom and nephew of the ward mission leader, who it looks like both already want to be baptized! And a young couple who are the neighbors of the counselor in the bishopric. So referrals are amazing! Just to remind everyone who reads these letters, be on the lookout in your own life for the people who are prepared to receive the gospel. The missionaries can´t do it alone!
Hmm, what else happened this week? We´re spending a lot of time with Luciano and Alba and their kids, trying to get everything in order for August 28, which he´s been planning as his baptism date for a year. I´m not sure the significance of it, but it really means something to him. So we´re just lucky we´re the missionaries that get to be here when he´s baptised! But we´re praying everything will work out and that they can really get together the money they need to get married on the 27th. How much does it cost to get married at home? I´ve never heard anyone say they can´t get married because it´s too expensive, but here it´s the norm. To be married by a bishop and have it have legal effect (normally, religious weddings don´t - example: you have to be married by a judge before being married in the temple) it costs 170 reais. So we´re praying they can get it all together!
But other than that, it was a good but very normal week. Eight people came to sacrament meeting - Berenice and all her kids, Luciano and his kids and Yolanda, the ward mission leader´s mom. So we have a good amount of people progressing, it´s really exciting. We´re going to try to start the marriage papers for Berenice and her husband this week. So everything´s going well! I´m happy and healthy and loving working here with Sister Cantuara. Everything´s going amazing.
Thanks so much for all your letters and packages and love and support! I love you all so much. I hope you have an amazing week, and I`ll continue to pray for all of you like always. I love this gospel and I learn more every day how true it really is.
Love you!
Sister Madsen
I got this in another e-mail that I thought I'd share:
Some people choose to live right on the river bank and get flooded every year. Kind of like in the Caribbean, where they just expect their house to get demolished every year in the hurricane. Only here, they could just move further up and be fine, so I don´t know why they stay there. But nothing got flooded, as far as I know!
Also in crazy-Brasil facts, more about the heating situation. So there really isn´t heat in ANY of the buildings - even the richest houses. I already knew that, but I was surprised this week when I found out not even in the hospital is there indoor heat! The relief society president was telling me how cold it got at night staying in the hospital with her mom. I don´t know if they don´t know about indoor heating or what, because....it can´t be *that* expensive! Who knows.
Practically out of time for today! But everything´s going great. It was a good week! We got two good referrals from members - the mom and nephew of the ward mission leader, who it looks like both already want to be baptized! And a young couple who are the neighbors of the counselor in the bishopric. So referrals are amazing! Just to remind everyone who reads these letters, be on the lookout in your own life for the people who are prepared to receive the gospel. The missionaries can´t do it alone!
Hmm, what else happened this week? We´re spending a lot of time with Luciano and Alba and their kids, trying to get everything in order for August 28, which he´s been planning as his baptism date for a year. I´m not sure the significance of it, but it really means something to him. So we´re just lucky we´re the missionaries that get to be here when he´s baptised! But we´re praying everything will work out and that they can really get together the money they need to get married on the 27th. How much does it cost to get married at home? I´ve never heard anyone say they can´t get married because it´s too expensive, but here it´s the norm. To be married by a bishop and have it have legal effect (normally, religious weddings don´t - example: you have to be married by a judge before being married in the temple) it costs 170 reais. So we´re praying they can get it all together!
But other than that, it was a good but very normal week. Eight people came to sacrament meeting - Berenice and all her kids, Luciano and his kids and Yolanda, the ward mission leader´s mom. So we have a good amount of people progressing, it´s really exciting. We´re going to try to start the marriage papers for Berenice and her husband this week. So everything´s going well! I´m happy and healthy and loving working here with Sister Cantuara. Everything´s going amazing.
Thanks so much for all your letters and packages and love and support! I love you all so much. I hope you have an amazing week, and I`ll continue to pray for all of you like always. I love this gospel and I learn more every day how true it really is.
Love you!
Sister Madsen
I got this in another e-mail that I thought I'd share:
Some people choose to live right on the river bank and get flooded every year. Kind of like in the Caribbean, where they just expect their house to get demolished every year in the hurricane. Only here, they could just move further up and be fine, so I don´t know why they stay there. But nothing got flooded, as far as I know!
Also in crazy-Brasil facts, more about the heating situation. So there really isn´t heat in ANY of the buildings - even the richest houses. I already knew that, but I was surprised this week when I found out not even in the hospital is there indoor heat! The relief society president was telling me how cold it got at night staying in the hospital with her mom. I don´t know if they don´t know about indoor heating or what, because....it can´t be *that* expensive! Who knows.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Small miracles
Hey everyone!
So this email is a rewind to 5 months ago...I´m sitting here in the same old internet place close to the mission office in Santa Maria, next to Sister Draut! No, I didn´t get transfered, I came just for today to renew my visa. (Funny story - me and the other two American elders in my group and our companions traveled the 7 hours here and went to go renew, but the secretary had forgotten a part of the process, so we can´t even renew them. But...it´s all good!) So Sister Draut was transfered BACK to Camobi on Tuesday, so I get to hang out with her and everyone here in Santa Maria for a day! Sister Lopes as well - she´s now in Ipiranga (it went back to being Sisters....President changed a lot this transfer!) So it´s good to be back and see everyone.
But aside from that exciting part, this week was pretty good! The best part of the week was a woman we´ve been working with - I put her name, but decided some stuff was kind of personal, so we´ll call her Maria. So, it was amazing to see what happened with her this week. We´ve been working with her ever since we got here (or, there - Uruguaiana). She´s amazing - just one of those people who accepts the gospel with an open heart and absolutely believes it from day 1. She´s young, I would say not even 30, but has 6 kids, the oldest 11 and the youngest 2 months. She lives way down at the edge of the town, literally on the river (it was pretty far away at first but with all the rain lately, it´s up to 20 feet from her house). She´s what people here call humble - has a house made of 2x4s with a dirt floor, etc. She´s amazing, and has such an easiness and willingness to believe - when she prayed about the Book of Mormon she got the answer to "keep moving forward" with it, so she knows we´re sent from God and is willing to do whatever He wants her to do.
So we´ve always known she was that amazing, but it was even more awesome to see what happened with her this week. So in a meeting last Sunday with the ward leaders, we were talking about all of our investigators. We mentioned her and how great she was, but that something always happened to keep her from coming to church (her baby had to go to the hospital, etc...) So our ward mission leader said, "She´s really poor and has all those kids....can´t we do something for her?" We wouldn´t have said anything about it, but the response was amazing. The stake counselor got excited about it and so did all the other leaders, about helping out this woman they had never met. They decided to get together all the clothes they could for the kids, the ward mission leader and the bishop´s counselor planned a visit there to ask if they could take them, and....it all happened.
Normally we have meetings like this and it´s kind of normal for none of the plans to happen, but the response about Maria was amazing. They got together all kinds of clothes, the visits really happened, she accepted the help, the Bishop´s counselor and his wife hit it off amazingly with her and planned to go there Saturday night just to hang out, them and all their kids...and we became background players in her story, which we couldn´t be happier about. Suddenly she was surrounded by a ward family, offering to help her out when she needed it and truly becoming her friends. And the best part was seeing her and all of the kids in church yesterday! They came on foot (kind of an accomplishment, they live in the farthest neighborhood) alone, no one went to go walk with them or pick them up, they just came. I was so happy! This is how it´s supposed to be - we should be just minor characters in introducing people to their ward family. Our ward has been so weak, and it´s hard for the people to get along about anything, but they all got together behind Maria and the result was incredible.
The best part on Sunday was showing them the baptismal font. "Maria"´s neighbor, who actually really is named Maria, was baptized in May, and it turns out they´re actually relatives through marriage, but neither knew the other had ties to the church. So her neighbor said, "That´s where I was baptized! I hope you´ll be baptized too." And she said, "Yeah, that´s what I´m on the path for!" She´s so great - she´ll be an amazing member of the church. I´m so excited for her, and for our ward for being so amazing:)
So that was my story of the week! Everything´s going well, we have some really good people, and the members are getting more and more excited to help us, so it´s wonderful. It´s great working with Sister Cantuara, so....I couldn´t be happier! I´m so glad to be here, and I know it´s exactly where I should be. Sunday during sacrament meeting I was just filled with such an amazing feeling of happiness and peace, the kind that only comes from serving the Lord. I know more and more every day that this gospel is true - you don´t get that kind of feeling from a lie. Thank you so much for helping me get here! I love you all so much and am still praying for you always! :D
Til next week,
Sister Madsen
So this email is a rewind to 5 months ago...I´m sitting here in the same old internet place close to the mission office in Santa Maria, next to Sister Draut! No, I didn´t get transfered, I came just for today to renew my visa. (Funny story - me and the other two American elders in my group and our companions traveled the 7 hours here and went to go renew, but the secretary had forgotten a part of the process, so we can´t even renew them. But...it´s all good!) So Sister Draut was transfered BACK to Camobi on Tuesday, so I get to hang out with her and everyone here in Santa Maria for a day! Sister Lopes as well - she´s now in Ipiranga (it went back to being Sisters....President changed a lot this transfer!) So it´s good to be back and see everyone.
