Email Home: Tuesday, April 26, 2022

From: Kaitlyn.garcia@missionary.org
Date: Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Subject: An extra day and tender mercies

Hey hey hey! Man am I glad it's pday! We have the temple early this morning and after we have a few errands to run and then I'll I'll able to really sit down and chat :) I love you! 

Monday was kind of a ehhhh day I can't lie, thanks for chatting with me about everything too:) I just have a lot going on buttttt I've decided to just let it all go and I'm gonna focus on the things I can control. We had a few things to do but we got it all taken care of before 12pm so I was feeling pretty good. We then played a huge waiting game for someone to show up to fix our bathroom again haha! But the power of prayer is real and our bathroom was able to be fixed! Irmão Amon is a literal legend and man am I glad to not have to worry about a bucket of water anymore haha! I was actually a little more productive for pday as far as emails and messages go too but pday went by so quick! We got on for our reunião de oração before I knew it! Not only that but we were the only ones in there for a minute so we got to talk to President and Sister Nordfelt for a minute, I love them! Our night was full of contacts to confirm some stuff as well as change lunches around for next week. We had some money left over from lunch too so we decided to order some food for dinner and we had the most bomb salad! It had shrimp and everything! I've never been so happy for a salad in my whole life! It was so good too, I even got a picture, that's how happy I was :) It was a good day all in all! I hope you know just how grateful I am for you guys and how much I love you :) 

Tuesday we had MLC! Normally we have it at President Nordfelt's house but there is a big group now because we have some trios so we ended up at the mission office. I always love MLC, I learn so much and it's good to see everyone too :) It was a lot of information but we did decide on our training for the coming Zone Conference so that's already decided, we just need to plan what and how we want to do it. We also talked about how we can use the baptismal calendar more, I'll have to show you that. We also had the departing missionaries bear their testimonies as always and let me tell you, I've never been so proud of Sister Scioli! She's been practicing for weeks and she bore part of her testimony in English! I seriously had tears in my eyes! Of course some of it was the Spirit but some of it was that I was just so dang proud of her :) I also got to see Sister Da Mata woot woot! I love her! As we were getting ready to leave Elder Mata told me that I had a package... I was not ready for it haha! It was a package from you guys! I now have 2 GIANT things of Peanut Butter, a GIANT thing of Nutella, Dried Mangos from Costco, Beef Jerky, Ranch Dressing (which Sister Scioli loves haha!), and some goodies. I seriously can't thank you enough, you're the best and I love love love you! 

Wednesday was Christian's birthday! Holy cow is time flying by! I didn't get to call him because of the time difference but I was able to send him a message and wish him a happy birthday. We also had call ins with some of our Sisters and man are they work. They both are just dead and don't want to be here at all and it's so hard for me to not say anything I could regret. It'll all workout though, I have faith :) We also had call ins with our DL and he's from Riverton and he told me about a super cool job that his sister told him about. There's a portuguese immersion school that's looking for people to help and work there. I still wanna do medical stuff but it might be kinda rad ;) Wednesday was kinda a bleh day just because everything fell through but man did we try! All of our street contacts were no's and our lesson with Carlos fell through. We stopped by Sergio's house too and it was a disaster. Sergio and Analice stayed in their rooms and Ana Paula was busy on her phone, the only one that paid attention was 10 year old Anderson. It was a long night and I felt a little discouraged but it was just one day too. It always gets better right? :) 

Thursday was some holiday that both Sister Scioli and I are still confused about haha! But that meant that everything was closed and no one really answered us but I'll get to that in a minute ;) We had DC with the Zone Leaders on Thursday and it was confirmed that I guys from Utah are the worst. Maybe not the worst but my ZL is just one of those football players that thinks he's untouchable and has a big head. One of the Zone Leaders is from Utah and one of the Elders in my district is too, both of them in the same room was a lot. They literally said 'Gucci Gang'... it was a lot and took everything in me to not say anything. Not only that but they just wanted to speak in English, I don't know but I have such a hard time when people speak English. I know Sister Scioli doesn't understand it so she feels left out but still I have such a hard time. After our DC we came back to the apartment and had a technology meeting. We were there taking our notes and do nada we got a knock on our door. The 2 goons that always break our apartment were standing there and said they were ready to fix our light that burnt out. It was a mess and they told us that they couldn't fix it because of the holiday but that they would be back. We ended up missing some of the technology meeting but I guess our lights getting fixed so it is what it is. After they left and the meeting wrapped up we got going on our referencias. There were a handful but we needed to really clean up our Livro de area so we started calling people. I think in the end we called like 46 people or something, but because of the holiday no one really answered us. Que triste! But it was a productive night and it was a good night :)

