Sponges

Whaaa???

So, I was transfered! And didn´t even see it coming.. So I didn´t get the chance to say bye to everyone, but it´s okay because I am close! :) I am literally 5 minutes away from Derosso. I think the Lord just loves having me in the city. Because I´ve spent the half of my mission serving in cities that are right next to eachother. Hahah guess it will be easy to visit when I get back!;) But right now i am in Ala 5! And It´s awesome! :) The members here are so awesome and so involved with missionary work. We can do so much here! We have so many ideas to help this ward and i´m so excited to put them all into action :) We´ve visted a few this week and I just can´t wait to see what will happen! :) AND i´m with an awesome companion--Sister H! She´s got 3 months on the mission, and I am so stinking excited to work with her. She´s got fire inher bones and is so excited about everything. I loveit :) We´re excited to work together and conquer the world! ;)

Stuff about the week

So, I kinda celebrated the 4th of July! That day was a game day, so we stayed inside and all 4 of us wore red white and blue. AND there were fireworks after the game, so we´d sing the national anthem as they were going off :) So fun. And we ate. That is celebrating, right? :)

I just love visiting and working and encouraging the members. I´m sure I´m going to love it here. The members here are so wonderful that we don´t have to teach our recent converts, because the members take them under their wing :) <3 I love them. They are great :)

A little 5 year old boy gave me a flower this week. It was a dandelion. Do you think there´s hope? ;)

I´m gonna gush about the members because they did a thing that was really cool. So each week they have a pass-along card. So each week, one person from the relief society has a card. And if you have a card, you have to share the gospel with someone and then share your experience with the Relief society. Aren´t they perfect? <3 It´s like I´m proud of some children or something haha.

I just need to talk about D. She is an older lady that is a widow, but she is the cutest thing. She dresses hip and she´s always smiling and she´s just wonderful. She´s the greeter for our ward and she´s perfect for that. But she talks like crazy, and I can´t help but smile when I talk to her because she is so cute :) I´ll take a picture one day :)

People

A. He´s a boyfriend of a girl in our ward so he was taught about 2 times before I came, and looked like he wasn´t even interested. But something changed this week and he already has a date for this Saturday! :) This is where I say that the Bishop is awesome. He helped in everything. He invited him to his house to be taught and bore his testimony like no other! He really made a difference. But A is awesome. The first lesson it looked like he was just there because his girlfriend was there, but we´ve been asking him to read every day and look for the difference. And Sunday, we decided that we´d all pray together to see if what we were teaching was all true. It was such a heartfelt prayer. It melted my heart. And after we just silently left and left him to think about what he was feeling  and decide for himself what it was after we taught him how to recognize the spirit. And here we are now, with everything marked Saturday. I love how the spirit touches people´s lives :)

S. We had a miracle with S this week. So apparently this whole transfer, she never let the missionaries in, but this week she let me and sister H in! It was a miracle! Me and Sister H looked at each other like ´´what???´´ But she is doing great! She is a MA and she is starting to go back to church! AND GET THIS. Remember the MA from Gralha Azul-- S? Well turns out S is her mom, and that both of them are going to church now! :) It made me smile so big

G e Tiago. So here we are at the first day of sunday, yeah, and of course I didn´t have my plaqueta because i lost it right before so yup. first sunday and I didn´t have a plaqueta.. how embarrassing ;)  and these two teenagers walk in. One has a ring in his nose, the other one has dreads and more piercings. We had never seen them before and we invited them to sit with us. And we were singing together with them, and I saw G cry when we were singing the hymn. It truly was a miracle. He´s been inactive for about 4 years and I don´t know why he decided to come back or why he walked in, but it was really amazing and seriously touched my heart <3 It just shows you how different everyone is and how precious the gosple is <3

Funny moments

So my ocd kicked in again. And I went all crazy on organizing our area. We separated every street and put an area with every color and just killed it with ocd so that we can bat portas, work with members, find Menos ativos, and atualizar our list of membros at the same time. I hope that I stay here for a long time because I´m stinking proud of my ocd ness ;) But. We made the list and it was beautiful. Until I was standing under a tree and a bird pooped on it. So that was hilarious after it happened ;)

So our house is near an elderly home and we were walking by it one day. But we passed by and there was an old man and two teenager boys smoking cigarrettes. But this man out of no where comes, points to the boy, has this face of a lot of concern then points to the cigarrette, takes it out of the hand of the teenager and carries it to the trash. So hilarious. The teenage boys were so confused, but in my head I was saying ´´you go old man´´ SO FUNNY.

Alright. So we´re walking on the road, and all the sudden this little boy yells out ´´Hey! That dog took my bucket!´´ And we see the dog taking the bucket to his little dog pals that are all together in 3. And well, we´re sitting here like ´´what do we do now.....´´ So we tried to go and get the bucket for the boy. We turned the corner and there the dog was, peeing on it. This is important to remember. So I tried to sneak up on them and grab the bucket, but when I did, the dog started walking near me, so I freaked out like a little girl and dropped it. So we yelled at some random guy to get the bucket for us and he came over and grabbed it and then I took it, hid it under my jacket, and ran over to the other side of the road so the dogs wouldn´t see me, then we ran to the little kid and traded the bucket for some pass along cards. And yes. That was when it sunk in to me that the dog peed on it and I put it under my jacket. Probably was the highlight of my day.  Oh the sacrifices that you make for contacts... ;) 

Sponges

I was thinking a lot about sponges this week. And by this week, I mean last night when I was desperately trying to figure out what to write about. These are getting so ridiculous. BUT I will not give up! :) Anyways. I was thinking about sponges because one. We actually clean pretty good here. I´m talking fridge, floors, everything. I feel like your ocd comes out a lot on a mission. And our casas are proof. And also. Second. I was thinking a lot about charity. I think a lot of the times in our lives, we compare ourselves to others. The miracles. The things they have. Who they are. What they look like. But that just doesn´t work. You can´t sufficiently clean a counter top when the sponge is full of water. First you got to wring that baby out and then start using it to clean and collect all the wonderful particles of dirt. It´s pretty much the need to have to clean...sidenote: It´s actually pretty funny that I figured this out because I think I learnedhow to clean with a sponge on a mission. We just always used towels and scrubber things... Anyways. How are we supposed to do what we are designed to do when we are absorbed (yes, that was a play on words ;) ) in ourselves? I love charity and I love serving. And a clean kitchen is a happy kitchen.

I´m so happy that I have the opportunity to serve here and furnish my self so that I can act as the saviorwould. I love the fact that I get to represent His name, share His gosple, and try to act, do, and say, all that he himself would say. I love the Gospel and I am grateful for our Saviour who was the most charitible of all, giving every single drop that he had in himself and then pleading to the Father to forgive everything that was done to Him. That is charity. And that is what makes me want to be better everyday. Love the Lord and Love your life! :) Love you guys! :)