But aside from that exciting part, this week was pretty good! The best part of the week was a woman we´ve been working with - I put her name, but decided some stuff was kind of personal, so we´ll call her Maria. So, it was amazing to see what happened with her this week. We´ve been working with her ever since we got here (or, there - Uruguaiana). She´s amazing - just one of those people who accepts the gospel with an open heart and absolutely believes it from day 1. She´s young, I would say not even 30, but has 6 kids, the oldest 11 and the youngest 2 months. She lives way down at the edge of the town, literally on the river (it was pretty far away at first but with all the rain lately, it´s up to 20 feet from her house). She´s what people here call humble - has a house made of 2x4s with a dirt floor, etc. She´s amazing, and has such an easiness and willingness to believe - when she prayed about the Book of Mormon she got the answer to "keep moving forward" with it, so she knows we´re sent from God and is willing to do whatever He wants her to do.
So we´ve always known she was that amazing, but it was even more awesome to see what happened with her this week. So in a meeting last Sunday with the ward leaders, we were talking about all of our investigators. We mentioned her and how great she was, but that something always happened to keep her from coming to church (her baby had to go to the hospital, etc...) So our ward mission leader said, "She´s really poor and has all those kids....can´t we do something for her?" We wouldn´t have said anything about it, but the response was amazing. The stake counselor got excited about it and so did all the other leaders, about helping out this woman they had never met. They decided to get together all the clothes they could for the kids, the ward mission leader and the bishop´s counselor planned a visit there to ask if they could take them, and....it all happened.
Normally we have meetings like this and it´s kind of normal for none of the plans to happen, but the response about Maria was amazing. They got together all kinds of clothes, the visits really happened, she accepted the help, the Bishop´s counselor and his wife hit it off amazingly with her and planned to go there Saturday night just to hang out, them and all their kids...and we became background players in her story, which we couldn´t be happier about. Suddenly she was surrounded by a ward family, offering to help her out when she needed it and truly becoming her friends. And the best part was seeing her and all of the kids in church yesterday! They came on foot (kind of an accomplishment, they live in the farthest neighborhood) alone, no one went to go walk with them or pick them up, they just came. I was so happy! This is how it´s supposed to be - we should be just minor characters in introducing people to their ward family. Our ward has been so weak, and it´s hard for the people to get along about anything, but they all got together behind Maria and the result was incredible.
The best part on Sunday was showing them the baptismal font. "Maria"´s neighbor, who actually really is named Maria, was baptized in May, and it turns out they´re actually relatives through marriage, but neither knew the other had ties to the church. So her neighbor said, "That´s where I was baptized! I hope you´ll be baptized too." And she said, "Yeah, that´s what I´m on the path for!" She´s so great - she´ll be an amazing member of the church. I´m so excited for her, and for our ward for being so amazing:)
So that was my story of the week! Everything´s going well, we have some really good people, and the members are getting more and more excited to help us, so it´s wonderful. It´s great working with Sister Cantuara, so....I couldn´t be happier! I´m so glad to be here, and I know it´s exactly where I should be. Sunday during sacrament meeting I was just filled with such an amazing feeling of happiness and peace, the kind that only comes from serving the Lord. I know more and more every day that this gospel is true - you don´t get that kind of feeling from a lie. Thank you so much for helping me get here! I love you all so much and am still praying for you always! :D
Til next week,
Sister Madsen
Monday, July 26, 2010
This week in Uruguaiana
Hey guys!
How are you all doing? It´s so crazy to hear about all your summer activities. It continues pretty cold here! Really, it´s like spring for us at home, 40-50 degrees, but when none of the building have heat, it gets pretty crazy. But let´s see, what can I tell you about this week?
Hmmmm. Everything´s going well, but none of our people really progressed a lot this week. NO one, not even Luciano, went to church last week because of the rain. It really is a statewide phenomenon here. All the Brasilians from other states are weirded out by it too - they say if they were all to stay in every time it rained they would never go anywhere. So it doesn´t rain super often here, but when it does....everyone stays in. The weirdest "culture shock" thing to me is there´s a different list of "Stuff everybody knows." Here, everybody knows that if you go out in the rain you´ll come down with the flu the next day. Tons of stuff - everybody knows that it´s dangerous to drink something cold and then something hot. I don´t know what they think will happen - that your stomach will explode or something. The weirdest one is that you can´t eat watermelon and then go out in the sun. I asked what would happen and no one had an answer, just...."You just shouldn´t!" Brasilians. :)
So that was really disappointing that no one came to church. Eva and Gilberto even have a car, so they don´t really have an excuse. They´re so funny - they haven´t really felt the truth of everything yet. They keep saying things like, "We´re liking everything, but you still have to convince us that this is the best thing for us." I told them no way was that our job! Or job is to invite them to change their lives, and introduce the Spirit into their home to change their hearts. We can´t convince them of anything! So we´ll keep focusing on getting them to feel the Spirit as much as possible, because it´s Him who does the converting. We just have to help them recognize the answer they´ve already gotten. So hopefully we´ll be able to help them with that in the coming week.
Cinthia and Wagner are also going through difficulties. Not Wagner so much because he´s hardly ever present, and Cinthia is the really interested one anyway. But she had been going to the church a block over from her house, The Church of the Real Priesthood (not a religion, just a church that exists only in that one place- there are a ton here.) So she told us she had always felt something missing, and that she was starting to find what she was looking for with us. But I think the Pastora is trying to convince her we´re crazy, so she´s feeling pulled back and forth a little bit. It culminated really weirdly on Saturday when Cinthia had invited us to her son´s 4th birthday party, part of which was in the church. We went by to give him his present, and the Pastora was glaring daggers at us and whispering to people, and it was really awkward, so we left and went by her house later. Later, she was more normal (when we walked in she had looked really surprised in a bad way) and asked when we were coming that week, so that was good. It´s not our job to pull her to our side - "our Cinthia!" - but to invite her to ask God. That´s what I love so much about our work - we don´t ever ask people to believe what we´re telling them, just to ask God. We can only invite - they have to take the steps.
Luciano continues excited for the wedding and his baptism August 28, but we found out that Alba has never even intended to be baptized! She´s not even really interested. It took us this long to find out! She goes through all the motions, going to church, participating in the lessons, and everything....but when I asked her how it was when she prayed about the Book of Mormon she said she had never read nor prayed! So, crazy! We´ll have to help her gain a testimony.
That´s about all I can think of...we have two other good investigators, Roger and Giovani, who are both dating less active members. They´re both good, but we´re justing starting out with them, so we´ll see where they go. But everything´s going really well! Sister Cantuara is great, and we´re working really well together. Oh yeah, and I´m staying! Today´s transfer day, but I wasn´t even really thinking about it, as President said unless anything drastic happens I´ll be staying here forever! Until I go home! Apparently the prophet incentivized them to leave missionaries a long time in one area, so it looks like I´m here for the rest of the mission! Crazy to think about! The time´s flying so fast, I´m just trying to make the best use of it I can.
I´m more grateful every day to be here where the Lord is teaching me everything I need to know. I know all these experiences are shaping my future. I´m so glad for the opportunity to be an instrument in the Lord´s hands to bring about His great purposes here. The church is true, and I find it out over and over again every day. Thank you all so much for your love and support. I love you all and you´re always in my prayers! Have an amazing week!
Til next time,
Heather
How are you all doing? It´s so crazy to hear about all your summer activities. It continues pretty cold here! Really, it´s like spring for us at home, 40-50 degrees, but when none of the building have heat, it gets pretty crazy. But let´s see, what can I tell you about this week?
Hmmmm. Everything´s going well, but none of our people really progressed a lot this week. NO one, not even Luciano, went to church last week because of the rain. It really is a statewide phenomenon here. All the Brasilians from other states are weirded out by it too - they say if they were all to stay in every time it rained they would never go anywhere. So it doesn´t rain super often here, but when it does....everyone stays in. The weirdest "culture shock" thing to me is there´s a different list of "Stuff everybody knows." Here, everybody knows that if you go out in the rain you´ll come down with the flu the next day. Tons of stuff - everybody knows that it´s dangerous to drink something cold and then something hot. I don´t know what they think will happen - that your stomach will explode or something. The weirdest one is that you can´t eat watermelon and then go out in the sun. I asked what would happen and no one had an answer, just...."You just shouldn´t!" Brasilians. :)
So that was really disappointing that no one came to church. Eva and Gilberto even have a car, so they don´t really have an excuse. They´re so funny - they haven´t really felt the truth of everything yet. They keep saying things like, "We´re liking everything, but you still have to convince us that this is the best thing for us." I told them no way was that our job! Or job is to invite them to change their lives, and introduce the Spirit into their home to change their hearts. We can´t convince them of anything! So we´ll keep focusing on getting them to feel the Spirit as much as possible, because it´s Him who does the converting. We just have to help them recognize the answer they´ve already gotten. So hopefully we´ll be able to help them with that in the coming week.
