All about attitude

This week was still hard, but very different. I learned a lot about the importance of attitude and focus. Every hard thing here, is out of my control.  But I can control one thing, and that´s how I react to the difficult situation I have been placed in. I get to choose if I win, and I´m gonna choose to say yes, I win. I get to succeed, I get to be here, I get to learn Portuguese, and I get to meet little kids who brighten my day. Seriously the kids here are a life source. 

I get to be a representative of my Savior, Jesus Christ... like HOW AMAZING IS THAT!? I get to teach, and I get to love as He did. I get to share my knowledge with people who are trying so desperately to find light and truth...me... Sister Walstad. I get to be the answer, so I am choosing to be here, and choosing to endure with faith. Not gonna lie, It´s UNBELIEVABLY hard here. Beyond description, but the cool thing is it´s possible. With the companionship of my Savior, and the Book of Mormon as a key to finding peace, I can do this. Here´s some stuff about the week:

I want to share a few answers I received in the scriptures this week. I don´t have time to explain, but based off of my experiences here, I'm sure y'all can figure out the significance:)

John 14:18, 1 Timothy 4:12-16 and Alma 26:27

The scriptures are a reason I´m still here.  I wanna challenge you all to study in the Book of Mormon every single day, and tell me it´s not the greatest thing EVER!

We have a progressing pesquisador (investigator), Irmão Wilson.  What a strong soul! He has a baptismal date set in a few weeks, keep him in your prayers!! 

We had divisions this week, which are splits with the sister training leaders. I was with a sister that speaks english. She´s from Colorado, but you´d never guess she wasn't a native; her Portuguese is beautiful. Anyway, we walked down a street that we felt good about, and either nobody was home or they were like, "noooo, leeeeaavveee!"

So we were kind of wondering why we felt good about that street, and ended up talking to a sweet lady walking down the street that had just finished talking with a friend who has severe depression. Sister Portillo and I were able to go and talk with that friend, and at the end of the conversation, she stood up from being curled in a ball and gave us hugs. Her husband was shocked that she got up... and it´s called the spirit. THAT was so cool.

Again I got my makeup done by little Elisia. All the little girls here call me Barbie. SO FUNNY! My name here is either "sister nova", "sister barbie," or "sister bonita."  People here are so cute! Oh also, one Irmã calls me sister All-Star like the shoe brand (haha) cause that´s what she thought it sounded like.

Everyone here wants to make me gain weight, every meal the Irmã that cooked says, "oh we gotta make this one fatter," haha, and the food is SO good... so who knows!?! I love cake here! 

Fun experiences on Sunday! First, the 1st counselor in my ward came up and told me I was the first speaker, just 5 minutes, but yeah that was an adventure! Portuguese is fun! Its a process but it´s coming along! I´m starting to be able to know what´s going on! Also Irmão Wilson came, and my heart sang when he walked into the chapel! It´s such a cool thing to see people progressing in the gospel! Last fun experience, we were offered a ride home and the car broke down!! HAHA so funny. 

Praying for you all daily and love you all so much! Thank you for the prayers and thoughts. I need them out here, it's a major source of strength, so thank you!

Sister Walstad

Surprise birthday celebration for Sister Lundgreen

TALK ABOUT TOUGH

First week in the field. One good word to describe this so far.... (nearly) impossible. Honestly I don´t know how I´m still alive. The last week in the MTC was good, with lot´s of preparation to get out of there.  I made lots of friends and stuff. It was good, and I learned a lot. But it´s hard to think of anything specifically. Hardest part of this week was leaving Sister Lindsey. She was all I had here. She was my family, and now I have none. I´m here in my first area, Hortolândia Inter Lagos. I am learning lots, praying like a mad woman, and barely surviving day to day.

 Brazil CTM District

Sister Lindsey!

