Monday, February 14, 2011

Jau

I absolutely love Sister Forsyth! She´s from Utah and is engaged to get married in December. She pretty much rocks. We´ve been working hard and I´ve been showing her the area. We´ve seem to hit a dry streak right now. The people we're teaching don´t want to come to church or to keep commitments, but we keep working and hopefully soon the Lord will show us miracles.

So, something really embarrassing happened on Sunday. Most of our ward members live in another city and so they usually give us money for lunch rather than host us in their homes. In every other city, the members give 20 Reais, which is enough to either go to a restaurant or buy food to cook. Here we get 10 Reais and we only get to eat at members' houses 2 times a week. Just to let you know, it´s an unspoken rule to NEVER complain about lunch to ANYONE. It is better to starve than to offend the members, who are pretty poor. But- our zone leader found out and complained to the branch president, who then reprimanded the women in the ward for not taking care of us. It was really embarrassing. I was apologizing to the women and telling them that we were grateful.

I´ve been studying a ton about repentance and about the sacrament. I´ve been reading about sacrifices and how the Lord expects us to do our part. We´re asked to take a broken heart and a contrite spirit to truly be humble and willing to accept the will of God in our lives. We keep teaching about the simple steps- prayer, reading the scriptures, going to church. It is through these simple things that we learn what the Lord expects of us. Then when we know what it is He wants, we need to do it, even if it isn´t our own will and/or desire. The sacrament is a way to remember those covenants, the promises that we made to always remember our God and our Savior Jesus Christ.

I have a ton of stuff that I need to do, alot of things to do better, and there is no redo. It´s like the Lion King says, "you can take it and learn from it". This whirlwind of an adventure in Brasil has shown me who I want to be. I don´t want to go back to being Pre-Mission Shannon. I want to be the missionary Shannon, the one who's put the Savior Jesus Christ first in my heart. I know that He will stay there. I´ve changed and I´m still changing. I´m getting my life together, applying the attributes of Christ in my life and just trying to be better. Eu quero ser como Cristo...I´m trying to be like Jesus, what a wonderful song.

So, yeah, that´s me. It´s my thought process right now. I got a ton of work to do, but this is something right...this is my Father´s work. I get to be a part of that, how wonderful is that?! So yeah, I love you guys. You´re all in my prayers. To my sisters, keep being wonderful. One more thing, as I have been dealing with many elders and sisters, the topics of families always comes up. I'm proud to say that I am the only one who is not worried sick about my two teenage sisters. Megan and Erynn, thanks for not doing anything stupid. It's nice to not have to worry. Love you all and have a great week!

Sister Stapley

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