December 28, 2015 - Feliz Ano Novo!!

                                      Sister Helm and Courtney skyping on Christmas day

Hey people!!

Can we just talk about how great it was to see you guys?!? Seriously best Christmas present I could get. besides the melty reisans and new skirts (thanks mummer!). Too bad the aftermath was a little bit hard but we´re back in business as of now. It was great to see your real life faces and it was cool because I felt like I really was back at home with you guys. Now just 6 more months til mothers day!

But what can I say since I just talked to you guys, haha, uhhm. Christmas eve was really good, when we all got back to our apartment we gave out the little secret sisters gifts we´d bought and even made hot chocolate and sat in front of the fan drinking it and pretty much sweating into our cups but #worthit. 

And as far as our area, we´re having a little bit more success here now. We´re finally meeting people who will let us come in to their houses and teach them. This of course was after several days of meeting only people who said no, that they’re ´´super catholic´´ whatever that means..., grown men who send their moms out to tell us they dont want to go to church, etc. it was almost comical all the excuses we heard haha but hey you gotta do the work to find the diamonds in the rough! (cue scary aladdin man voice)

We are teaching one family way over in Cidade Nova that is really great. We first met the youngest son Felipe playing soccer and he is a scrawny little kid who looks 8 but is 12. Then he has 3 siblings and parents who are really interested in our lessons. We sit in this tiny tiny living room with a chair and a couch and all the kids sit on the floor just listening in awe to us talk haha. Felipe really wanted to answer all our questions so whenever we asked one he would just yell out ´´jesus cristo!!´´ and hey half the time he was right! We´re trying to set a baptism date for all them but the dad works every Sunday selling stuff in the feira so we´re working on it. But the funny part was at the end of one lesson they somehow found out I can wiggle my ears and raise my eyebrows and yep you guessed it, it turned into freak Courtney and her strange tricks. They were fascinated that I can wiggle my ears and I felt like a circus monkey with them telling me to do it over and over. This is what I will put on my resume folks.

But other than that, things are going good here! We´re trying hard to get people to church which is the hardest trial as of now, because sometimes people here need a little kick in the hiney to understand you need to sacrifice for the things that are important like going to church! But I’m good at that ;)

Love you guys so much! Thanks for making my Brazilian Christmas so great!! 

Sister Walker

Public service announcement: I will never ever get used to the fact that the women here breastfeed in public. Come on, during relief society? Really??

December 21, 2015 - Can I Be The Donkey? No, Bretts Always The Donkey...

MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU FILTHY ANIMALS!!

first things first please tell me the sisters in our ward and every ward in the stake have some place to go for christmas eve AND christmas day!!! that is your job plz my loving family!! it is sad to wait for someone to invite you to their house... lol we´re still waiting on christmas eve but hopefully something will pull through. its hard when 3 of us are new in this area so we dont know any of the members or anything. It’d be different if i was back in itabaiana with families i love, but here its just Christmas with a bunch of strangers... but it’ll be good! its good to serve others when you’re feeling down!

what a week people lemme tell you. opening an area sure is tough work. we pretty much walked the entire city all day long every day and my shoes have the smell to prove it. too far...? but estancia is pretty cute, its basically the same as itabaiana with the colorful houses all crammed together and the cobblestone streets. but here there are so many people with cars they all must be rich... its just funny to follow addresses here because alot of places don’t really have street signs, so the directions in the area book will be ´´go down the street of the crazy man, take a left at the pink house with an orange door, and around to the big pile of bricks in the road. if you’ve hit the man with the pink shirt selling chickens you’ve gone too far´´ but we make it work. 

but i live here with sister ruiz from dallas and sister oliveira from manaus. sooo hilarious having 3 Americans together, because it has pretty much never happened in the history of the world here. sometimes we sing christmas carols to each other late at night to make it feel more like christmas. they include i saw mommy kissing santa claus, rudolph and the classic 12 days of christmas. 

its the greatest thing working with sister helm, the only annoying thing is that we stand out SO MUCH together, two white girls in long skirts walking down the street. i have never felt so out of place in my life holy cow. people stare at us evvverywhere we go, they all think we´re sisters, and that we´re from germany. i kinda wanna flick em all in the head sometimes but i hold it together. but the funny part is we barely have to do contacting because other people will stop us on the street to ask us where we´re from and what we´re doing here and we just say ´well let me tell you a little something about the church of jesus christ...´´ boom. 

