Email Home: Monday, December 20, 2021

From: Kaitlyn.garcia@missionary.org
Date: Monday, December 20, 2021
Subject: Hey hey hey!

Hey hey hey! 

So I know I have pday on Wednesday but I had to send you my week ;) don't worry though, I scheduled this to send so I didnt really send it on Monday so everything's tudo okay;) The new normal is slowly coming, I still don't love speaking in English haha! But my patience has been tested more than ever and I just hope that it's coming across in a loving way. We did get to talk to Mayara and she said that she just wants to know the church a little bit more and not just over a zoom link. Totally understandable but still tricky because she can't come to church until after the new year. Also! I can't believe that B had braces for 31 months! They seriously look so so good, she sent me a picture;) Sister Parrish! I seriously love her so so much! I need you to shoot me her address on Messenger! I learned that I can they to send letters this week haha! So I'm gonna they and send one to her if I can find some stamps :) She's one of my most favorite people I've met because of the mission :) 

Monday! Monday went by so quick and was kind of a mess too haha! We got up and got into our planning and 12 semanas. Sister Bradbeer is locked out of her church account and Facebook account so that meant she got to use mine for this week while we tried to get that all resolved on pday. Also, sorry that I was a total baby haha! I just have a lot on my plate and because cute Sister Bradbeer doesn't know the language, it was just a lot on my mind and on my shoulders. With that being said we also had to do Weekly Planning Monday night. Sunday was a lot of meetings and we didnt have time to plan so Monday night it was. I felt bad because it went longer than I anticipated but Sister Bradbeer was a champ and was able to keep up. I also have spoken in more English the past few days than I have in the past 2 months of being here haha! I don't miss speaking in English at all honestly, I love portugues;) 

Tuesday was the day of all days haha! Lately we've been getting a lot of rain and have had quite a bit of cloud cover so kind of a nice break. But would you believe me if I said that I got cold at night? I think my body is adjusting just fine to the heat haha! Anyways, we were doing our studies and we heard this massive rain storm roll in. We kept studying and then do nada I was like 'I think I hear something' so I walked in the kitchen and our entire ceiling had water coming from it. I took a shower the second I walked into our kitchen. It was so bad haha! Not only that but we don't have anywhere to push water so we had to get buckets and I started to pray the rain would stop. After it stopped we spent the next 3 hours drying the floors and talking to the office Elder to try and get everything fixed. Let's just say that I took two showers on Tuesday haha! It was quite the adventure though and a good story to tell now ;)  After we got everything all dried up we were nervous to leave the apartment because it looked like it was still going to rain some more. I just kept praying that it would stop and go away haha! We also had interviews with President today! I seriously love President Nordfelt so much and he had a lot of good advice for me. I expressed a few of my feelings and just everything that's been on my mind recently. He was super sweet and gave me a lot of really good advice and made me feel a lot better. I still don't know about this whole training situation but after talking to him I felt better. I've also been studying Christ's life in my personal studies and it was cool to connect what I've been studying with what he was telling me. We had some good lessons though so that was a total win! Teaching has been really different but I'm trying to let Sister Bradbeer talk in our lessons too. I'm glad shes talking but it's also hard because people don't understand her quite yet. We're gonna get there though ;) Let's just say that lessons are really a test of my language and teaching skills haha! I also realized how much I truly love the portugues language because speaking in English is so hard. So hard! My love for the language has definitely grown the past two months being in Brasil :) 

On Wednesday we had money for lunch so I took Sistet Bradbeer to get her first coxhina! She liked it so that was a huge relief haha! We also stopped and got some supplies for our big activity we're having on Friday.  Basically our Elders Quorum president wants to put together this big activity in the Praça to find people here in Carpina. Because our area is so big we have a lot of friends but they live outside we took some of our lunch to buy some things. That meant that when we got back I got my crafts going haha! I'm hopeful that this activity will be good and everything that Irmão Eric is hoping for. I love him but he's very hard headed so I just kinda go with it. I'm hopeful :) We've been teaching so much too! This is good and bad because Sister Bradbeer is getting practice and getting more comfortable but it's also taking longer because of the language. It's good though because I've been able to watch her get more comfortable with the lessons. I remember being fresh out of the CTM too and not knowing anything so I'm trying to teach our friends and her at the same time. My biggest goal is to just help her feel more comfortable and speak the language. It's a little hard to get her to speak though because she doesn't understand but she also just goes back to her comfort zone of English so we get to work on that :) 