My trainer is Sister Vilar, and she´s from Northern Brazil, so her accent is very hard to understand. But we can communicate pretty well after one week. She´s 29, very different from me, but is a blessing in many ways too. She's a tough cookie. I´m learning to love her more and more every day.   

 Also the people here are amazing... Wow... I can tell that I will learn to love them so much!  I already have in many ways. But I am very lonely. The times I´m happiest is when we are teaching and talking with people, and with Irma Mirya, I will include a picture with her. She speaks very good english, and wants to keep learning so she´s helped me a lot too. 

Irmã Mirya (my saving grace)

Hilary doing my makeup (Irmã Mirya´s daughter)

I can understand probably 60% of the language, but sometimes that 60% is a 0%. Anyway sorry I´m all over the place. Our apartment has just us. It´s empty and sad. It's home, and it´s where I get to sleep every day, which by the way... it feels like I don´t even sleep, because all of the sudden I´m awake every day.

I wanna be uplifting so, here´s the thoughts I´ve had this week. This is my moment to be a missionary, all the "trunky" missionaries talking about home, or the ones that have been here for a year, or 14 months, they had their moment to start too. So this is my turn, to start fresh, and struggle and learn and grow and cry and pray and overcome until I learn to love it every day. This moment will come and go, so I need to learn to love it and accept it as my life. I have had so many prayers answered and so many tender mercies. I´m so grateful for my Savior. Keep your heads up everyone!

Sister Walstad

P.S. - Here is another experience that Kassidy/Sister Walstad wrote home about:

I know I am supposed to be here. I have had a few cool experiences already. My comp had me choose a road to work.   As we were walking, I turned around and saw a little girl waving from the gate to her house. I had a feeling to go back and talk to her even though she´s a kid.  I felt really strong about it so we went back, she got her mom, and a few minutes later another woman walked in with her grand daughter.  Boom!... 2 pesquisadores! Amazing! 

THEN we met Ocila, a super cute lady who we just taught the other day. I prayed for her and her son, Daniel, and she started crying. I promised her that she would receive the things she needs, and that the Lord will provide a way as she has faith in Him, and that I know that from experience.  She cried as I testified.. IN PORTUGUESE!! Our Savior, takes our efforts and makes them enough because we need Him to be enough. I am literally here for ONE reason and that reason is Jesus Christ.

Arriving in Piracicaba

Me with President and Sister Bangerter

At the mission home

FINAL WEEK CTM

This week was better than last week… let´s start with that. I got pretty sick starting last p-day, and it´s been a fight getting over it, but I’m alive and above ground and that´s all I could ask for! My voice has been a little… bleh... but I didn´t lose it before Elder Smith and I sang at the Mission Conference on Sunday. Definitely gotta thank Heavenly Father for that one!

We sang “Come Unto Christ,” and wow! My testimony of how powerful music is BOOM! So huge! I love music more than I ever have. And the elders who accompanied us are insanely good. It was also fast Sunday. We fasted from lunch on Saturday to lunch on Sunday. Kind of weird, but lunch here is huge so that´s why. It was the easiest fast I've ever done! When you fast with a purpose, it´s a breeze, let me tell ya.

Okay funny story for you all. There was a plumbing situation this week. The water was all brown and our toilets were exploding! We did our laundry, and all my garments were stained brownnnnnn! But it´s okay; I cleaned them as much as possible, and now they´re just light pink.   I only washed a few pairs in that load (thank heavens)! Also we had 3 power outages this week. It´s just a crazy life over here in Brazil. This week flew by like nothing else in my life. Literally crazy! I feel like I was emailing yesterday. 

P-day was great last week. It rained and we were all so excited… and now it´s rained every day since then. Atividade Fisica (physical activity) has been playing board games - lol. Also, the açai here.... wow! 

Last story, we have a pesquisador (investigator) that has a condition where he will fall asleep when sitting still (reminds me of you Madre). And so during our lesson this last week, he was reading and falling asleep and trying to turn the page and he was so confused because he kept turning two pages. Oh my gosh! I was dying laughing!! I wish I could somehow show you all, but it was the funniest thing ever.