Cinthia and Wagner are also going through difficulties. Not Wagner so much because he´s hardly ever present, and Cinthia is the really interested one anyway. But she had been going to the church a block over from her house, The Church of the Real Priesthood (not a religion, just a church that exists only in that one place- there are a ton here.) So she told us she had always felt something missing, and that she was starting to find what she was looking for with us. But I think the Pastora is trying to convince her we´re crazy, so she´s feeling pulled back and forth a little bit. It culminated really weirdly on Saturday when Cinthia had invited us to her son´s 4th birthday party, part of which was in the church. We went by to give him his present, and the Pastora was glaring daggers at us and whispering to people, and it was really awkward, so we left and went by her house later. Later, she was more normal (when we walked in she had looked really surprised in a bad way) and asked when we were coming that week, so that was good. It´s not our job to pull her to our side - "our Cinthia!" - but to invite her to ask God. That´s what I love so much about our work - we don´t ever ask people to believe what we´re telling them, just to ask God. We can only invite - they have to take the steps.
Luciano continues excited for the wedding and his baptism August 28, but we found out that Alba has never even intended to be baptized! She´s not even really interested. It took us this long to find out! She goes through all the motions, going to church, participating in the lessons, and everything....but when I asked her how it was when she prayed about the Book of Mormon she said she had never read nor prayed! So, crazy! We´ll have to help her gain a testimony.
That´s about all I can think of...we have two other good investigators, Roger and Giovani, who are both dating less active members. They´re both good, but we´re justing starting out with them, so we´ll see where they go. But everything´s going really well! Sister Cantuara is great, and we´re working really well together. Oh yeah, and I´m staying! Today´s transfer day, but I wasn´t even really thinking about it, as President said unless anything drastic happens I´ll be staying here forever! Until I go home! Apparently the prophet incentivized them to leave missionaries a long time in one area, so it looks like I´m here for the rest of the mission! Crazy to think about! The time´s flying so fast, I´m just trying to make the best use of it I can.
I´m more grateful every day to be here where the Lord is teaching me everything I need to know. I know all these experiences are shaping my future. I´m so glad for the opportunity to be an instrument in the Lord´s hands to bring about His great purposes here. The church is true, and I find it out over and over again every day. Thank you all so much for your love and support. I love you all and you´re always in my prayers! Have an amazing week!
Til next time,
Heather
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
New President!
Hey guys!
So first of all, I take back everything I said last week about the cold. It really is really, really cold here! I´m such a wimp about it - everyone says, "I can see your companion being cold, she´s from Bahia, but doesn´t it snow where you´re from?" But here.....it´s not really as cold as it gets at home...40 degrees is not that cold, but there´s this wind here that feels like someone throwing 40 degree water in your face. There will be these bright, sunny, beautiful days, with the palm trees and everything, but this insane wind that feels like someone left the door to Antartica open, and you just can´t warm up. So the point is.....it´s cold! :P
But the most interesting thing about this week was meeting our new president! Presidente and Sister Ribeiro got here on the 1st, but we met them on Thursday and Friday. Thursday he had interviews with everyone, and it was great to meet him like that. He´s amazing! I won´t compare him with Presidente Myrrha, but I loved getting to know him in the interview. He´s one of those people that seems like they´re looking right through you. So we talked for a good 20 minutes, it was great.
And then on Friday we had Zone Conference. It was great! He gave a bunch of the new trainings from Provo, and changed a lot of things to be more in line with Provo´s vision. For example, it´s no longer recommended to split the first lesson into 3. And we´re required to mark a date for someone´s baptism in the first lesson! So I´m really grateful for that. I feel like it will really open windows and people will really progress better - it´s what the prophets and apostles want. He also showed us some of "The District - 2" which I was nerdily excited about! The District was a movie/documentary made after the release of Preach My Gospel in 2004 to train missionaries how to use the manual, and now there´s a second one! You know you´re a missionary when you get more excited about that than the normal movie sequels you hear about. So we spent all day in trainings, doing some practices, etc. We also got to know Sister Ribeiro! I instantly loved her. She reminds me of you, Mom!
So that was the most exciting thing of the week! As far as people, NO ONE except Luciano and his son came to church - there was practically no one there because it was really cold and raining. Seriously, when we got there, we walked in with Luciano, and walked into a chapel empty except for the stake counselor. People here are so afraid of rain and cold. But it really makes me think about what kind of member I´m going to be - not that it´s a sin to stay home if there´s bad weather or something, but I want to be the kind of person who has the faith to go the extra mile.
But things are going really well with Eva and Gilberto - if all goes according to plan, their baptism will be not this saturday but next. It will be the first baptism I´ve helped with of an entire family! I´m really excited about them. They´re amazing. Cinthia and Wagner....are doing ok, we can never seem to find them both at home, but Cinthia´s still excited as ever, although they didn´t go on Sunday.
But everything´s going well here! I´m surviving the cold and having a great time!:) I´m so grateful to be here, having these experiences that are going to change the course of my eternity. I know that every one of them comes to me for a reason. I gave a talk yesterday about Ammon - I´m so grateful to have the chance, like he said, to be an instrument in the hands of God to bring about His great work. Thank you all for helping me get here! I love you!!
Til next week,
Sister Madsen
So first of all, I take back everything I said last week about the cold. It really is really, really cold here! I´m such a wimp about it - everyone says, "I can see your companion being cold, she´s from Bahia, but doesn´t it snow where you´re from?" But here.....it´s not really as cold as it gets at home...40 degrees is not that cold, but there´s this wind here that feels like someone throwing 40 degree water in your face. There will be these bright, sunny, beautiful days, with the palm trees and everything, but this insane wind that feels like someone left the door to Antartica open, and you just can´t warm up. So the point is.....it´s cold! :P
But the most interesting thing about this week was meeting our new president! Presidente and Sister Ribeiro got here on the 1st, but we met them on Thursday and Friday. Thursday he had interviews with everyone, and it was great to meet him like that. He´s amazing! I won´t compare him with Presidente Myrrha, but I loved getting to know him in the interview. He´s one of those people that seems like they´re looking right through you. So we talked for a good 20 minutes, it was great.
And then on Friday we had Zone Conference. It was great! He gave a bunch of the new trainings from Provo, and changed a lot of things to be more in line with Provo´s vision. For example, it´s no longer recommended to split the first lesson into 3. And we´re required to mark a date for someone´s baptism in the first lesson! So I´m really grateful for that. I feel like it will really open windows and people will really progress better - it´s what the prophets and apostles want. He also showed us some of "The District - 2" which I was nerdily excited about! The District was a movie/documentary made after the release of Preach My Gospel in 2004 to train missionaries how to use the manual, and now there´s a second one! You know you´re a missionary when you get more excited about that than the normal movie sequels you hear about. So we spent all day in trainings, doing some practices, etc. We also got to know Sister Ribeiro! I instantly loved her. She reminds me of you, Mom!
So that was the most exciting thing of the week! As far as people, NO ONE except Luciano and his son came to church - there was practically no one there because it was really cold and raining. Seriously, when we got there, we walked in with Luciano, and walked into a chapel empty except for the stake counselor. People here are so afraid of rain and cold. But it really makes me think about what kind of member I´m going to be - not that it´s a sin to stay home if there´s bad weather or something, but I want to be the kind of person who has the faith to go the extra mile.
But things are going really well with Eva and Gilberto - if all goes according to plan, their baptism will be not this saturday but next. It will be the first baptism I´ve helped with of an entire family! I´m really excited about them. They´re amazing. Cinthia and Wagner....are doing ok, we can never seem to find them both at home, but Cinthia´s still excited as ever, although they didn´t go on Sunday.
But everything´s going well here! I´m surviving the cold and having a great time!:) I´m so grateful to be here, having these experiences that are going to change the course of my eternity. I know that every one of them comes to me for a reason. I gave a talk yesterday about Ammon - I´m so grateful to have the chance, like he said, to be an instrument in the hands of God to bring about His great work. Thank you all for helping me get here! I love you!!
Til next week,
Sister Madsen
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
This Week
Hey everyone!
