Email to Mom: Monday, October 18, 2021
From: Kaitlyn.garcia@missionary.org
To: Mom
Date: Monday, October 18, 2021
Subject: Livin on a Prayer
Halfway?? Halfway!! Halfway...
I
honestly can't believe that I'm halfway done with my mission. For
starters it doesn't even feel like I've been a missionary for 9 months! I
was thinking back to the CTM and just how fresh that all is, but at the
same time just how long ago it was. In 9 months babies are born! That's
a long time!! Haha! I can honestly say from the bottom of my heart that
I love every minute of being a missionary. All highs, all the lows, all
the language struggles, everything. Thete is nothing else that I would
rather be doing than serving my Savior. I have seen and experienced so
many things that I would have never even dreamed of if it weren't for my
mission. My testimony of my Savior has grown more than I ever even
imagined that it would. The gospel of Jesus Christ is truly a gospel of
happiness :) I could keep going, but I dont have all day and this would
be way to long haha!
This week was just too good!
Also! My eye is totally fine and I was able to buy some Saline drops and
use them when I need :) Anyways, this week we were able to get in
contact with so many people and saw some incredible miracles! On Tuesday
our friends, Julia and Daniel, started reading the Book of Mormon on
their own! They've been taught everything, but they can't get married
because Daniel doesn't have documents. Que triste! But we call them
everyday and read the Book of Mormon with them. When we called on
Tuesday, they said that they were reading on their own!! This week has
been super good for them too! They've been reading and when we call we
just do a brief overview and help them understand some of the more
complex things. We also got in contact with our friend Santana! She's a
super sweet little old lady, but she loves to talk haha! We were ready
with our lesson but when we got to her house she just wanted to talk to
us about life haha! When we went to start teaching she goes, "I don't
have a lot of time right now so can you come back next week?" Haha! She
talked tobus for 30 minutes and then didn't want to hear our message
haha! We're gonna try again next week :)
For my 9
months Sister Da Mata was so so sweet! She decorated my desk and left me
a cute little note while I was in the shower :) She even wrote
everything on little yellow sticky notes! We had so much to do, but it
was so sweet of her to take the time to do that for me :) Today we had
such an amazing miracle too!! Okay so we have almoço with all the Irmã's
right? Well we had lunch with Irmã Renata, the only problem is that she
doesn't have a phone and wr had no idea where she lived. Thankfully
Irmã Josefa was able to walk with us and help us find her house. I love
Irmã Renata! You would like her too, only because she literally fed me
an entire mountain of food haha! I wasnt even done with my first plate
and she piled more food on! Both Sister Da Mata and I looked at each
other and tried our best to down it all. It was seriously two FULL
plates of rice, two glasses of juice, and two slices of cake. I dont
think I've ever felt so full in my life haha! But that wasn't the
miracle;) While we were there she called for her neighbor to come up and
have lunch with us. Her name is Thais and shes our new friend! :) She
has two little kids that were playing with Irmã Renatas kids. We went in
with the Plan of Salvation and it was the coolest experience ever. She
was so receptive to what we had to say and Irmã Renata bore a super
powerful testimony of the gospel. Thais started to cry and then she
accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon. Irmã Renata was honestly just a
rockstar and wrote her testimony in it as well, we seriously couldn't
have done it without her. Thais doesn't have a phone either (lame!) So
we're thinking of going back next week and having a lesson with her :)
You'll
never guess what happened while we were waiting for DC this week! Long
story short, we were waiting on the sidewalk outside the fence to the
church because we couldn't go into the church okay? While we were
waiting for the rest of our district this woman passed by with a 23 day
old baby (what?!!) She does, "Do you guys have one of your books?"
Sister Da Mata and I were in shock. After we realized that she wanted a
Book of Mormon we gave her a copy and got her number. She said we could
call anytime and share a message and then she was gone. WHAT?! We both
thought that someone was pranking us haha! Seriously so so crazy. The
rest of the day was honestly just productive haha! We're trying to find
new people here through members and our paper area book too. It was a
long night but we have some solid names (at least we think haha!) that
we want to call and see how they are :)
This week I
also had to go back to Recife to go to the Ferdal Police Department.
Que chique! Not really haha! I had to go and get some documents taken
care of to say that I can live here and not get shipped back to the US
for the next 9 months. It was a long day in the Uber and the airport
haha! Carpina is about 2 hours away from Recife and we waited 2 hours
for all my paperwork. It was a busy day, but not missionary work related
busy ya know? By the time we got back it was go time because we had so
much to do haha! We got to read with Julia and Daniel today (woot woot!)
and we did a lot more work in our paper area book. Turns out that one
of the most progressing friends a while back is somehow connected to the
daughter of the Relief Society President and the Second Counselor in
the Bishopric. We still need to figure out how, but he's connected haha!
We also had the biggest blessing tonight! Irmão Amon came and fixed the
hot water in our shower!! That meant for the first time since being in
Brasil I took a hot shower and let me tell you, it was AMAZING! Haha!
Sunday
was kind of all over the place haha! We had 5 friends that said they
would come to church today! But infelizmente no one came :/ Literally
not one person. Whenever stuff like this happens I always wonder if I
did something wrong and the Lord is punishing me haha! I still have yet
to figure that out. After church we went straight to Irmão Cicero's
house for lunch. His wife is the the RS president too. I love them!
Lunch went wayyyyyyy longer than we expected because Irmão Cicero kept
talking about all the less active and even had a whole list for us to
take home. It was quite the lunch/meeting haha! But it was good :) When
we got back we just got straightinyo weekly planningand boy did we need
it. Our list of friends is getting smaller and smaller but it's good
because the people we have now genuinely have an interest in learning
about the gospel. When we wrapped up our weekly planning we had to leave
to go to a family night! We met up with Irmão Eric and his sweet family
to walk over to Irmã Pamela's. It went so good! It was a little odd,
but overall it was so good :) Irmã Renata and her family were there too
and we had such a good lesson. After of course Irmã Pamela had food for
us ;) I had my first ever cachorro quente!! It was pretty solid I wont
lie ;) Before we knew it we had to get going to make it home before
9:30pm. It was quite the night!
Now to answer some
of your questions haha! The heat at night feels like Hawaii, that's the
best I can compare it to. The fan really does help though, and cold
showers before bed depending on the day ;) I love Agatha haha! The
pictures this week made me laugh pretty good ;) The best part about the
denim jacket is that it used to be yours haha! I took it and now B is
wearing it. Also. THE BRAVES WON!!!! WOOT WOOT!!! :)
I can't wait to talk to you today! I love you to the moon and back! 
