What I have learned from the first half of my mission

Sister Little and Sister Cruz

  So....this is the ONLY photo I took on my 9 month mark....sad really, but this is real! I took this foto at 10:30 right before laying down to sleep bc I forgot to take a foto whatsoever. So yup-this is me after 9 months here in Brasil-crazy, red hair, no makeup (I promise that I wear makeup during the day...Promise!), minacura to  get rid of the sunscreen zits, freckled and tan, and HAPPY! Deeply satisfied.

Nine months on a mission has gone by WAY faster than I imagined after that first day in the CTM, but it has made probably 10 YEARS of difference in my life. I have learned how to clean a house like none other (houses in Brasil are WAY harder to clean than ours! I don´t even KNOW how it gets so dirty!!!) I can make edible (gostoso) food out of ANYTHING you have around! I´ve learned how to speak and think and live in another language and culture (most amazing miraculous process to watch in oneself!) I have learned how to be more patient with myself, how to identify and improve my weaknesses with the constant and essential help of my Savior. I´ve learned how to keep going even when it seems quite literally impossible.  I´ve learned how to love people that don´t feel they deserve to be loved, and most importantly, I´ve learned more about the Atonement and how our Savior and Heavenly Parents love us. I´ve learned how the Savior must feel when we don´t accept His sacrifice. I´ve learned of the heartbreak He must feel when we feel unworthy to use what He´s given us. I´ve learned about the PURE JOY that comes from the littlest steps we take and how each one of us can mean so incredibly much to our Heavenly Father.

I was reading this morning my journal from right before I left on a mission, and it´s INCREDIBLE how much I´ve grown and changed. I am more established. I know better what my base is and who I am. I know how to work through problems, and how to just keep hanging on to the rod and take one step at a time when the storm seems to be too much. I´m very different, and I´ve never been so grateful. I´m excited to see where these next 9 months take me and who the Lord has for me to become. I´m excited to see how my mission helps my family one day. I could not be more grateful to know that one day, my husband and I will be  able to raise our children with the background and values we learned on a mission. It was a process of about 8 years to decide to serve a mission, but I would not trade it for the world.  (and it also can´t end....would you believe how many people THIS WEEK have told me that I´ll be going home soon??!!?!?! What kind of bull-huckey is that?!?!?!?!) So yeah-this is my SUPER REAL 9 months on a mission pic!

 

Oh!  And I made lefse! [In the background you see a notebook we put together for her birthday.  It is a collection of recipes from the special women in her life.  Lefse is a Norwegian recipe from her great grandma.  So yeah - Lefse in Brazil!  Love it!]

 

I GOT CALLED BLONDE THIS WEEK!  That's a new one!  AH! Black, to brown, to red, and now BLONDE! Ish! Que é isso?!?!?!

Watch this video!  

All my love,
Sister Little

Helping with flood relief and overcoming discouragement

It´s been raining like CRAZY this last little while. WAY more than normal, houses are flooding and people are losing everything. We live on top of a huge hill (SUPER fun to climb up after a long day, let me tell you ;D), so we´re safe, but there are a lot of people here needing a lot of prayers.  We spent our missionary work meeting time last week bailing out the church full of water bc the roof fell in. I haven't taken my camera out much because it's been so wet, so I don't have many pictures. 

Our week was a sad one. Lots of people who decided they didn´t want what we have to offer.  I´ve been having some pretty intense problems with discouragement and depression these last few weeks. Finally today I'm feeling better. I learned this morning in my studies what it´s been that put me so far over the edge. I´ve put my expecatiaons WAY too high, and imagined that the Lord was feeling the same way I was with my failures. I´ve been listening to a whole pack of lies from Satan about my lack of capacity and how I´m a sinner whose eternal salvation is beyond saving, but finally today, I read some things that broke through the noise, and I´ve been able to feel the Spirit again, and know that it was ME that´s been breaking myself down-the Lord would never do that. 

Anway, tell Cam that I ate a REAL churro this week (and they pronounce it shoohoo-I about died the first time I heard it! XD). FILLED with filling and stuff on top. Google Brazilian churro-deve ter uma foto. AND I saw a capivari...DE VERDADE! I would have caught it to send to him, but the bus driver had better things to do and wasn´t gonna stop and wait for me to snag him.....he´ll have to wait for the  next one to come along. [Cameron jokingly asked her to bring him home a capybara when she first left. Haha! ]

I´m so grateful for eternal families. This is what is more important to me than anything else! I am preparing every minute of everyday to live with my family forever and for the family I will create with my husband one day. THIS is what is most important and this is WHY we have the gospel. Our family here, and our family with Heavenly Father. 