How are you all doing? I can´t believe it´s so summery there - here winter´s finally starting to arrive (maybe). I´m pretty sure it´s not going to be anything like people say it is! I believed the hype, but if these people spent the winter in Utah they would all freeze to death.
So it was another good week! The highlight was the family of Eva and Gilberto. We visited with the stake counselor who´s taking care of our ward right now (we have no bishop) and talked about the priesthood. Gilberto, who´s always kind of been lagging behind, really clicked with him. When Presidente Lupe asked what feelings they were having during the lesson, Gilberto said, "I´m believing your words." Then, best of all, when we got to church on Sunday all four of them were sitting in a pew together! Them and their two daughters, 14 and 21. They had a great time, loved everything, didn´t stay with us (a good thing) and...it was great to see them all there. I´m so excited for their family. We found out a bit ago, I don´t know if I told you, but that we started visiting them right at a time when their family was going through a huge problem. So I´m so glad we were put in their life to help them:)
The sad part of Sunday was Cinthia and Wagner - we were there at 8:40 like we said to walk with them, but they just simply didn´t answer. Their uncle who lives in...a different house but the same building (brasilian thing) answered and said he didn´t think they were there, and that he called and no answer. So that was really sad. We didn´t get there to see what happened yet, but I know they´ll be members, it´s just a matter of when!
We made a really interesting contact this week. We were knocking a street before coming home, and there was a lady standing out on her porch, so we walked up and said hi. People get really suspicious when you come up to talk to them at night, so I didn´t know how she´d respond, but she said hi so happily it surprised us and almost started laughing, that happy. So we talked for a bit, she said she was really needing God in her life and knew she should go to church, that she was going through all kinds of problems in her family, and had even lost her son two years ago...she started crying while telling us about it. Then she asked what church we were from - when we answered, she said "You´re kidding!" (actually in portuguese, "lie!") I thought she was going to say, "I heard that church was a cult" or something (lots of people do), but she said, "I´ve always wanted to go inside that church! I pass it all the time, and I told my daughter one day I didn´t want to die before I got to know that church". We told her God sent us to help her with her problems and help her fulfill her dream of knowing the church. She said we couldn´t come in right then, but she´d wait for us on Saturday. So it was amazing, but when we got to our appointment on Saturday, no one answered:( It´s always like that, there´s always a ton of opposition getting to the people who really need it, but we´ll get there!
So....the week is going well. Our ward is getting better - when we got here, it was super low in attendance and everyone was gossiping and backbiting about each other.....the bishop was doing the best he could, but it was kind of out of control. So they released him and now a stake counselor is in charge of our ward, who´s kind of snapping everything back to order. It´s been good - I was so tired of listening to people gossip! It can really kill people´s tender testimonies. But everything´s getting better.
So that´s about all the stories from this week I think. Everything´s going great! I can´t believe how fast the time is passing - I realize more every day how much I need to make every minute count. I´m so grateful to be here, getting a chance to represent the Savior and help feed His sheep. I learn more every day than I ever thought possible - looking back, it seems like I really didn´t know anything before I started. There´s kind of a theme of what I´m learning - it´s summed up by something Ann M. Dibb said in her Conference talk from October about holding to the iron rod. She said she was talking to her dad (Pres. Monson) about everything, how the blessings of the gospel are so important in our lives, and that he said, "Ann, they are everything." That´s what I´m learning more every day here. The blessings of the gospel - to be sealed to our families for all eternity, to have peace in this world and the promise of eternal life in the world to come....they´re everything. I´m so grateful to know that, and that I´m here having that knowledge reinforced every day. I love you all so much, and pray for you always!
Love always,
Heather
How are you all doing? I can´t believe it´s so summery there - here winter´s finally starting to arrive (maybe). I´m pretty sure it´s not going to be anything like people say it is! I believed the hype, but if these people spent the winter in Utah they would all freeze to death.
So it was another good week! The highlight was the family of Eva and Gilberto. We visited with the stake counselor who´s taking care of our ward right now (we have no bishop) and talked about the priesthood. Gilberto, who´s always kind of been lagging behind, really clicked with him. When Presidente Lupe asked what feelings they were having during the lesson, Gilberto said, "I´m believing your words." Then, best of all, when we got to church on Sunday all four of them were sitting in a pew together! Them and their two daughters, 14 and 21. They had a great time, loved everything, didn´t stay with us (a good thing) and...it was great to see them all there. I´m so excited for their family. We found out a bit ago, I don´t know if I told you, but that we started visiting them right at a time when their family was going through a huge problem. So I´m so glad we were put in their life to help them:)
The sad part of Sunday was Cinthia and Wagner - we were there at 8:40 like we said to walk with them, but they just simply didn´t answer. Their uncle who lives in...a different house but the same building (brasilian thing) answered and said he didn´t think they were there, and that he called and no answer. So that was really sad. We didn´t get there to see what happened yet, but I know they´ll be members, it´s just a matter of when!
We made a really interesting contact this week. We were knocking a street before coming home, and there was a lady standing out on her porch, so we walked up and said hi. People get really suspicious when you come up to talk to them at night, so I didn´t know how she´d respond, but she said hi so happily it surprised us and almost started laughing, that happy. So we talked for a bit, she said she was really needing God in her life and knew she should go to church, that she was going through all kinds of problems in her family, and had even lost her son two years ago...she started crying while telling us about it. Then she asked what church we were from - when we answered, she said "You´re kidding!" (actually in portuguese, "lie!") I thought she was going to say, "I heard that church was a cult" or something (lots of people do), but she said, "I´ve always wanted to go inside that church! I pass it all the time, and I told my daughter one day I didn´t want to die before I got to know that church". We told her God sent us to help her with her problems and help her fulfill her dream of knowing the church. She said we couldn´t come in right then, but she´d wait for us on Saturday. So it was amazing, but when we got to our appointment on Saturday, no one answered:( It´s always like that, there´s always a ton of opposition getting to the people who really need it, but we´ll get there!
So....the week is going well. Our ward is getting better - when we got here, it was super low in attendance and everyone was gossiping and backbiting about each other.....the bishop was doing the best he could, but it was kind of out of control. So they released him and now a stake counselor is in charge of our ward, who´s kind of snapping everything back to order. It´s been good - I was so tired of listening to people gossip! It can really kill people´s tender testimonies. But everything´s getting better.
So that´s about all the stories from this week I think. Everything´s going great! I can´t believe how fast the time is passing - I realize more every day how much I need to make every minute count. I´m so grateful to be here, getting a chance to represent the Savior and help feed His sheep. I learn more every day than I ever thought possible - looking back, it seems like I really didn´t know anything before I started. There´s kind of a theme of what I´m learning - it´s summed up by something Ann M. Dibb said in her Conference talk from October about holding to the iron rod. She said she was talking to her dad (Pres. Monson) about everything, how the blessings of the gospel are so important in our lives, and that he said, "Ann, they are everything." That´s what I´m learning more every day here. The blessings of the gospel - to be sealed to our families for all eternity, to have peace in this world and the promise of eternal life in the world to come....they´re everything. I´m so grateful to know that, and that I´m here having that knowledge reinforced every day. I love you all so much, and pray for you always!
Love always,
Heather
Friday, July 9, 2010
Third Week, First Year, and Fourth of July
Hey everyone!
How are you all doing? I can´t believe it´s summer there and you guys are having barbeques and watching fireworks....but actually, it´s kind of summer here too! Since July 1 it´s been hot here, like summer weather at home (not the insane, over the top summer weather of the south of Brasil). So maybe we´re kind of on the same page!
Also, you´re totally right, Brasil is very sad to be out of the Cup. We were listening to the game and heard everyone celebrate at the 10 minute mark, and I thought we were going to make it! But then no more celebration for the rest of 2 hours.....and the significant lack of fireworks and general insanity let us know we did in fact lose. Too bad! But it´s better for missionary work:D
So let´s see, what happened this week? Things are continuing amazingly. We saw Cinthia and Wagner again a few times, and they loved learning about the Book of Mormon. They were sad because they were going out of town this weekend and wouldn´t be able to come to church, but Cinthia said learning about the BoM got rid of a few doubts she had had (that we have "another Bible", etc) and made her even more excited to go to church. They´re really amazing!
More really interesting people to tell you about are Luciano and Alba. Super interesting story! They´ve already been investigating for a year and a half, going to church every week, and waiting for their wedding, which will be in August (so I´ll likely be here - yay!!) So they´re like 30 and 35-ish, have 3 kids- 13, 10 and 10 months. But their story is so interesting....Luciano had already asked a friend for a Book of Mormon 9 years before meeting the missionaries. He read up til 3 Nephi 11, decided it was a nice work of fiction, and stopped. Then 9 years later when the elders appeared, he said he already had the book, showed it to them, and he had stopped right where they were going to mark for him to start! So he started accepting their visits and reading, not just reading but studying intently, to try to catch them on something. Every Bible scripture reference he thought "Now I´ll get them..." But he kept reading and studying and realized there was nothing to "get them" on - that it really had to be true. I really like talking to them, because he was a skeptic about *everything* - and even a skeptic like him had to accept. If you read and study with a sincere heart, anyone can know the truth of the Book of Mormon.