okay and skype this week im thinking its gonna be about 4pm here or 3pm which makes that exactly im not sure what time back home but im sure you guys can figure it out. ahhh im so excited to see you guys!!! plz get the scary doll ready. 

since its christmas i just wanna leave you guys with a little quick testimony of this special time! i am so happy to get to spend Christmas in brasil, even if its sweaty and hot and they don’t have real milk to make hot chocolate and only have palm trees not pine trees. because all that really matters is that i get to remember that my savior was born many years ago and because he was born he gave us the greatest gift of all, the opportunity to live with him again! i am grateful that with his plan i hope we can all remember what gift we´re gonna give to the savior this year, what we´re gonna change and do better to show more gratitude for all he has done for us. after all, it is his birthday! i know my savior lives, i know this church is true and i am so grateful to be here sharing this gift of lasting happiness with the people here! 

love you guys & see you soon!!

sister walker

December 14, 2015 - Christmas Is Here!!!

                                               Sister Davis, Courtney and Sister Marques
                                                Christmas Mission Conference in Maceio

What a WEEK where can i even begin that will make sense.

Okay so first of all, i got a call during a lesson on Wednesday night that was the assistants telling me that i needed to be in Maceio (a 5 hour bus ride to a different state) the next day at noon because i was called to be a new sister training leader. obviously i thought it was some sort of sick joke because how on earth can that be possible?? but yeah apparently it is. so tomorrow will be my first real transfer, im getting transfered to Istancia which is basically neighbors with Itabainana, is only about an hour away and is in the same zone... I’m never gonna escape zona lagarto haha.

Sister Davis and Marques will continue here in itabaiana and I’m gonna be companions with sister helm who is the golden missionary American from a little town close to boise Idaho. She has about 1 year and 2 months on the mish and is basically my idol in all things forever because she is so good at Portuguese and such a good missionary and funny and crazy and I’m suuper stoked to get to work with her. Everyone here in the mission calls me the mini Sister Helm too because of our personalities and our sass and even our voices, which i don’t think is entirely true but they say it anyways. I’m really really humbled to be able to serve the other sisters, and I’m already kinda freaked out but now I am feeling more confident after a lot of prayer. I’m just going to trust in the lord, because like it says in 1 Nephi 17:50-52, if God can do great miracles, why can’t he make me a sister training leader with only 5 months on the mish and a very basic Portuguese vocab? We will find out how it goes this week!

This week too was Christmas conference in Maceio!! It was sooo cool and amazing and wonderful. we had a  talent show where we did a trio of You’ll be in My Heart in English and Portuguese and i even sang parts as a SOLO, the mission is changing me i tell you. But it was so amazing to get to be with all the missionaries in such a feeling of unity and love and hope and renewed motivation to work and help the people in our areas. it was the first time i really felt fulfilled and excited for Christmas other than reasons like moms jams cookies and new PJs and not having to brush your teeth all day (maybe that’s just me and Spencer...). But i just felt this really big gratitude for my savior. He really is the lord of lords, king of kings, the prince of peace, who was born into the most humble of circumstances to be our savior. I’m learning, especially here in Itabaiana, that some of the best people are born into the humblest of circumstances. 

it’s funny the difference that a little bit of money or social status make for the people here. the few families that have a car or doors instead of curtains in every room, sometimes treat the sisters interchangeable, which is understandable, but so exact opposite how the other people in the branch treat us. For lunches, I would much rather go to the house of someone who maybe has less food or the meat is questionable or there’s flies swarming you when you eat, rather than the people who have fancy glasses, because the generosity and love and genuine affection the people show for you is just amazing. I would rather spend my time with them any day over the rich people here.

But also i got your guys package!! ahhhh it was so great to get the letters and pictures of you guys! It was really like Christmas i opened my gifts and read the notes over and over. it was funny because i really felt like dad because i felt like after the letters and pictures and notes from ward members that i was so happy and content and didn’t even need to open any of the presents. Who knew sometimes dad is right about a thing or two? Shreked. 

it’s also really nice to get to appreciate the little miracles as a missionary in a branch. it’s funny because it doesn’t impress me anymore when a brother in the ward gets up and gives a 20 minute talk on the atonement and uses 4 scriptures memorized and 5 quotes from Joseph Fielding Smith. But what impresses me is when a teenage girl who was baptized 5 months ago gets up and gives a short testimony how she knows the atonement is real, that god forgives our sins, that Christ loves us, and the church is true because she saw how it changed the life of her family. Being learned, or having lots of knowledge, isn’t what god looks at. he looks at the desires of our hearts and i am lucky to be able to do the same here.