We are so blessed. Even when life is hard, we have everything we need in the Atonement. 

Alma 17:9-11

Alma 26:27-31 (Thank you, Calvin for these two-they´re been my life savers this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Over and over again. You sent me these right before I left when I was nervous, and they were exactly what I needed now!!)

Alma 26:35-36

[Cam's mission call should be arriving anyday, and we had asked Ashley for a stateside and foreign prediction. ] And Cam. I´m feeling the Bahia-HARD CORE! I don´t even what to say a stateside bc I´m so sure! But if it has to be stateside, Boston, so you can speak Portuguese! AND THE 22nd, right!!!! VOU MORRER! [I will die!] That´s a TUESDAY!!!! AH!

Ran into one of my favorite people at the rodoviaria during transfers! 

Love you all tons!  Gotta go! 

Sister Little 

"It was mine."

Ashley around the time of her baptism

 Had a really amazing baptism this Sunday! March 6th. It was very quiet, and I was the only person that knew it happened, but it was as beautiful and powerful as all the others.

It was mine. 

 

Twelve years ago, on March 6th, I was baptized, and then yesterday, twelve years later, I was sitting in a little branch in this teeny-tiny town in Brasil, and I had the chance to eat a tiny piece of bread and drink a little cupinho of water, and renew that promise I made with the same power and potency that it had 12 years ago. I felt that clean feeling, that confirmation of the Spirit run from my head, aaaaaaall the way down me to my toes, and I felt myself in peace. 

My invite for you this week is to pay more attention to the sacrament. You can feel as clean as the day you were baptized, and all of this is possible because of Jesus Christ. My daddy told me this week:

"Today in class with the deacons, I was teaching a lesson on the Atonement.  I love this topic, especially grace.  Amazing!!  Mom shared with me an object lesson that was so cool and really helped visualize the point.  I took 3 quart jars (or you can just use clear cups).  I then put about 1/2 cup of Clorox bleach in one jar, then about 1/4 cup of iodine in the next jar which is dark red, then plain water in the third jar to about half full.  Then I filled the first two jars with water so all three jars were half full.  I then wrote with a marker on the jar with bleach "Jesus" then on the jar with iodine I wrote "SIN" and then I wrote "Us" on the one with just water.

Then I started talking about the plan of salvation.  I talked about the two things that prevent us from returning to Heavenly Father, physical death and spiritual death due to sin.  I then shared that we are born clean and pure like the jar labeled "Us".  The we discussed temptations and the sins that we commit and the impact it has on our pure state (at which time I poured some of the "sin water" into the "Us" jar, and it tainted the clear water to be polluted.  We then talked about the fact that no unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God.  Then we discussed the only thing that can fix us is Christ.  At which time I poured some of the "Christ water" into the "Us" jar.  The water becomes perfectly clear again.  We then talked about how Christ overcame ALL sin.  I then poured the whole jar of "Sin" into the Christ jar and as it pours in, the red liquid turns completely clear.  It is such a power representation of how our lives are washed clean through Christ.  It then led to a very power discussion of the Atonement.   It was so amazing.  I just thought I would share."

This is true in our own lives, and like my mission presiden ttold us last week, just the chance to walk everyday with the Savvior is a miracle, so FEEL that miracle. Let His miracle work inside of you. You will feel at peace, and you will feel strengthened to do the little things and the big things. Even your difficulties will become more desirable. (Because life would just be BORING if there wasn´t opposition.)

Love you all and MAKE it an amazing week!

Sister Little 

PS-  I only took 3 pics this week...it wasn´t SUPER interesting (and I have a good whopper cold, so I have a cara de morte [face of death]....at least that´s what everyone is telling me....)
 

 

HUGE snails! Like, holy cow, Brazil! 

 

Emylly with my nametag! Haha! People LOVE to try on your plaqueta. It´s super cute!

 

I made your pizza crust recipe with vegetable oil instead of olive oil, and sugar instead of honey, and a lot more flour (bc for some reason EVERYTHING I try to make with an American recipe needs more flour), but it totally worked, and it made me happy bc I´m sick, and homemade bread is the only thing I ever want to eat when I´m sick.