I´m coming to appreciate it so much more on my mission. I´m finishing Helaman in my reading, and am understanding and loving it more than ever before. On the mission I have such a different perspective - I can imagine exactly how those prophets felt in lots of situations. I´m so grateful that God inspired them to write their stories so we could have their wisdom today, when the world needs it most. I really love that book and have no doubt that it really is true, and that it really came about how Joseph said it did, because there´s just no other answer.
So those were just a few quick stories about two of the families here, and there are more, but time is running out! Next week I`ll tell you more about Eva and Gilberto and how it goes with them. Another super amazing family I´m so grateful to be working with. So to summarize, (that was the first English word I´ve forgotten in a long time) things here are going amazing. We´re really receiving a ton of help and we´re lucky enough that Heavenly Father is using us as His instruments to bring about some great things with great families. I´m so grateful to be here where he can use me to help others in need. Thank you all for helping me get here, and for all your help and support. I love you all so much and you´re always in my prayers!
Til next week!
Sister Madsen
How are you all doing? I can´t believe it´s summer there and you guys are having barbeques and watching fireworks....but actually, it´s kind of summer here too! Since July 1 it´s been hot here, like summer weather at home (not the insane, over the top summer weather of the south of Brasil). So maybe we´re kind of on the same page!
Also, you´re totally right, Brasil is very sad to be out of the Cup. We were listening to the game and heard everyone celebrate at the 10 minute mark, and I thought we were going to make it! But then no more celebration for the rest of 2 hours.....and the significant lack of fireworks and general insanity let us know we did in fact lose. Too bad! But it´s better for missionary work:D
So let´s see, what happened this week? Things are continuing amazingly. We saw Cinthia and Wagner again a few times, and they loved learning about the Book of Mormon. They were sad because they were going out of town this weekend and wouldn´t be able to come to church, but Cinthia said learning about the BoM got rid of a few doubts she had had (that we have "another Bible", etc) and made her even more excited to go to church. They´re really amazing!
More really interesting people to tell you about are Luciano and Alba. Super interesting story! They´ve already been investigating for a year and a half, going to church every week, and waiting for their wedding, which will be in August (so I´ll likely be here - yay!!) So they´re like 30 and 35-ish, have 3 kids- 13, 10 and 10 months. But their story is so interesting....Luciano had already asked a friend for a Book of Mormon 9 years before meeting the missionaries. He read up til 3 Nephi 11, decided it was a nice work of fiction, and stopped. Then 9 years later when the elders appeared, he said he already had the book, showed it to them, and he had stopped right where they were going to mark for him to start! So he started accepting their visits and reading, not just reading but studying intently, to try to catch them on something. Every Bible scripture reference he thought "Now I´ll get them..." But he kept reading and studying and realized there was nothing to "get them" on - that it really had to be true. I really like talking to them, because he was a skeptic about *everything* - and even a skeptic like him had to accept. If you read and study with a sincere heart, anyone can know the truth of the Book of Mormon.
I´m coming to appreciate it so much more on my mission. I´m finishing Helaman in my reading, and am understanding and loving it more than ever before. On the mission I have such a different perspective - I can imagine exactly how those prophets felt in lots of situations. I´m so grateful that God inspired them to write their stories so we could have their wisdom today, when the world needs it most. I really love that book and have no doubt that it really is true, and that it really came about how Joseph said it did, because there´s just no other answer.
So those were just a few quick stories about two of the families here, and there are more, but time is running out! Next week I`ll tell you more about Eva and Gilberto and how it goes with them. Another super amazing family I´m so grateful to be working with. So to summarize, (that was the first English word I´ve forgotten in a long time) things here are going amazing. We´re really receiving a ton of help and we´re lucky enough that Heavenly Father is using us as His instruments to bring about some great things with great families. I´m so grateful to be here where he can use me to help others in need. Thank you all for helping me get here, and for all your help and support. I love you all so much and you´re always in my prayers!
Til next week!
Sister Madsen
Monday, July 5, 2010
Second Week!
Hey everyone!!
So the second week here in Uruguaiana was great! It was actually a completely normal and actually a good week in terms of how much we were able to teach, the new investigators we were able to find, and everything. We´re totally, totally being blessed, because I was expecting to have a rough first few weeks opening the area! But it´s going amazing! Let´s see everything that happened.
We focused on getting a lot of new investigators this week, since there wasn´t a big teaching pool when we got here, and were able to find some amazing people! We found this couple who´s right out of those stories you always hear. Cinthia and Wagner are a young couple (she´s my age) with a 3 year old and a 6 month old. We taught the first lesson to her and her grandma, and they loved it and were really receptive, but it didn´t seem unusual. (The first lesson for us is different than anywhere else, for those of you who have served missions. Presidente Myrrha broke up the first lesson into 3 parts: "The Ministry" is the first one we teach, followed by The Restoration, and third, The Book of Mormon. So the first lesson explains the mortal ministry of Christ, baptism, the church he established, and the atonement, with a challenge to accept Christ´´s sacrifice by being baptized. Then we leave the question of "hmm, why don´t any of the churches you know today have the same organization as that one Christ established?" with them)
So we set up a return appointment and went back. Cinthia had been cleaning the house and he said she had been all excited for us to get there. So we sat down, and the first thing she said was, "Hey, I wanted to tell you guys something. I was baptized in the Universal church like I told you but.....when I was baptized I didn´t feel anything. There was something missing." She said she and Wagner had already been to a million churches but hadn´t found one to stick with yet. So we told her in our message she would feel what she had been missing. They loved the restoration and agreed to go to church next week! I´m so excited about them - they remind me so much of Angela and Valdir, a couple from Camobi, who were introduced to the church with almost exactly the same age, when their two oldest kids were 2 and a baby...and now they´ve been members for 20 years, all sealed in the temple, the oldest is on a mission and the next oldest is preparing to go, etc.....I can just see Cinthia and Wagner in the same place in 20 years :D I´m SO excited to see what happens with them and so grateful to have the opportunity to work with them.
So this week actually went so much better than I was expecting, I think we´re already past the lost stage and now it´s just normal work! I´m so glad we got over the hurdles so fast. Now the only challenge is the World Cup!:P I didn´t tell you guys about that last week, but it´s....just as big a deal here as you would imagine. The normal games are always on, but life continues as normal...but when Brasil plays, people don´t work, kids don´t have school...life completely stops. (Oh yeah, a bunch of streets here are decorated, too, with huge murals on the sidewalks and green and yellow flags and streamers everywhere.) We have to go home during Brasil games, President´s orders, to not be tempted to watch and also not to be caught in any of the craziness. So we´ve been home for the three games so far, but it´s so cool to be sitting in our apartment and then hear the whole world take a deep breath and then explode in screams and cheers and fireworks when they score.
Also, this week was the festa de São João (remember two years ago when I wrote you about San Juan in Spain??) but no one did anything exciting. But I did see a few kids dressed like....country people? Farmers? Running around in the streets. So that was really cute. But, in a nutshell, everything here´s continuing amazingly! We´re getting so much heavenly help in this new area. I´m so excited to be here and work with all these amazing people. I know I´m here for a reason and I can help them change their lives by introducing the Spirit into their homes. I love you all so much and I´m so grateful for your love and support!
Til next week!
Sister Madsen
So the second week here in Uruguaiana was great! It was actually a completely normal and actually a good week in terms of how much we were able to teach, the new investigators we were able to find, and everything. We´re totally, totally being blessed, because I was expecting to have a rough first few weeks opening the area! But it´s going amazing! Let´s see everything that happened.
