This week was...slow

Where to go?

Well.

Rough.

Missionary work is hard.

I think regardless of where you are as a missionary, the work presents unique and difficult challenges. Unfortunately, a lot of the time here, the challenges circulate around many factors that are out of your control--like how people are just flat out rude to missionaries. It's hard not to take things personally, and I don't really have any advice, because I am in the midst of these challenges right now, and am struggling to maintain hope and positivity. 

Rio de Janeiro - Christ Redeemer Statue

Pray for Patience

But on the bright side,  I can't believe that the visa situation is going to be over so soon! (we received notice that both Colvin missionary visas are complete - we are anticipating departure for Brazil in the next few weeks.) I am sure there have been countless miracles and hard work behind the scenes. Thank you so much everyone who helped this to happen! I long to be in Brazil...I know I'm here to learn something, but sometimes I just really really want to utilize Portuguese, and to be in my original mission call. Visa waiting is a lot harder than I anticipated... Patience......uggh. Such a hard Christlike Attribute for me. I am fairly certain Heavenly Father sent me to RCSDM purely to teach me a lesson in patience.  

I suppose one thing that has always brought me peace is knowing that I am working hard--even if "by the book" or "by the numbers" that work is not reflected, my companion and I are striving to fulfill our missionary purpose. Part of this effort is making sure that we do our FOUR hours of study every day (personal, companion, language, and training). I love this study time, as I find myself a lot more calm after personally meditating on the scriptures and other things. "Daily Bread" is definitely an important part of maintaining hope (and sanity). 

I am so grateful for Sister B, and the fact that we are very much in the same boat. We both want to work really, really hard, and so are discouraged when things go so poorly, but we try to brush ourselves off, and resolve to have positive attitudes.

Some fun things this week:

1. Our best contact of the week was.....a horse.

Give a little love to a horse......

...Get a lot more love back!

2. We do service at an assisted living center, and oh my goodness, old people are so funny. K, so there is this one paralyzed lady who is mostly silent. We've been doing craft days with them for the past 3 weeks or so, but unfortunately during this time I have to do a group conference training call (called "bridge calls"). It usually works out pretty well because I can just sit in the corner of the room while SB does crafts with the ladies....but this one day, we had another woman joining us. who does not get along with the paralyzed woman. Despite being silent for 3 weeks, she started loudly exclaiming, "I haaaaattteeee huuuuuurrrrrrr!!!! I HAAAAATTEE HUUUUURRRRR!" hahahaha oh man. AND THEN, the other lady starts yelling back! haha! This little senial old lady getting into a screaming fit with a quadripeligic. The activities director then wheeled the elderly lady out (much to her destain), and gave a firm talking to the other lady, we do NOT yell at people." She just kind of rolled her eyes and pretended to ignore her. I had a hard time not cracking up, and I'm sure the people on my conference call were wondering what the heck was going on haha!


3. I get to go on daily walks with Sister B in a nearby park....a great stress reliever!

4. We got called and asked to work in the office 2 hours a week, which will actually be nice so that we will at least have something other than cancelled appointments to do!

Quad-Zone Meeting with Elder Snow

5. We had a ginormous quad-zone meeting on Thursday with Elder Snow. It was awesome! He is a great teacher, and had a really relaxed, but strictly obedient teaching style. I've come to look forward to meetings like that.
 

Someone our own size!

6. Our musical number ended up not working out (one of the ladies got bronchitis), so I played "All Creatures of our God and King" by Josh Wright yesterday. It went very well, and the ward seemed really appreciative.
 
7. Elder O turned 21! He is getting ready to go home in two weeks and has been a great elder/leader/assistant to the president/co-missionary in our ward.  Sister B and I did our best to bake him a birthday cake.

8. We also learned how to make a new dish thanks to a sister in the ward who gave us this recipe for puttanesca:

I don't have too much more to update you on. It's been a really slow week, but I'm sure it will get better, and hey.....I'm going to RIO! SOON! AAAAHHHHHHHH THERE IS FINALLY HOPE! That's all for now! I love you a LOT.

Com amor,
Sister Colvin