Sister Marques and Sister Davis are a little sad that I’ll be leaving Itabainana,  (more happy that they’ll have more fridge space i think, personally but still) but they’ll continue to be great missionaries and take care of the branch here. Today we celebrated by buying yakisoba for lunch which is the most cultured place around here that just opened up. i also have yet to pack up my stuff so that’ll be sups fun... it’ll be sad to leave the place where i feel like i grew up. This is the place i arrived and didn’t understand a single word the people were saying, but still they hugged me and accepted me and taught me how to have faith in the lord. and now i have to leave em! But i know there’s other people waiting for me too. 

i think i wrote about my entire life in this email holy cow ill save some stuff for our Christmas call wahhoooo!! but i love you guys so much! thanks for thinking of me and praying for me and being a  great family i get to have forrevvverr-forevvverr-forevverr.

Sister Walker

December 7, 2015 - Good Times In The Neighborhood!

                                                                 Daniel's Baptism!!!
                                                           

                                                 Sister Davis, Courtney & Sister Marques
                                          Sitting By Their Fireplace In 100 Degree Weather

hey everybody!

this week was long, long. we are in the part of the cycle of missionary work where all our investigators are falling through so we have to find all new ones. but we fasted and are starting to see good results. we are starting to teach more in unison and less of me doing everything so its getting better. i was studying in alma 8:14-15 when alma is feeling weighed down with his mission and not having success, and an angel comes to comfort him and reminds him that he is doing the will of the Lord so he has plenty to be happy about! i thought that related well with me this week.

but on the plus side we had daniels baptism! it was really perfect, and he was so so happy afterwards. it was the cutest thing! also our district got together to make a little video for the christmas conference thats this week and surprise surprise, the elders planned literally nothing. so we got there and i directed the show! we did a naughty and nice list but it was progressing and non progressing. our santa had a toilet paper beard because it was pretty low budget.. no kerry bellessa style but we did do all our own stunts. 

the funny thing about our trio is that we get to see first hand the bluntness of brazilians. they still ask why i speak better than sister davis if we have the same time here.  and im like uhhh that is rather rude but alright haha. and i was thinking about how hard it must be for sister marques, because it would be like me serving in america and getting to my first area and living with 2 people from japan. I’d be like uhm wait what is going on here. but she doesn’t seem to mind.  She’s pretty easy going. 

also for christmas this week we made this sweet fireplace out of paper and cellophane that im sending a pic of too. im so excited for Christmas.  holy COW!!  okay that’s all I’ve got, talk to you next week! i love you guys!!

sister walker

November 30, 2015 - That's So Raisin!

is it sad i cant remember how to spell raisen in english? #portugueseprobs

But as you can tell from the title, this week was all about visions, more or less like Raven Baxter.  Seriously it was like almost everyone we met this week considered themselves a prophet, because they receive visions and revelations from god, or they talk to spirits who have already passed on, or they see dead people, it was the weirdest thing. just picture Teresa Caputo on Long Island Medium x4 . and then it is not exactly the right time to teach them about Joseph Smith and the first vision... so we got kinda stuck sometimes but we always somehow come out strong.

 This week was so hurried, i feel like as a missionary trio we´re casting our net really wide right now to be able to find people that live close to the church and that are genuinely prepared and interested.  and now we gotta slim down our pickings a little. this week was sad because we went to teach Ronaldo again to see what we could do for him and  he hid himself in his house... let me explain. everyones doors are open here if they’re home, so you can see the people inside. we see him walk past and then go to his room and he wont answer us as we´re calling his name... his roommate told us he ´´left´´ too so that was awkward.  that happened to us a couple of times this week, we could literally see our investigator inside their house but they were hiding from us!! i felt a deep guilt for that one time the elders came to our old house and we all ducked down and pretended not to be home... karma big time.

it also got up to 107 degrees here this week, and for the first time i wanted to die because it was so hot. and that 107 degrees is not a dry heat my friend.