We focused on getting a lot of new investigators this week, since there wasn´t a big teaching pool when we got here, and were able to find some amazing people! We found this couple who´s right out of those stories you always hear. Cinthia and Wagner are a young couple (she´s my age) with a 3 year old and a 6 month old. We taught the first lesson to her and her grandma, and they loved it and were really receptive, but it didn´t seem unusual. (The first lesson for us is different than anywhere else, for those of you who have served missions. Presidente Myrrha broke up the first lesson into 3 parts: "The Ministry" is the first one we teach, followed by The Restoration, and third, The Book of Mormon. So the first lesson explains the mortal ministry of Christ, baptism, the church he established, and the atonement, with a challenge to accept Christ´´s sacrifice by being baptized. Then we leave the question of "hmm, why don´t any of the churches you know today have the same organization as that one Christ established?" with them)
So we set up a return appointment and went back. Cinthia had been cleaning the house and he said she had been all excited for us to get there. So we sat down, and the first thing she said was, "Hey, I wanted to tell you guys something. I was baptized in the Universal church like I told you but.....when I was baptized I didn´t feel anything. There was something missing." She said she and Wagner had already been to a million churches but hadn´t found one to stick with yet. So we told her in our message she would feel what she had been missing. They loved the restoration and agreed to go to church next week! I´m so excited about them - they remind me so much of Angela and Valdir, a couple from Camobi, who were introduced to the church with almost exactly the same age, when their two oldest kids were 2 and a baby...and now they´ve been members for 20 years, all sealed in the temple, the oldest is on a mission and the next oldest is preparing to go, etc.....I can just see Cinthia and Wagner in the same place in 20 years :D I´m SO excited to see what happens with them and so grateful to have the opportunity to work with them.
So this week actually went so much better than I was expecting, I think we´re already past the lost stage and now it´s just normal work! I´m so glad we got over the hurdles so fast. Now the only challenge is the World Cup!:P I didn´t tell you guys about that last week, but it´s....just as big a deal here as you would imagine. The normal games are always on, but life continues as normal...but when Brasil plays, people don´t work, kids don´t have school...life completely stops. (Oh yeah, a bunch of streets here are decorated, too, with huge murals on the sidewalks and green and yellow flags and streamers everywhere.) We have to go home during Brasil games, President´s orders, to not be tempted to watch and also not to be caught in any of the craziness. So we´ve been home for the three games so far, but it´s so cool to be sitting in our apartment and then hear the whole world take a deep breath and then explode in screams and cheers and fireworks when they score.
Also, this week was the festa de São João (remember two years ago when I wrote you about San Juan in Spain??) but no one did anything exciting. But I did see a few kids dressed like....country people? Farmers? Running around in the streets. So that was really cute. But, in a nutshell, everything here´s continuing amazingly! We´re getting so much heavenly help in this new area. I´m so excited to be here and work with all these amazing people. I know I´m here for a reason and I can help them change their lives by introducing the Spirit into their homes. I love you all so much and I´m so grateful for your love and support!
Til next week!
Sister Madsen
Monday, June 21, 2010
First Week in Uruguaiana!
Hey everyone!
So lots of excitement since last letter; let me update you. So Monday, I ran around like a crazy person getting everything ready to leave, trying to close up our area in Ipiranga for the elders to start there, packing everything....it was crazy. Then Tuesday, we went to the bus station, I met Sister Cantuara, and went off on a 7 hour bus ride with her here to Uruguaiana! We didn´t get here til about 8, but when we got to the bus station the zone leaders were there to meet us. They helped us get our stuff to our apartment, set everything down, said good luck, and left. It seemed really quiet for a second, and I had a small inner panic attack of "what do we do now?!" So we started looking around our apartment for any kind of clues, the phone number of the bishop or something, but nothing. The area book (the place where we record all the information about investigators and what they´ve been taught) hadn´t been updated since April. So by then it was already 8:30, so we stayed in, trying to get some info about investigators and members to start with the next day.
So the next day....we got our map and the addresses of investigators and headed out! Eventually, we got a hold of a number of the stake counselor who lives in our ward, and he came and got us in his car and showed us around a bit, where the chapel was, etc, and drove us to our lunch appointment. Since then, all the members have been that amazing! Everyone´s super excited to have sisters - it seems like this ward never has! The city used to, the Santana ward did for a few years, but people are way excited to have us in the Uruguaiana ward. So we continued the week trying to find our way around with the map and various addresses, not really knowing what people needed to be taught because of the lack of info in the area book, but finding our way through everything. It´s obvious the Lord really gives us what we need to accomplish what we need to accomplish! I´m not great with maps, but already on the second day I was able to get us to where we needed to be (most of the time:P) I´m so grateful for heavenly help!
So there are amazing people here, great members (although our ward is going through a bit of a rough patch, with an attendance of about 40), and an amazing family of investigators! They´re a reference from a member who the elders had only contacted once before they left. So we taught them twice more this week, and the mom (Eva) and one of the daughters (Tainara) came to church yesterday!! They loved it, the family is amazing, and I`m so excited to work with them.
So everything´s going amazing! The area is really cool, we´re literally right on the river, so I get to see Argentina every day:P I´ve met a few Argentinos here, and got to attempt spanish once! Sister Cantuara is great, too. She´s from Salvador, Bahia. She´s 27 but looks like 17, and is the second youngest of 11 children. She´s very very calm and collected, and never freaks out when I get us lost or anything, which is great:) We already get along really well.
So that´s this week in a nutshell! I´m so excited to work here. I know it´s for a wise purpose in the Lord, and I know there are people here I need to help. We were able to speak in sacrament meeting yesterday, and I spoke about how we´re a "peculiar people" (not as cool in portuguese, they just say "special") and need to be different from the rest of the world, and our responsibility to share the blessings we´ve been given. We´re so lucky to know what we know - that there´s a prophet on the earth today, why we´re here and where we´re going, that our families can be together even after death. I´m so grateful to be able to teach people those things every day. I can´t believe how time is flying! Next week I´ll make one year! It just makes me realize how much I have to take advantage of this time I have, because it will never come back.
I love you all so much, and I´m so grateful for your love and support. Thank you for helping me be here, where I can serve the Lord by serving his children. I love you all and pray for you all the time! Til next week! :D
Sister Madsen
So lots of excitement since last letter; let me update you. So Monday, I ran around like a crazy person getting everything ready to leave, trying to close up our area in Ipiranga for the elders to start there, packing everything....it was crazy. Then Tuesday, we went to the bus station, I met Sister Cantuara, and went off on a 7 hour bus ride with her here to Uruguaiana! We didn´t get here til about 8, but when we got to the bus station the zone leaders were there to meet us. They helped us get our stuff to our apartment, set everything down, said good luck, and left. It seemed really quiet for a second, and I had a small inner panic attack of "what do we do now?!" So we started looking around our apartment for any kind of clues, the phone number of the bishop or something, but nothing. The area book (the place where we record all the information about investigators and what they´ve been taught) hadn´t been updated since April. So by then it was already 8:30, so we stayed in, trying to get some info about investigators and members to start with the next day.
So the next day....we got our map and the addresses of investigators and headed out! Eventually, we got a hold of a number of the stake counselor who lives in our ward, and he came and got us in his car and showed us around a bit, where the chapel was, etc, and drove us to our lunch appointment. Since then, all the members have been that amazing! Everyone´s super excited to have sisters - it seems like this ward never has! The city used to, the Santana ward did for a few years, but people are way excited to have us in the Uruguaiana ward. So we continued the week trying to find our way around with the map and various addresses, not really knowing what people needed to be taught because of the lack of info in the area book, but finding our way through everything. It´s obvious the Lord really gives us what we need to accomplish what we need to accomplish! I´m not great with maps, but already on the second day I was able to get us to where we needed to be (most of the time:P) I´m so grateful for heavenly help!
So there are amazing people here, great members (although our ward is going through a bit of a rough patch, with an attendance of about 40), and an amazing family of investigators! They´re a reference from a member who the elders had only contacted once before they left. So we taught them twice more this week, and the mom (Eva) and one of the daughters (Tainara) came to church yesterday!! They loved it, the family is amazing, and I`m so excited to work with them.
So everything´s going amazing! The area is really cool, we´re literally right on the river, so I get to see Argentina every day:P I´ve met a few Argentinos here, and got to attempt spanish once! Sister Cantuara is great, too. She´s from Salvador, Bahia. She´s 27 but looks like 17, and is the second youngest of 11 children. She´s very very calm and collected, and never freaks out when I get us lost or anything, which is great:) We already get along really well.
So that´s this week in a nutshell! I´m so excited to work here. I know it´s for a wise purpose in the Lord, and I know there are people here I need to help. We were able to speak in sacrament meeting yesterday, and I spoke about how we´re a "peculiar people" (not as cool in portuguese, they just say "special") and need to be different from the rest of the world, and our responsibility to share the blessings we´ve been given. We´re so lucky to know what we know - that there´s a prophet on the earth today, why we´re here and where we´re going, that our families can be together even after death. I´m so grateful to be able to teach people those things every day. I can´t believe how time is flying! Next week I´ll make one year! It just makes me realize how much I have to take advantage of this time I have, because it will never come back.
I love you all so much, and I´m so grateful for your love and support. Thank you for helping me be here, where I can serve the Lord by serving his children. I love you all and pray for you all the time! Til next week! :D
Sister Madsen
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Transfered?! :D
Hey Family!!