Friday had an interesting start haha! We were in the middle of our personal study when we got a knock in our door and it was Elder Ritta and Elder Santos. They told us they were waiting for the 2 goons to show up again but in the meant time they did an apartment check. The 2 goons eventually showed up and got everything fixed but our studies got thrown out the window :/ We saw them off and continued with our day. We went to lunch at Subway and while we ate Sister Scioli tried to explain so whack tv show she watched as a kid, it's kinda scary haha! Friday was my redemption day too! I was determined to have a good day of street contacting and we did just that! Half of the people we found aren't in our area (it always happens!) BUT some were! We spent the day street contacting and then made our way to Carlos house. He was a bust again :/ it's hard because it's Sister Canha's family so we wanna try everything before we stop teaching him. We tried for a solid 20 minutes and nada coisa.  We then walked to the opposite side of our area to stop by Sergio's house but when we got there only the kids were there. We told them we would mark another day and got going. We realized that our phone only had 12% so we decided to go back to the apartment to charge it real quick and make a few phone call lessons happen. We called our homie Clebson and man, he might just be the miracle I've been praying for! He wants to come to church and he seems to really have a desire to learn more AND he lives in our area woot woot! We had a good lesson about the Sabbath and he committed to come :) We had a lesson planned with Sandra but just as we were getting ready to go she canceled :/ We made some more calls and sent off the people we found on the rua and called it a day! Even with lessons that fell through it was such a good day and definitely a redemption day ;)

Saturday was a full day too! This week was just full of things everyday. We were on the social media project but we had a few things for our area so we got those taken care of first. We started the day off with a lesson at 10am with a little old lady that we've been trying to mark with forever! Her name is Joana and man is she funny haha! She loves to talk and she actually has a good amount of interest! We talked to her a little bit about the Book of Mormon and answered a few of her questions. We had a good chat with her but nothing too wild. The thing that was really wild is that at by 11am I had already eaten a GIANT slice of birthday cake. Both Sister Scioli and I were not the biggest fans haha! We wrapped up at her house and made our way to the other end of our area for lunch with Irmã Alba. Well this is when things got real interesting... the cake at 11am was not my friend and my stomach was not liking it. We ended up stopping at Subway because it's on the way and I almost threw up in the Subway bathroom, love that. But thankfully I was able to get everything under control and we made it to Irmã Alba's in one piece and on time. Oh, I also saw her cousins chest, this is a normal thing now I guess... While we were at lunch her daughter, Emily, told us that she had invited Analice to the young women activity. The only catch was that we needed to take her to Ninas house because she can't walk alone. We went to the other end of area to get her and then went back to the opposite end to drop her off with the young women. We got her all dropped off and then headed to the apartment to get going on our referencias because at that point we were very behind. When we got back we realized we didn't have any kind of WiFi so what did we do? We went to the capela to use the WiFi but Sister Scioli hates the capela. It's already been robbed twice since I've been here but it's also on a super dark street and she doesn't like it. We didn't stay for too long but we were able to contact people and wrap up our night. We got back just in time to have a video call with President Nordfelt and the ZL'S and STL'S. We get to give another training this coming week for DC so that should be fun :) Man was I beat at the end of the day though, whatta day! 

Sunday was another rollercoaster haha! We didn't have anyone at church, well we did but it was Flavia and her family so it doesn't really count :/ Sergio and his family flaked on us again. Ughhhh! We did have lunch with the Pino family though! I love love love them! Vivi always goes all put and shes just the best. We also decided that Elder Evans is seriously trunky too haha! He was singing all the music that Vivi had playing, but it took everything in me to not sing too haha! We had a good lunch though and were able to make it back in time for our weekly planning. Just as we walked in the door through we got a message from one of our Irmã's asking if we could go get our lunch money because she won't be home. We turned around and made our way to get that all taken care of. We finally got into our weekly planning and we made some solid plans for our friends. I'm excited for this week to see how it'll all go:) Just as we were getting ready to say a closing prayer we got a message from Analice saying that she doesn't want anything to do with the church. Você está brindando.... We said a prayer, tried to process it, and then got into our video call with our MLA. We spent the rest of the night trying to talk to Analice but she wanted nothing to do with us. Ughhhh! It was quite the night to say the least and just all over the place. 

Monday would normally be pday and I think my brain was ready but after a few minutes it all shifted haha! It was funny to watch everything come in though and know that I would respond later haha! Monday was pretty lowkey for two reasons 1) it was Sister Scioli's sisters birthday so we made some time for her to call and 2) everything here is closed on Mondays too. We had a full day of street contacting planned but we were responding to one last message and our phone literally stopped working. It wouldn't turn on or anything. Normally it wouldn't be a big deal but we were in the middle of resolving something with the AP's and DL sooooo we kinda needed to figure it out. So let's just say that our plans went out the window to try and figure out what the heck. Not only that but we planned to go over to a members house and we had no way to tell her we would be a little later. We decided to leave anyways and just hope for the best. Just as we were walking out the door the phone turned back on as if nothing happened. Phew! We were able to finish what we needed and make it to our members house. We ended up at the Relief Society President's house and did what we needed there. We then booked it back to our apartment so that Sister Scioli could say the prayer for our weekly prayer we do in Monday nights. The only thing is that the zoom called fell as soon as she started praying. I felt so bad! We made a fee calls but nothing too crazy. We got ready to go see Sandra but just as we unlocked the door she called us and canceled, again. This week everything just fell through honestly. We remarked for another day and decided to contact more people. It was a pretty low key kinda day and still weird to not have pday haha! But I seriously can not wait to get to talk to you! I love you to the moon and back!