October 13, 2014
Sometimes (a lot of
the time), being a missionary is just dang frustrating. This mission in particular is incredibly
disorganized and runs by the “fly by the seat of your pants” and “just wing it”
mentality. As a type A, goal oriented,
carefully executed, plan-maker, this mentality drives me nuts! After spending
last Friday morning carefully planning our week, including divisions, etc., the
zone leaders called at 4 pm on P-day (when I don’t want to talk to anyone on
the phone about missionary work or anything really), saying that we wouldn’t
have district meeting at 2:00 the following day but instead would be giving a
zone training at 8 am…45 minutes away.
There goes our morning workout, breakfast, and all of our studies. I asked him what we were expected to prepare,
and when we were supposed to prepare it, and why the heck the APs couldn’t have
told us abut this sooner? Out zone
leader (who is actually excellent) said, “I don’t know, I just obey and then I
understand.” So being my naturally calm
and blindly obedient self, called Elder Neu – AP, and asked him about the
purpose of this meeting. I must admit
that I was quite frank with my comments and didn’t think about the effect of my
words. I told him that I thought that
zone meeting twice a month was a great idea, but I expressed how it would be
nice to know about it with more time to prepare. He then got very quiet and expressed how hard
he tries to get things organized and keep people on task. The Brazilian organizational mindset is very
different from our own. After talking
with him I had to conference call the Sisters in Angia to tell them about the
training. Then I got a call from S. Jameison
telling me that they wouldn’t be able to do the division because her companion
has new missionary training. Then we
were notified that there would be another leadership training meeting on Friday
in Andaria which means leaving Thursday night and sleeping in Andaria so that
we can make it to a morning meeting. All
of this equates to lots of careful planning down the drain….FRUSTRATING.
October 14. 2014
Well, today was another highly frustrating day. First we waited 1 hours at the bus stop, then
finally our bus came. We got to Itaguai
quickly and actually had a great zone meeting. Our zone leaders are both great
young missionaries with LOTS of energy and optimism. They are helping me stay upbeat even with
opening and area and getting really tired here at the end of my mission. (side not: Elder Warner is in my zone and he
is from my MTC group of missionaries and served one year in Idaho. He has been here about 9 weeks. So he is learning the language and is a very
nice guy, but is unfortunately in a hard area.)
The really frustrating part of the day was the bus ride
back. We got on a bus labeled “Santa
Cruz” but when we got to the end of the
line, we didn’t recognize any of our surroundings so we ended up making the
loop back to Itaguai where we started from.
At that point we thought “okay, cool, we will just bop back to Santa Cruz
again.” WRONG. By the time that we realized we weren’t
headed in the right direction, it was way too late. We were riding through dirt road surrounded
by jungle, jungle, jungle. We didn’t
DARE get off the bus. But, after asking
and confirming that this bus would in fact go back to Santa Cruz, we waited it
out. Only 45 minutes later everyone had
already gotten off, we really were in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. Then the bus driver kicked us off (he was the
meanest Brazilian I have ever met.) Up
side, a bus would come and pick us up in 30 minutes. Down side – the only place to wait was a filthy,
dark , smelly bar without a single woman in site and of course there was no
cell phone service. We sat down on the
curb trying not to worry or cry, I sang a hymn (cause that’s what missionaries
do), and THEN some teenaged boys came up and started to harass us. I could have snapped at them, but instead I
turned it into a teaching opportunity and ended up having a positive
interaction. We ended up leaving a Book
of Mormon with one of them. Anyways, we
survived and we finally got on our bus which indeed took us to Santa Cruz where
we had to pay another VW bus to take us to our house. To top it off the cushion-less seats were so
hot that I burned my leg and on the way out of the bus my dress snagged. This
lovely 4 hours adventure should have taken only 30 minutes. We didn’t end up eating our lunch until 5:30
pm. It is in moments and experiences
like these that I count the days until I am home. I can’t even begin to express how excited I
am to drive myself from point A to point B.
October 17, 2014
Today was quite possible one of the best, most inspiring
meeting that I have ever has on my mission.
Presidente invited all the leaders to come and he, Sister Cabral, and
their dear friends from Fortaleza gave GREAT motivational training. Presidente Edilson is the stake president in
Fortaleza and his story is amazing. He
was born into extreme poverty but was introduced to the gospel fairly
early. He decided to serve a mission,
but he didn’t even have clothes to wear.
He served a great mission, and returned with on the clothes on his
back. When he got home, president Cabral
was his new stake president. President
Cabral helped him make goals, and a year later he married in the temple and had
a secure job. Now, after a lot of work,
they are very well off and still very humble people. His message to us was all about motivation and
was wonderful. I think that every
missionary left feeling a little taller and more competent to take on the world
(or at least our small corner of the world.)
I was quite emotional today, and Presidente chose me to be
the final testimony…as I cried and testified (yup, I am a crier now) , the
Spirit was so strong and it seemed like I was testifying to myself rather than
to the other people. As much as I worry
about my dad, and as little that we know about if this treatment will work out,
I just felt God’s individual, paternal love and concern for me and my trials in
that very moment. I love my
mission. I love President and Sister
Cabral who make a point to let me know that they are praying every night for me
and for my family. They are
wonderful. I am where I need to be – at
least for 8 ½ more weeks.
October 18, 2014
Well today was a long day.
We have awesome members here that are super willing to help us out, but
just about every single plan that we made fell through. I am foot sore and just plain wiped out. Time to get to bed early so my interview will
go well tomorrow! I am very
nervous. I really hope that we get there
safely an that the technology is working correctly and everything!
 |
| I wasn't to thrilled to learn that I had to wear this headset for my interview, but it worked out fine. |
 |
| Happy on the bus platform. |
The interview went splendidly, though I struggled a bit with
English. My interviewer was an
incredibly nice Mexican man who has been at Loma Linda for over 25 years. We spent most of the time conversing about
faith, mission, cultural experiences, and everything. It felt very natural and it was actually very
spiritually uplifting. I think I would
really like to attend LLU. He seemed to
really like me, and at the end of the interview he said, “I will do everything I
can to have you be a part of Loma Linda community next summer!” So…I think that’s as good as it can get. The hard part about today was making my
companion suffer through SEVEN hours of traveling in one day, shooting our
entire work day.
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