but besides all the craziness, i realized how much i just love the people here. theyre so different in that theyre so open and loving and generous. for example, i have friends all over the city now because i had a conversation with them one time and now we´re friends, or i slipped in some mud on the street and a woman sitting on her porch invited me in to clean it off and then we taught her the #1 lesson,  or a guy we´d met a week before  bought us all cheeseburgers (with fried egg and everything here) one night when we were all starving and poor. why cant everyone everywhere be braziian?!!

this week for thanksgiving i drew a  turkey for sister davis on a sticky note and put it on her desk. and that was about it haha. but im trying to make things fun at least a little bit for christmas. this week one day i made it a requirement for everyone to make 2 snowflakes out of paper before we left for the day. I’m working on a paper fireplace too. its gonna be legit.

 but this week we also had the coolest experience ever. we´re teaching Daniel who’s a 21 yr old chem student.  hes really nice and is really eager to find out if the church is true. for about 2 weeks he said he’d been praying and nothing was happening , he wasnt getting an answer about the church. i started to get a little nervous.  but then he asked why christ and god would appear to only people in America, to Joseph Smith. i felt prompted to have him read 3 nefi 11  where christ visits the americas. i marked it for him and then the next day called to remind him about church. he said that he read the chapter and that he believed!!! he said he read it and now he knew that the church is true, that Joseph Smith was a prophet and the  book of mormon is true and wants to be baptized as soon as possible!!! ahhh i cant even describe how happy i felt when he told me that,  it was a happiness that I’ve never felt, like i was just floating on air and so so full of joy. all of our efforts and time and dedication was worth it because he finally understood why we were so earnest that he found out what  we already knew!! Ahhh,  it was perfect. 

 we also got to help a lot of people that were needing help in that moment, because we were directed by the spirit. one day I felt like we should go to a certain road that i used to go to a lot but all of our investigators there fell through, so i didnt know why. but we went and we found a less active girl who went to church all during young womens but married and her husband didnt like the church so she left it. and she was just crying saying that she felt she needed to go back and she loved the church so much and knows its all true. I'm grateful for the spirit that helps us know where the people are that need help!

im so happy to be a missionary!! really truly. its dang hard thats true, but im honored to get to serve the people here. i love you guys lots!!

até mais,

sister walker

November 23, 2015 - Can't Be Hateful, Gotta Be Grateful!

                                                              The Awesome Threesome!

Happy Ação de Graças! (or turkey day for you less civilized people)

This week was heck. I thought I’d just start off with the truth. seriously most crazy week of my entire life. it was one of those weeks where every imaginable thing that could go wrong, goes wrong. alot of it i felt like i was drowning in things to do all by myself, planning lessons, calling people, making goals, coordinating with people, scheduling things,  meetings, just tons of random stuff to do. i felt like i was not cut out for this work, because i was just swamped in things to do. im trying to train a new sister,  i have to teach her english but teach the other one portuguese, holy cow its crazy. i got wicked bad food poisoning for 2 1/2 days and let me tell you, yes it is possible to have worse problems in the bathroom than i had had for the first  4 months. yikes. tmi. i kept wanting to work when i was sick but then moms voice would come haunting my mind when she always says when we´re sick ´´don’t push it!!´´ so i did not push it mom!  one day i had to sit on a bench because i was gonna throw up in this park and this old wrinkly man came over to me and asked me if i needed anything or needed to go to the doctor (brazilians go to the doctor for everything) and he went and bought me a cup of water and brought it to me.  i was so amazed at his kindness, because obviously he could see i wasn’t well, and so he just took a few minutes out of his day to do something for someone else. That’s just how the people are here, so generous and community minded. i love it!!!

but i spent the first few days feeling really sorry for myself. i think i felt every single possible feeling of a missionary this week. but then i realized that i needed to kick it into gear and get on my knees and ask for help from the one person who has the power to do all these things and more. and that’s when i saw miracles. i got to see how during our trials, the lord is there to carry our burdens with us, that we can be positive and persevere even though what we´re dealing with is tough, because it is!
 

but this week i felt like i really was starting to be a real missionary. im starting to feel for these people. i feel like when they tell me their problems, that im right there with them, because i physically feel their pain and their sadness too. i just ache for these people and sit and listen to them and wish i could  do everything to take away their pain. but all i can do is teach them about the savior, who can really help them.

more about the people here i love, irmao luiz. we went to visit him one time this week because we had run out of time the other day we were close to his house. When we got there and he was literally mad at me for not coming to see him! haha.  he had told his whole family about it. but we had told maycom we´d come that day so he said he was waiting all day because he knew we´d come :´) that kid is great.

