LEARNING LOTS OF LEADER LESSONS

Some cool and funny things about this week:

-Every day my companion says in a cute Brazilian accent "I'm sweating my butt off" hahahaha I don't know where she learned that phrase.

-We had THE MOST AMAZING churrassco yesterday. I almost cried the bbq was so good. Be jealous dad. ;)

-I made rice pudding for the first time and it was so good. I'm learning how to cook, amazing huh? haha

-I am going to be going on divisions with my old companion this week in Alegrete! wahoooo!

-I showed the sisters a photo of me when I left for the mission and asked them if I have changed and they just said, "You look the same...you just have a tired face now..." hahaha how sad! The mission is working me to the limit.

This cutie braided my hair

Below is my journal entry! Hope you have a great week everybody!!! 

Tuesday, January 5, 2015. 

Today was my 20th birthday! Wow, the time flies. I feel like I turned 16 yesterday. The sisters, Sister Carriel (São Paulo), Sister Saaveda (Peru), and my companion, Sister Coelho dos Santos (Para) made me breakfast – fruit salad. Then they sang Happy Birthday to me in Portuguese, English, and Spanish.  It was super cute. I love them. We then had district meeting and it was hilarious practicing on an elder and being hard investigators for him. The whole district sang happy birthday too and it was great. The day was normal and I forgot it was my birthday many times until Sister Parella (mission Pres. wife) called me. It was such a sweet phone call that I will never forget. She asked me what traditions my family do for birthdays and I told her my mom always makes our favorite meal and she sings and hugs/kisses us like crazy when we wake up. She made me cry telling me happy birthday like my mom would if she was here. Every word she said was exactly what I needed to hear and made me feel so loved and special. She shared with me that I chose to serve this mission before this life and was so excited to come to earth for this specific time in my life. To be a missionary in Brazil and find and teach these people. She expressed how proud and impressed she is with how strong I am, having gone through serious illnesses and other struggles and continuing pressing forward with faith and determination on the mission. She said not many missionaries would have continued. This brought me to tears hearing someone whom I love understanding how hard it was for me to pass through so many difficulties on the mission. She told me how impressed she is now that I am doing well and have overcome so much, grown so much, and now helping other sisters as a sister training leader. She was so cute and sweet telling me that this mission will bless my life forever and that I'll teach my children someday the gospel and strengthen my future family with the testimony and experiences I've gained. She made me feel so special telling me that I'm doing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing in my life and fullfilling exactly what I told Heavenly Father I would do. It was such an amazing conversation. I truly felt like I was talking to my mom. I love being here in Brazil. Sure, there are some tough days, but really this experience is amazing. Once in a lifetime experience that has changed me forever. Sister Parella made me realize how important my birthday really is and how because I was born, many people will change. I never thought of a birthday in this way, but it is so true that each person influences so many people. I am so grateful I came to earth 20 years ago and that I have the opportunity to share the gospel with my brothers and sisters. What a special honor! I love the Gospel. I love being on earth with the church already restored. We have so much to enjoy! I love being Christ's witness. I love being a missionary.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

This week was crazy. It started off with my 20th birthday and ended with an awesome sacrament meeting. What a weird feeling knowing I've officially left my teenage years and I am an adult. The time literally flies. Wednesday and Thursday this week we did divisions with the sisters in our zone.

Divisions in the mud. It smelled so bad!

Sister training leaders go on divisions (or splits) with the other sisters in the mission to make sure everything is going Ok. They check to see if they are teaching/working how they should be, to show them/help them know what they can do better, and then set goals with them and give them feedback and report to the assistants  and the mission president how it went. Let me tell you, I learned tons of things! On Wednesday I went to work with Sis. S. from San Diego, California in her area. It was so much fun serving with an American again. We saw so many miracles, had some funny experiences, and learned a lot together. I love learning things from other sisters. She only has a couple weeks left of her mission, so it was neat learning from her. On Thursday, I left with Sister C. whom I arrived with here in the mission in Brazil. I remembered how she was when I met her in the Sao Paulo airport. She is from Sau Paulo and so I tried practicing Portuguese with her in the airport and she just looked at me like I was speaking Chinese or something and didn't talk to me at all. Ha ha but it was neat to see how much we've both changed. She kept saying, "Wow, you can speak!" ha ha and she's a whole lot nicer. It was so cool teaching with her and learning together. I'm loving this new calling. I'm learning that we really only see half of what the problems are that people really have. Some sisters have been fighting, not doing what they are supposed to be doing, disobeying rules, and are staying at home when they should be out working. I was shocked at how much I was blinded to the many problems some missionaries have. It was cool being able to sit down at the end of the division and talk with them about what they did well and how they can set goals to be better. I love helping the sisters. I am so not perfect and feel so inadequate to be their leader, but God knows all and knows there are sisters who need my help. I'm going to do my best that I can. This week we saw miracles. Really, we see miracles every day, but God has been blessing my companion and I a ton. N. is a woman who married a less active, E. She was invited to attend church by her member friend and so they both attended. Her friend taught her about temples and eternal families and she immediately wanted to learn more and E. wanted to become active again. We have been visiting them and they love the Gospel. They give us a treat and drive us home every time we visit. She has accepted the 23rd of January as her baptismal date and is so excited. E. is working towards baptizing her. They both drank and smoked a lot and started to fight because of the beer but are now stopping their bad habits together. They're such a special couple. E. even fasted to get a job that doesn't make him work on Sundays and he found one. God is so good. We also found another woman, I., by talking to her in the street. She had told us that the elders already visited her a couple of years ago, but we went and visited her. We talked her about the restoration and man it was an amazing lesson. She was asking questions and commenting the whole time. But, the spirit was so powerful. Words were flowing out of our mouths. She could feel it. We challenged her to be baptized on the 23rd too and with shock in her eyes she said yes!! Ahhhh!!! It was so awesome! The spirit is so real and so powerful. On Sunday, we walked by her house to pick her up for church. When we got there, she was all dressed up and ready to go with a huge smile on her face. What happiness! She told us she could hardly wait and woke up super early to prepare lunch so that she could return home after and rest and eat. She also had visitors, but left them to come to church with us. She loved the meetings and we are so excited for her baptism. Some of our baptismal dates fell through, but we still have hope that someday they will be baptized. We are still waiting on the marriage of S. and K.. S. wants to get married, but her husband doesn't want to because he knows she wants to be baptized. We are also teaching her granddaughters. They are so cute. K. and A. are going to have a baby soon and want to be married when it's born, so we are working on that. I feel like I'm going to know a lot of things about marriages, family relationships, and how to solve a lot of problems by the time I finish this mission. Ha ha but things are going great here in Uruguaiana. I love this area and the people here. The work is going great, we are working a ton. I love this special time in my life. Being a missionary of Jesus Christ really is the most amazing feeling, honor, and privilege.

Sister Porter