When we left the CTM this week, we said "we left the spirit prison to go to real prison" because we went down to the police station to get finger printed. It’s the last step of the visa stuff. So fun. Love it. Wooohooo!!

This week, my testimony of the importance of scriptures has sky rocketed. Literally wow! Please, everyone read the scriptures EVERY day!! I love it. I´m the happiest with my face in the Book of Mormon. It radiates happiness. I love this gospel so much. And I love Portuguese. It´s so fun!

I love you all so much. Starting on my next p-day I´ll be able to send pictures. Technology here in the good old CTM doesn’t quite cut it. 

Have the best week everyone!!! Talk to you in PIRACICABA

xoxoxo

-Sister Walstad 

First week down in brazil (thank goodness)

OLA 

This week literally was the worrsssttttt week everrrrr!  But I'm alive and well anyway! Leaving Provo ended up being a bummer. My district there truly was a family, and the environment in Provo was just so much better. I was really starting to find my place there, and it´s just been a harder adjustment than I expected. I eat beans now everyone! CRAZY HUH?!?

The gift of tongues is so real. I can´t believe how much I can understand, when the teachers are speaking and giving us instruction.  I can understand, I wanna say about 80%, and I always know what they´re talking about even if I miss a word here and there. I´m picking up the language pretty well. The Brasileros here tell me I have perfect pronunciation and are all surprised when they hear that I didn't speak before. It´s not me though, it´s the Lord, no doubt about it.

This week we had pday, (kinda weird but we don´t email on pday here, we email instead of exercise the day before pday) anyway we got to go out and walk around, explore the area around the mtc,for like 4 hours, and that was so fun. Then on Saturday we went proselyting and holy cow... I spoke to random people on the streets in a language I DON`T EVEN KNOW and they understood, and we got a referral of a cute little family and it was the best thing ever. Also, this week, me and Sister Lindsey had an evening when we completely broke down. I was fine at first, but looked over at Sister Lindsey and knew she was about to explode, so we left class and she just started bawling her eyes out, which made me cry.  Then we realized how hard this was, the Brazil mtc is "a never ending cycle of misery" so that´s great. Anyway, we had many tender mercies that night, and received a blessing from all 5 of our elders that came with us from Provo. We've all kept each other sane here. And our zone leaders were so nice too.  We´ve come to realize that there are great people everywhere. As hard as it is, we can always find happiness and peace.

Sunday was great! We had an hour and a half to ourselves and we took a nap and then studied a little bit. I can't wait for this Sunday... Me and Elder Smith are again singing, but this time in front of the entire MTC.  We are singing "Come Unto Christ," Half english, half Portuguese. WOOHOO

So, overall, I am okay, and the MTC has gotten better. I´m learning a lot, really quickly, including how to like beans, and I have never been so grateful for Sister Lindsey. I love being out on a mission, and can´t wait to be out in the field, learning even more, even faster, and relying on the Lord even more often. I love you all.

I know I said this place sucks, and in my opinion it does, but in other ways it is great and I am learning how to maintain a positive attitude. I love the Savior so much, and that´s why I´m here. If I didn't have this love for My Savior, Jesus Cristo, I would be home right now. He makes the hard moments worth it. Knowing what He did for me, and what He did for all the people I will teach, and knowing I get to teach them about it, through the testifying power of the Spirit, is a good enough reason to cry myself to sleep, or miss my family so bad it hurts, or sit in silence trying to translate what the heck a dude just said. Everybody should take a sec to think how much more the Savior suffered for, then you´re like... "I´m a baby man, suck it up." :)

 I love all of you--have the best week, sorry for the miscommunication... people thought I was emailing tomorrow, But my Pday in the MTC is Tuesday now:)

Tchau por agora

eu emo voces muito!

de Sister Walstad

At the SLC Airport

Riding the train to the airport