So, big changes!! So today was our transfer meeting, and I was 99% sure I knew what was going to happen.....President told me in my interview that he would be pulling one companionship out of Ipiranga, so it would end up just me and Sister da Silva to combine to the two companionships. So Sister Pedrozo and Sister Witmer have already packed their bags and everything because they knew they were leaving, and I was trying to plan out combining all of our investigators into one big teaching group, how we would plan everything, etc.
But then today it was just one surprise after another! I told you how we do it, right? With drawing the nametags out of a bag, our whole zone together......so someone drew Sister da Silva, and Elder Borges, the Zone Leader who had all the info, said "Would you believe her companion´s sitting right next to her?" So she looked at Sister Pedrozo, her current companion, and starting screaming, Yay, we´re together again! But nope, then he announced her area......Vila Rica in the city of Santiago!! A city that´s never had sisters (as far as I know) in the history of the mission! And her companion.....Sister Witmer!! So they´re both leaving together to open an area!
So I started to wonder about who would end up staying with me....but then Sister Pedrozo´s name was drawn. Everyone thought he was kidding when he put up her area.......Alegrete! Another city that´s never had sisters!! Two huge surprises in a row! So she would also be leaving to open an area, with Sister de Oliveira. She was super excited!
Then it came to my turn.....I was positive I was staying, because who else would there be to take care of our area? The only question was who would be my companion. So of course I told Elder Borges to stop joking around when he wrote my area on the board.....Uruguaiana, a city that hasn´t had sisters for 2 years! But he really wasn´t kidding.....I´m really going!! To open the area again with Sister Cantuara (who I´ve never met). So.....none of this probably means as much to you guys as it does to us here, but it´s very crazy!! The whole time I´ve been here, it´s just been the same 5 cities that have sisters, and now all of a sudden 3 new ones, that ALL 4 of us in our apartment are going to open.
So that means....no one is staying to take care of our area! He´s handing it over to elders! Just when all the difficulties were starting to get better....but it´s good, it will revive the ward a lot. But.....I´m going to Uruguaiana!! Tomorrow! 6 hours away, waaay over on the boarder with Argentina! (I know, it sounds like it should be the border with Uruguay, which I thought for a long time, but nope, it´s on the River Uruguai, which is the border with Argentina). So I´ll get to practice my Spanish....Sister Cantuara and I will get to start from scratch.....I´m super excited!! :D
And in other amazing news, Sister Raphaela came last night! Her mission is officially over, but she´s staying 2 more weeks like I explained before. But, so for these last few transfers she´s been back in Cruz Alta! When she trained me it was in the 1st Ward, where she stayed for 7 months, then went off to a few more cities, then went back to the 3rd Ward to finish. So she spent more than half her mission there! But she brought news of everyone from the 1st ward......and they´re all doing so, so well!! EVERYONE that we worked with is still firm in the church. Jovana is loving being a Young Women´s counselor, and Marcos (less active) is going to church a little at a time. And remember Rosane, mom of Malika and Claudia, who I told you the crazy story about, how she told us she had been baptized as a teenager, but then on our last day told us she never really had been, she had just said it so we wouldn´t "try to baptize her"? But then she said she realized that a church that did the things she´d seen it do had to be true, and she even wanted to be baptized that weekend before we left?
Well, she was baptized shortly after we left, and Sister Raphaela said she´s a completely changed person now - she stopped smoking, separated from her boyfriend, she even changed her house to be cleaner and more open with a picture of everyone in the family´s baptism displayed on a table....she said it´s hard to describe, but you can even see a change in her appearance. I was SO SO happy to hear about her....and Cirlei´s marriage turned out alright (which we helped her start working on), she was baptized and had her baby.......Elenice also got married and was baptized, and now she and her two kids (who used to be less active) are all going every week! She even showed me a video of Giulia (Jovana´s daughter) and Carol (cousin) singing the young women´s song from this year, with Jovana standing in the background singing along.....and watching all three of them singing by heart, Marcos standing quietly as always, but then wrapping his arms tight around Jovana......I started to cry from the happiest feeling I´ve ever had in my life. All the memories of those people came flooding back, and I felt this incredible love for them, and this incredible happiness at how far they had all come. It´s impossible to describe, but I´ve never felt a feeling like that in my entire life.
It really is like Preach My Gospel says in the very front - "more happiness than you have ever experienced awaits you" on your mission. I´m so glad I get to have this opportunity. Thank you all so much for helping me get here and supporting me in this incredible experience. I love you all so much, and I hope I can convey to you a little of the joy I´m feeling - the joy that comes from the true gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that He is the only wait to gain such joy in this lifetime, and to gain eternal life in the world to come. I know He lives, and I know He loves us.
Have a great week! I´ll update you next week on the first week in Uruguaiana!!! :D
Love always,
Sister Madsen
So, big changes!! So today was our transfer meeting, and I was 99% sure I knew what was going to happen.....President told me in my interview that he would be pulling one companionship out of Ipiranga, so it would end up just me and Sister da Silva to combine to the two companionships. So Sister Pedrozo and Sister Witmer have already packed their bags and everything because they knew they were leaving, and I was trying to plan out combining all of our investigators into one big teaching group, how we would plan everything, etc.
But then today it was just one surprise after another! I told you how we do it, right? With drawing the nametags out of a bag, our whole zone together......so someone drew Sister da Silva, and Elder Borges, the Zone Leader who had all the info, said "Would you believe her companion´s sitting right next to her?" So she looked at Sister Pedrozo, her current companion, and starting screaming, Yay, we´re together again! But nope, then he announced her area......Vila Rica in the city of Santiago!! A city that´s never had sisters (as far as I know) in the history of the mission! And her companion.....Sister Witmer!! So they´re both leaving together to open an area!
So I started to wonder about who would end up staying with me....but then Sister Pedrozo´s name was drawn. Everyone thought he was kidding when he put up her area.......Alegrete! Another city that´s never had sisters!! Two huge surprises in a row! So she would also be leaving to open an area, with Sister de Oliveira. She was super excited!
Then it came to my turn.....I was positive I was staying, because who else would there be to take care of our area? The only question was who would be my companion. So of course I told Elder Borges to stop joking around when he wrote my area on the board.....Uruguaiana, a city that hasn´t had sisters for 2 years! But he really wasn´t kidding.....I´m really going!! To open the area again with Sister Cantuara (who I´ve never met). So.....none of this probably means as much to you guys as it does to us here, but it´s very crazy!! The whole time I´ve been here, it´s just been the same 5 cities that have sisters, and now all of a sudden 3 new ones, that ALL 4 of us in our apartment are going to open.
So that means....no one is staying to take care of our area! He´s handing it over to elders! Just when all the difficulties were starting to get better....but it´s good, it will revive the ward a lot. But.....I´m going to Uruguaiana!! Tomorrow! 6 hours away, waaay over on the boarder with Argentina! (I know, it sounds like it should be the border with Uruguay, which I thought for a long time, but nope, it´s on the River Uruguai, which is the border with Argentina). So I´ll get to practice my Spanish....Sister Cantuara and I will get to start from scratch.....I´m super excited!! :D
And in other amazing news, Sister Raphaela came last night! Her mission is officially over, but she´s staying 2 more weeks like I explained before. But, so for these last few transfers she´s been back in Cruz Alta! When she trained me it was in the 1st Ward, where she stayed for 7 months, then went off to a few more cities, then went back to the 3rd Ward to finish. So she spent more than half her mission there! But she brought news of everyone from the 1st ward......and they´re all doing so, so well!! EVERYONE that we worked with is still firm in the church. Jovana is loving being a Young Women´s counselor, and Marcos (less active) is going to church a little at a time. And remember Rosane, mom of Malika and Claudia, who I told you the crazy story about, how she told us she had been baptized as a teenager, but then on our last day told us she never really had been, she had just said it so we wouldn´t "try to baptize her"? But then she said she realized that a church that did the things she´d seen it do had to be true, and she even wanted to be baptized that weekend before we left?
Well, she was baptized shortly after we left, and Sister Raphaela said she´s a completely changed person now - she stopped smoking, separated from her boyfriend, she even changed her house to be cleaner and more open with a picture of everyone in the family´s baptism displayed on a table....she said it´s hard to describe, but you can even see a change in her appearance. I was SO SO happy to hear about her....and Cirlei´s marriage turned out alright (which we helped her start working on), she was baptized and had her baby.......Elenice also got married and was baptized, and now she and her two kids (who used to be less active) are all going every week! She even showed me a video of Giulia (Jovana´s daughter) and Carol (cousin) singing the young women´s song from this year, with Jovana standing in the background singing along.....and watching all three of them singing by heart, Marcos standing quietly as always, but then wrapping his arms tight around Jovana......I started to cry from the happiest feeling I´ve ever had in my life. All the memories of those people came flooding back, and I felt this incredible love for them, and this incredible happiness at how far they had all come. It´s impossible to describe, but I´ve never felt a feeling like that in my entire life.