we are working really hard to meet people that live close to the church because that is one of our problems with a city is that we waste a lot of time walking to different areas . but then we meet just amazing people  that were praying to find a path to follow, that live out in the boonies... im like really?? give us a break!  also in other news, our baptism for this week, ronaldo, called me to tell me he really likes me and  wants to know how i feel about him. talk about the saddest/most uncomfortable experience of my life. im working with my district leaders to figure out what we can do with this situation and praying hard. 

but somehow we are getting by here in itabaiana! im working a lot with the members now and its funny how they first saw me as the dopey american who didn’t know anything but now im the dopey american  who they have to talk  to because im the only one who knows whats going on! ha ha take that suckers!! okay thats all. oh we had zone conference this week and presiente  gomes is super mad at the mission because they’re all lazy and now we only have one hour to email. that is all.

eu amo voces! i love you!!

sister walker       

November 16, 2015 - Training Week 1

                                                    The Lagarto District Before Transfers

hey party people!

SO, week one of training was a week where i got to learn that you just do your best and the lord is there every step of the way to fill in the cracks. (julia no more jokes, please). im really doing this, im training!! my new companion is sister marques from Espirito Santo, just a little south of our mission. she is really great. a little quiet, but any new missionary would be! shes very prepared, just like sydney told me she would be. shes really smart and is good at speaking up in lessons and talking to people on the street already! and our other companion is sister davis from northern california who is a bright peppy little redhead. we are kind of an odd group now that i think about it, all with very different strengths and weaknesses, trying to forge our way in this big city all to ourselves now, but somehow we´re doing it. 

 it is just so amazing because this week i honestly just felt a big ability placed on my shoulders, like a strange surge of confidence and potential and optimism. it was one part of me just trying to put on a brave face and make it til i make it, but 99 parts the lord was answering my very fervent prayers this week to be able to lead 2 somewhat noobie sisters when i just got out of training. the spirit really led me to know who we needed to visit and what to teach them, and how to use our time. thats what i was most worried about, that i wouldnt do the work the ´´right´´ way, but really the only right way is through the spirit and doing the Lords work. i had lots of great experiences this week where i would plan to teach someone something, and when we got there, feel like we needed to teach something else that i hadn’t prepared, and id just start talking and the spirit would always give me words i needed to say, even if i didnt have the vocabulary before. and everytime i did that, even if i was scared or nervous, id feel Him testifying to me as i spoke that i had made the right choice. 

mostly this week was just really hurried. i went to maceio for training (which was like 10 minutes of ´´you are a trainer and need to treat them nicely and teach them things- go and do it´´ cool thanks...) and to pick up sister marques. its cool because i got to know a lot of the other sisters in the mission and some of the elders, when before i felt like a big dope because i only knew 3 sisters in the whole mission. the new american sisters that arrived were scared stiffless let me tell you. i hope i didnt look like that when i got here... but i probs did. when they got to the chapel sister gomes came looking for me and said ´´please speak english to them, they’re really freaked out´´ haha poor things.  the weird thing was that i spoke in english to them but it felt so forced... like it wasn’t really my voice or me talking.. idk it was weird. then at the end of the meeting all together presidente asked me to say the prayer and i think he did that to show the american sisters that they really can do this and speak portugeuse. some of the elders who had been too cool to talk to me came up to me after and were asking ´´wait how long have you been out on the mission??´´ and i said 4 months and then i earned a lot of street cred in those moments. 

we had a lesson this week with marcio who bailed on his baptism and we brought a member to try and help him feel more integrated in the branch. but boy did we pick the wrong member. he has more time in the church and more wisdom, and for some reason he thought it was appropriate to take control of the entire lesson and start talking about the premotal existence, the war in heaven, lucifer vs christs plan, the expiatory blood of christ, and lots of other things. the topic of the lesson was qualifications for baptism. i wanted to reach over and flick him in the head the whole 20 minutes he was talking. i sat on my hands. 

anyways dont worry about me too much, the lord sure is taking good care of me!! it sure is hot and sweaty here. everyday i think ´´okay, it cant be any hotter than yesterday. i can do this´´ but everyday i am surprised again. but all that doesnt really matter when you go into a house and get to teach someone that christ loves them and is their savior and is aware of what they’re going through in that exact moment. that feeling makes it all worth it. i hope you guys have a great week. i love you so much!!

sister walker