On Thursday we had virtual Mission Conference! I lowkey love that we do a virtual and an in person one :) It's double the learning! I was a little nervous that I'd have to translate a lot of it for Sister Bradbeer but she was trying and I only did when she asked. It was kinda hard though because in one ear she was talking (English) and the other was someone from the mission so Portugues. My brain has seriously never worked so hard in my whole life haha! Sister Bradbeer kinda reminds me of an Elder that was in my CTM group as far as the language goes. It's not a bad thing she just needs to get out of her comfort zone a little bit is all. After our Mission  Conference we had to go get some money from one of our Irmãs for lunch from a few days ago. We ended up staying and chatting with her, as always haha! But it was good and she actually said that she had been wondering if we were going to stop by and when we did it was just the moment that she needed us. I could also feel the sun beating down on me as we walked and Sister Bradbeer got her first chaco tan lines on her feet too haha! She's gonna have some killer tan lines because she'll have her whole mission here. We also ended up finding a box for our activity on Friday. Miracles are real that's all I have to say haha! We finished up the night by making a sign for our activity and a few lessons. It's been interesting to see how Sister Bradbeer teaches and how her brain works as far as the lessons go. She did get discouraged when we were teaching though. She doesn't know all the points in the lessons yet and she was getting frustrated that she didnt know where to take the lesson. We have to do 12 semanas for training here so we've been going over them but she's like me and wants to be good at it right now. I had to have a little chat and help her realize that she's doing okay. I really do feel like a mom haha! 

Man where to even start with Friday!! So many fun things and so many miracles! So for starters we went to Recife for a follow up meeting for new missionaries. We were there super early though because Irmão Amon is just a legend and got us there early haha! We got to hangout in the escritorio and it was kinda funny to watch all the Elders try to figure out how to talk to us haha! They're all super cool though they just clearly don't talk to Sisters too often. We also had lunch while we waited for everything to start. I had Subway in Brasil haha! It's totally different but I don't know if I like it here more or in the States. To be decided later haha! We then got straight into everything. They basically just went over all the rules of the mission and all the office Elder talked about their roles and what they do so that all the new missionaries know who to contact if they need anything. President Nordfelt also shared some really powerful words as always :) I don't know how but he always has something that just hits me where I need it and makes me feel the Spirit so strong. We actually had to leave early from it because of this big activity na praça. We left the escritorio with two boxes of Livro de Mormons and a lot of pamphlets. Oh and I had packages too so it was just a total mess to get in the car haha! But thank you thank you :) I put a video in the drive for you! We were a little later than scheduled because of traffic but we made it back and ended up getting to the praça right on time. I don't even have words for how amazing it was! I know I kind had a little bit of a sore attitude about this whole thing but I think it's just because I was very overwhelmed with the execution of everything. It was seriously so so amazing! We spent the whole night basically talking about the Book of Mormon and giving them out to people and getting numbers. We went through two boxes of Livro De Mormons! It was so so good:) We helped get everything all cleaned up and then came back to the apartment. I seriously didnt have a voice because of how much I talked Haha! Totally worth it though :) 

Saturday wasn't anything too crazy honestly haha! We got our studies done a little bit early and it gave us time to practice with some role plays a little bit more. Role plays were not a thing in my training at all so using 12 semananas had been a huge help. We had lunch with Irmã Roberta too! I always love lunch with her because she talks about her mission and just everything she learned. Not only that but this time Irmão Fabricio (her husband) also talked to us about his mission. They shared a little bit about their American companions they had too and it was kind of entertaining to hear them try to say American last names haha! Lunch was super yummy though as always but Sister Bradbeer learned very quick that we eat a ton here and you can't just put a little bit of food, if you do Irmã Roberta will just put more food on your plate. Let's just say that Sister Bradbeer learned why we exercise every morning haha! We spend most of the day trying to organize everything from our activity on Friday. We ended up with 46 phone numbers to contact! We started to contact them but then it got to the point that WhatsApp started to stop working because there were so many people. We took a break for a minute and then got back into it but this time we started to send messages to invite people to church. We literally sent so so many messages so I'm hopeful that at least one person will come :) 

I seriously love Sundays as a missionary! I have some things that I've learned on the mission that I really want to keep up when I get home for as long as I can. At home I didnt love sacrament meeting but now it's one of my more favorite things :) Today was a little sad though because we didnt have anyone at church:/ We literally probably invited the entire city of Carpina, at least that's what it felt like haha! But we still didnt have anyone come to church. I'm just gonna keep hoping and praying for a miracle that someone will come to  church. At church today though I noticed that Irmã Renata was a little off so after sacrament was over to talk to her and she just started to bawl her eyes out. I seriously felt so bad and it broke my heart after she explained everything. Life isn't the best for her right now and shes been holding it in all week so when I asked she just broke down and told me everything. Leave it to me to make a member cry! We got her all taken care of and went to class. After church we had a quick conselho and then headed to Irmão Eric's house for lunch. When we got there we ended up helping Irmã Aliana with some dishes because their water bomba broke and we needed to wash the dishes in a giant tub thing. But the time came and we had such a yummy lunch:) We even got to walk with Irmã Aliana because she had a meeting at the church. That woman is a total trooper and she's one of my favorites:) The rest of the night we just weekly planned and tried to make heads and tails of this week haha! We have so much going on it's not even funny! We have an exchange today (Monday), a mission conference on Tuesday, we're headed to the temple on Wednesday, and then on Saturday we have a special pday for Christmas. It's such a busy week haha! Anyways, that was pretty much my week! :) Interviews really helped and I feel better about everything too. It's still hard but I'm just taking it one day at a time and making the most of every day. Being a missionary is a one time thing and I'm not going to waste a second of it. I can't wait to talk to you guys on Wednesday! I love you to the moon and back!