I'm staying another transfer with Kevin here in PVA - Week 17

What a week we had indeed.

This week started out so wack hahaha. So I don’t think ive ever talked about Angela but she is literally our mom down here in Brasil. She feeds Kevin and I every single day I kid you not. She and her family are crazy religious and they’re so hooked on their church. It’s called the Assembly of God. But to get to the story, like 3 weeks ago she told us she wanted to do a little special niglt for us so we planned for Monday the 10th, and the day finally came and we show up and they literally made 4 different kinds of meat and invited 35 people from thier church to meet us because for some reason Angela literally loves us like children hahah. We were expecting like a cute little night with like the 8 members of thier family or something like that. You know like something that normal people would do... but I am not messing around 12 of the 35 people brought instruments and were playing hymns from their church but all the old ladies were singing so horribly hahah it just toasted the nice instrumental haha. But things got weird when all of the ladies there started pulling out veils and before Kevin and I even knew what was going on all of the ladies had these white veils covering thier faces and heads and it was SO wack haha. Then this dude stands up and goes "alright were all hungry so were just gonna say a simply prayer and then eat” so Kevin and I were like “yeeeee” because we were hungry, and then this dude just starts chanting all this freaking wacky stuff and then everyone yells AMEN and dropped to their knees at the same FREAKING time hahahaha and then the dude just started shouting a prayer and everyone was just yelling praise Jesus glory Jesus alleluja amen over and over and I started laughing so hard it was the craziest thing I’ve ever experienced hahah. I looked over at Kevin and he was trying not to laugh so I had to crack him so every like 8 seconds I'd literally shout glory to the infant baby Jesus or something like that and Kevin blew up hahahaha it was so funny. It was hands down the strangest thing I’ve ever been surrounded by. After the prayer finished and all the ladies took off thier veils the dude who prayed invited us to "enlighten them with spiritual knowledge” hahaha so Kevin and I talked to them about how it’s cool that they pray kneeling too, and that Jesus loves everyone ahhaah. I definitely got level 76 battlehammered by this experience it left me absolutely boggled for the rest of the week haha. 

Alright so were gonna get the sad stuff out o~the way right now so we can end the email happily haha. SO, this week. I’m not gonna lie this week was hands down the hardest week of my life. I have never felt so lonely and so absolutely abandoned like I did this week. On Saturday, I had the hardest day of my life. I woke up and literally could not find the energy to get out of bed. I couldn’t see myself getting through the day. I talked to Kevin and he told me we could just take it easy for the day. from 6:30 am until 6:30 pm, almost to the minute I layed in bed crying and praying so freaking hard and literally for the whole entire day I felt completely lost. I had never felt lower in my life. I called one of the APs on the phone and was like "dude, I’m literally getting pulverized out here, gimme something"and so he told me something that helped him a ton in difficult times, and that was "really try to focus on the Savior’s life, and read about him in the scriptures” so he gave me some passages in the New Testament and I went to work on studying. Through studying I really realized that Christ suffered SO much more than just in Gethsamane and on the cross, even though those were the 2 greatest periods of suffering, but the thing that He always did was find it in Him to go and help someone else. I told myself I was freaking over being literally engulfed in sorrow, but by the time Kevin and I got all ready it was like 8:15pm. I said a quick prayer for guidance on what we should do, and I felt like we should visit Dianna, but she lives 40 minutes from our hosue, so I told Kevin to put on his running shoes and we ran to Dianna’s house in our missionary clothes and got there at 8:35 ahaha. When we showed up she was absolutely torn to pieces. She and Edson got in a gnarly fight and they very likely will get in a divorce. She immediately recogized that I was physically torn up haha and also emotionaly unwell, so she asked me what’s up, and then we just started talking for over an hour about literally everything that is destroying us right now hahaha (don’t worry we got permission from president Granja to stay out late.) I shared Doctrine and Covenants 122:7 with her and talked about trials. After we talked she looked me straight in the face and told me "through all the suffering, all the pain and affliction that I am feeling, through literally feeling like God had entirely abandoned me, I know that he will always answer my prayers because He sent you here to talk to me. I need to tell you something that I’m feelin so strongly right now, and that is that your Heavenly Father, and your mother and more proud of you than you will ever know.” And then we both just started crying so hard hahahah it was the happiest sad moment in my life. After that I felt prompted to give her a blessing of comfort so Kevin and I did that, and I literally felt the Spirit guiding my every word. It was so incredibly beautiful. I know for a fact, literally as sure as I live today, that I was able to help her feel like there is still hope because of what I felt earlier that Saturday. I knew breifly the deep and lasting pain she was feeling, and that is because I suffered such pain for myself. I literally have the most insane testimony of our trials, and that they will always always freaking always serve a purpose if we are willing to endure them. It is so worth it to continue to endure, and remember God is orchestrating everything.

Alright now that that’s off the chest we can lighten up a lil haha. This week I got kissed by 2 people. One was on the cheek by this old lady bag of bones hahhahah and the other was on the hand by this 6 foot 8 dude who was drunk off his brain hahaha. I wanna talk about the drunk dude story because it’s better. We were walking down the street on Sunday and this lady literally runs out into the street and yells "are you guys people of God” hahaha so Castro and I were like you bet your bottom dollar young lady haha and then she was like I need you to pray for my daughter right now come into my house. So we went in and her daughter and this massive dude were drunk off their sanity so I just had to have some fun with it hahah. I told them that I was from iceland and they literally were in shock haha. The second I said that the giant dude stood up and gave me the biggest hug on the earth and held onto me so freaking tight and then when he let go of me he grabbed my hand and gave me a huge slobery wet smooch on the hand and I started laughing so hard so then he started laughing and then everyone was laughing hahaha. After that I was like "alright lets pray” so I prayed that they’d stop drinking because they know it’s stupid, and that they would be safe while they were drunk and not do anything dumb ahahah it was a very strange strand of occurrences. I told them we’d return on Tuesday at 3:00 at their house when they were a little more stable.

Quick update on the Church stuff and people we’re teaching from this week. We called every single one of our people we are teaching and the only people who showed up to church were Joao Batista and his fam. Sometimes stuff happens. William is avoiding us, Lazaro is still reading the Book of Mormon but doesn’t wanna wake up for church. Branco and Vania moved back to their home town :( (we gave them a pic of us together and a pic of the temple) Romualdo and his wife seem to be fighting less. There’s a ton more dudes but nothing super interesting is happening with them. But besides the fact that almost no one showed up at church, almost everyone is reading the Book of Mormon and really understanding our messages. It’s rad. The Spirit is truly changing thier lives through the small and simple daily things. Also the Primary Program was this week and my heart got absolutely melted by the off beat translations of all the cute Primary songs hahah.

Well that concludes another week here in Paradise do Leste. I love you guys, and no matter how depressing my emails are know that I really do find happiness in every day and that I am loving my mission :)

Last pic with Branco, Vania and Kassio (finally got a smile)

Christmas party at the church (had 40 pounds of meat... not kidding)

Kev and I using our matching Christmas ties (which we made) and the Christmas socks my mother sent us :)