It really is like Preach My Gospel says in the very front - "more happiness than you have ever experienced awaits you" on your mission. I´m so glad I get to have this opportunity. Thank you all so much for helping me get here and supporting me in this incredible experience. I love you all so much, and I hope I can convey to you a little of the joy I´m feeling - the joy that comes from the true gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that He is the only wait to gain such joy in this lifetime, and to gain eternal life in the world to come. I know He lives, and I know He loves us.
Have a great week! I´ll update you next week on the first week in Uruguaiana!!! :D
Love always,
Sister Madsen
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
This week in Ipiranga!
Hey guys!!
How is everyone? I loved the video you made for the president! Thanks so much, I´m sure they´ll really enjoy that. You guys all looked so spring-ish and cute, and Carrie is getting cuter every day!! It was so good to see you in video form:)
As for here, I can´t believe how time is flying. We´re already starting the last week of this transfer! In one week, Sister Raphaela officially ends her mission...but she´s coming to stay with us for two weeks! The president gave her permission to stay two extra weeks so she could be here for the "mission tour" he´s doing before he leaves and the goodbye fireside and stuff. So she´ll be staying in our house! It´ll be so great, we´ll be together for the start of my mission and the end of hers. So it feels like a lot of things are changing! New transfer in a week, and Pres. told S. Witmer she´s leaving, so new companion as well...he also said he´s taking out a companionship from the ward, so it will be just me and the new comp. Plus President leaving in a few weeks.....lots of changes coming up!! But I´m excited.
Things here are going well. Things in the ward are improving a little at a time. The ward has kind of a negative attitude about the missionaries - not sure where it comes from, but I kind of already explained it, right? Just kind of a gossipy situation. So we´ve been trying to work better with them, leaving notes at the bishop´s house every few days since we can´t get a hold of him, etc. At a family home evening on Tuesday, one of the more gossipy members who used to be ward mission leader sat down and just kind of told us everything we could do better, so we just listened to it all, agreed, and started putting it in practice the next day! We also visited his family and sang them a hymn. So yesterday, the bishop said how happy he was with our notes, that he told the President he was impressed, and that said member had spoken well of us. So things are getting better with the ward a little at a time - still a long way to go, but it seems to be looking up.
As for the investigators...we both found again and possibly lost again Tiago this week. After he said, "don´t call me, I´ll call you" we were kind of thinking he had already "cut" us...but we went back this week to see how he was. So we watched the Restoration video and he felt the Spirit really strong, saying "wow, I really lost the focus, huh? I was so focused on coffee, I forgot about all this...." So sounds great, right?? We were so excited to have him back. But then on Saturday, when we asked if he was coming to church the next day, he said, "I probably should be more sincere with you guys....I´ve really already made my decision, and my decision is to stay with Catholicism." It was so frustrating, because he´s never showed any interest in Catholicism - it´s just an excuse. So we tried to talk things over, but he just kept saying "I´ve already made up my mind." So we just said a prayer and left...but he said we were always welcome there. And then today we met his mom (who LOVES us) in the street, and she said Tiago had been really sad, thinking we wouldn´t come back, and that we were always welcome there......so I think we´ll continue to pass by, not focusing on him, but seeing if we can get him to feel the Spirit every time and finally remember the answer he got when he prayed.
We also found some really cool people - Antonio Carlos and Silvana especially. We met them walking in the street carrying a tiny little baby all wrapped up, and made an appointment to go by. So when we went by, we found out we met them coming home from the hospital! The baby, Leticia, was born on Monday. They have three other kids as well. They´re really great, super receptive, really liked the message of the Restoration. When we asked them to come to church, Silvana apologized and said she really couldn´t leave with the baby yet, but would really like to. But Antonio said, "No, but I´m going there!" in such a decisive way. So then when we went to pick him up on Sunday, Silvana came out and said, "He already left! He went early." So we got all excited and ran to the chapel to find him.....but he wasn´t there. So either he got lost....went to the Catholic church around the corner.....or he´d had to go work and she just thought he had gone to church! When we went by later he was at work, so who knows. But they´re an amazing family and I´m really excited to work with them.
Like I said, I can´t believe how everything´s flying, but also how much I´m learning. I´m so glad to be here, every minute of it, even the hard stuff. It´s such a life changing experience and I´m so glad I decided to do it:) I´m learning things that will positively influence the course of my eternity. Thank you all so much for supporting me in it! I love you all so much, and I want you all to know that I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Church is true - it´s all true, all of it. It´s the greatest happiness there could be in the world. I love you all, and have a great week!
Til next time,
Sister Madsen
How is everyone? I loved the video you made for the president! Thanks so much, I´m sure they´ll really enjoy that. You guys all looked so spring-ish and cute, and Carrie is getting cuter every day!! It was so good to see you in video form:)
As for here, I can´t believe how time is flying. We´re already starting the last week of this transfer! In one week, Sister Raphaela officially ends her mission...but she´s coming to stay with us for two weeks! The president gave her permission to stay two extra weeks so she could be here for the "mission tour" he´s doing before he leaves and the goodbye fireside and stuff. So she´ll be staying in our house! It´ll be so great, we´ll be together for the start of my mission and the end of hers. So it feels like a lot of things are changing! New transfer in a week, and Pres. told S. Witmer she´s leaving, so new companion as well...he also said he´s taking out a companionship from the ward, so it will be just me and the new comp. Plus President leaving in a few weeks.....lots of changes coming up!! But I´m excited.
Things here are going well. Things in the ward are improving a little at a time. The ward has kind of a negative attitude about the missionaries - not sure where it comes from, but I kind of already explained it, right? Just kind of a gossipy situation. So we´ve been trying to work better with them, leaving notes at the bishop´s house every few days since we can´t get a hold of him, etc. At a family home evening on Tuesday, one of the more gossipy members who used to be ward mission leader sat down and just kind of told us everything we could do better, so we just listened to it all, agreed, and started putting it in practice the next day! We also visited his family and sang them a hymn. So yesterday, the bishop said how happy he was with our notes, that he told the President he was impressed, and that said member had spoken well of us. So things are getting better with the ward a little at a time - still a long way to go, but it seems to be looking up.
As for the investigators...we both found again and possibly lost again Tiago this week. After he said, "don´t call me, I´ll call you" we were kind of thinking he had already "cut" us...but we went back this week to see how he was. So we watched the Restoration video and he felt the Spirit really strong, saying "wow, I really lost the focus, huh? I was so focused on coffee, I forgot about all this...." So sounds great, right?? We were so excited to have him back. But then on Saturday, when we asked if he was coming to church the next day, he said, "I probably should be more sincere with you guys....I´ve really already made my decision, and my decision is to stay with Catholicism." It was so frustrating, because he´s never showed any interest in Catholicism - it´s just an excuse. So we tried to talk things over, but he just kept saying "I´ve already made up my mind." So we just said a prayer and left...but he said we were always welcome there. And then today we met his mom (who LOVES us) in the street, and she said Tiago had been really sad, thinking we wouldn´t come back, and that we were always welcome there......so I think we´ll continue to pass by, not focusing on him, but seeing if we can get him to feel the Spirit every time and finally remember the answer he got when he prayed.
We also found some really cool people - Antonio Carlos and Silvana especially. We met them walking in the street carrying a tiny little baby all wrapped up, and made an appointment to go by. So when we went by, we found out we met them coming home from the hospital! The baby, Leticia, was born on Monday. They have three other kids as well. They´re really great, super receptive, really liked the message of the Restoration. When we asked them to come to church, Silvana apologized and said she really couldn´t leave with the baby yet, but would really like to. But Antonio said, "No, but I´m going there!" in such a decisive way. So then when we went to pick him up on Sunday, Silvana came out and said, "He already left! He went early." So we got all excited and ran to the chapel to find him.....but he wasn´t there. So either he got lost....went to the Catholic church around the corner.....or he´d had to go work and she just thought he had gone to church! When we went by later he was at work, so who knows. But they´re an amazing family and I´m really excited to work with them.
Like I said, I can´t believe how everything´s flying, but also how much I´m learning. I´m so glad to be here, every minute of it, even the hard stuff. It´s such a life changing experience and I´m so glad I decided to do it:) I´m learning things that will positively influence the course of my eternity. Thank you all so much for supporting me in it! I love you all so much, and I want you all to know that I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that the Church is true - it´s all true, all of it. It´s the greatest happiness there could be in the world. I love you all, and have a great week!
Til next time,
Sister Madsen
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