2/24/14

Wow wow wow... what a week and a half! I was so sad when i heard i couldn't email home last Wednesday. Anyways this is how its been. the day before i left the ctm we had a all Portuguese orientation... the Americans didn't understand like any of it haha. we left the ctm at 630am the day after for the airport. left at 9, got to cuiaba at 10:30 cuiaba time. the flight was actually 2 hours because their is a time zone difference. We had orientation at the mission house in Cuiaba, and that night at 1030 i was on a bus towards Sinop. It was a 10 hour bus ride and the seats layed all the way back so i pretty much slept the whole time. I met my new companion for 12 weeks. His name is Elder M. Machado. He is from Esprito Santo, Victoria, Brazil. He knows English pretty well so he is able to help me a lot. 

So this week in Sinop... I absolutely love it here! The people are awesome. and oh my goodness, this place makes me humble myself. To me they pretty much have nothing, but they are all happy and love it here. No house has ac, other than the main roads here its all dirt roads. Lots and lots and lots of walking everyday. haha Oh and i forgot sunscreen so the 1st 2 days i just got fried. then we had lunch at the branch presidents house and he told us that we need to go get screen right away. so i got some. haha but it was R$39. which is like $18 American. Its crazy. We contact (knock on doors. well clap at gates. here they leave their door open but they have a gate so we just clap at the gate and they come out) for probably 3 hours a day. sometimes more. We have run into amazing people. We have one investigator that we met on Friday and he came to church yesterday. He is 18 so we can relate. My Portuguese is improving but right now its seriously so little haha but I'm trying not to get discouraged. Hopefully in these next couple weeks we will have a couple baptisms. here in Brazil they have to go to church twice before getting baptized so that's the hard part. but we have faith in our investigators!!  My companion is super funny and loves singing. Starting this week we are only going to talk in Portuguese so that'll force me to think in Portuguese all the time! 

I love it here and wouldn't rather be anywhere else!! I think about home when i pray, but I'm so glad I'm here!! Everyone should read Alma 33:4-11 this week. It talks Zenos talks about prayer and that God always does hear your prayers. I know God hears our prayers, that's why I'm here on a mission!! I love the scriptures, i love Brazil, i love the people of Brazil, i love my companion, i love my mission, i love y'all, and i love my mom!! I'll talk to you next week and tell y'all how I'm doing. Thanks for all the love and support!! Everyone have a good week and pray everyday, morning and night!! Tchau!

Love you mom!!

Com Amor,

Elder Marstella 

2/12/14

Oi familia e amigos!! Tudo bom? This week had its ups and downs, but I love it here!! So just so everyone knows, I will be flying to Cuiaba this Tuesday morning!! It's crazy how fast time has gone being here. I'm so excited to go out into the field and help real people!! I love this gospel so much!!!

 

We will do the downs first. Last week one of the sisters stole an elders water bottle as a joke after lunch and he couldnt find it. He got super mad and talked to all security and stuff like that. So when we saw him get mad we put it back when he was out of the room and then the security of the President of the CTM came and talked to us about not playing pranks. Ohh and the elder that got mad is always playing jokes and then the  one time we do that to him he freaks out. We were just like, seriously?? but that's past us now haha. And then a couple nights ago one of the elders in my district punched another elder in my district. I talked to both of them and told the zone leader and the President of the branch. but other than those 2 incidents, this week was all good!! haha

 

My district volunteered to sing a song for the devotional last Sunday, so last week we practiced a couple times then we performed it!! There was 3 elders and 4 sisters. We sang the song ``He sent his Son´´. its in the childrens hymn book. We sang it in Portuguese, and then we sang it in english. I think we did really well!! The devotional on Sunday was by President and Sister Swensen. They are both amazing people! But I forgot what they spoke about and i dont have my journal with me. haha

 

Then we had a devotional last night. Elder and Sister Jafek spoke. They are the ´´medical team´´. Elder Jafek is the CTM doctor and Sister Jafek is always helping haha. They are adorable. They talked about forgiving others and when we dont forgive we dont have the full love of christ. They both had really good talks!

 

This week in our district we are starting to do spotlights since its our last full week here. Each night, a member bares their testimony and we all go around and say something that we like about them. And we all write letters too. Ahhh I love my district!!

 

Next week I'll be writing from Cuiaba!! Thats so exciting!! so every time I email I forget what happened that week. so I don't write all the things that happened. but I do write in my journal everynight so in 2 years y'all can know everything haha. Well time is almost up. I Love y'all!!! See ya next week!!

 

Love you mom.

 

Com Amor,

Elder Marstella

2/5/14

Oi amigos e familias!!! Como vocês estaõ?? This week has been pretty good!! The highlight of this week was when my 8 person American district went proselyting  for the first time. We each had 3 Book of Mormons to hand out. Our instructor took us to a park in São Paulo and just told us to start!! I was nervous but I wasn't really scared. Me and my companion handed out 3 really fast then we found a guy who spoke English and was trying to Bible bash us for like 30 minutes. We kept saying we needed to go but he kept saying read this verse real quick. Anyways haha we ended up giving 1 away on the way back to the bus and then we gave away 2 on the bus! It was really cool and people could tell that spirit was so strong even with our broken caveman Portuguese. I cant wait til i can do that everyday!!

 

So I heard about the Super Bowl... I wanted the Broncos to win but it just fell apart. haha its funny when you're a missionary and none of that stuff really matters to you. Next year will be the Cowboys year for sure!! Somebody let me know how the mavs are doing though! On Sunday we had a devotional from some guy with a weird last name so I'm not sure who it was. haha but his talk was about faith. faith faith faith. I love talking about faith, that's why I'm here. Faith brings the power that we need to have as missionaries. Then he said to end his talk, ´´dont let anyone lessen your faith.´´ I loved his talk a lot!!

 

Then we had another devotional last night. When it was suppose to start, President Swensen came to the pulpit and said the taxi driver forgot to pick up the area 70 elder from the airport. We all just laughed. We sang hymns until he arrived so that was kinda nice to just relax. Then he arrived and started talking right away. His talk was about Don´t be afraid. Just BELIEVE.   I loved his talk a lot. his last name was difficult to understand as well so i didn't get it either, but he is an area 70. One thing that stood out to me in his talk was no matter how hard you are struggling with the language, everyone understands a smile. I was like that's just for me!! I love to smile and I'm not that good at Portuguese yet!! It was an awesome talk.

 

My district is awesome. I love my district so much. Each one of them is amazing. We still got a lot of work to do towards Portuguese, but learning Portuguese with people you love much more enjoyable. We get along too well... haha we get distracted really easily but we can work on that.

 

Ohhh this week in our district we had a testimony meeting. It was one of the strongest feelings of the spirit I've ever felt. I talked about Grandpa and his amazing example to me and i shared his favorite scripture in proverbs. Trust the Lord with all thine Heart, lean not unto your own understanding.

 

Well i love you all so much!! I love you MOM!! Ill talk to y'all next week!!  Boa sorte essa semana.

 

Com Amor,

 

Elder Marstella