What? I’m in the last
week of my mission. The last full week
of being a full-time missionary and I think everyone got together and was like,
let’s make the last weeks of Sister Staheli’s mission absolutely INSANE.
1)
I had my last leadership conference and “job
Interview” via skype on the same day where I had to study and present a court
case for BYU professors #InEnglish
#Yikes.
2)
I had 3 sick sisters camped out in our apartment
(7 sisters in total) and sent 2 of them home due to knee and ankle problems and
the other with a possible case of vermes (worms).
3)
Zone choir practices because todo mundo vai
cantar numa (everyone will sing in a) FLASH-MOB
at the mall for Natal. (Did I already
mention that Natal in English means Christmas??)
4)
Gave a talk in one ward and played the piano for
the primary program in another ward. But I think this is the best of them all….
5)
Cleaning and taking all of the stuff out of our
apartment because our mission president found a different place that they liked
better! Yep, so a majority of the last
real p-day was spent moving boxes and lugging water jugs up 2 flights of
stairs!
But really, it still has not hit me that I’ll be headed home
here in a blink of an eye and that I’ll be able to hug my family after 18 months. God has been so good to me. Really sometimes I just sit and marvel at
everything He’s shown me and let me be a part of.
O Pai Celestial E um Deus de milagres. (Heavenly Father is a
God of miracles.)
I have had many miracles, but I’d like to mention a couple from
this week.
Pablos is I think the most elerto rapaz (righteous boy) I’ve ever seen. He’s the friend of several youth in the ward
and just showed up one day. He said that
after going to church for the first time, he felt so good afterward that he
went home and watched videos about the church on You Tube for 3 ½ hours. His family immediately started to ridicule
him and throw around a ton of lies about the church. To which he just gets super irritated and
goes “You don’t know; have you even gone
to church before?” And when we asked
what he thought of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, he just gets quiet and
his eyes get all misty and he just shakes his head like “Woah, I never cry.” He comes from a super well off family, but is
honestly one of the funniest, humblest of people. I can really see how right President Nelson
was when he said that the Lord has placed some of the most special and elect
spirits here in Brasil. |
| I know my mom already posted this pic, but Laura is the one in the red dress |
Laura is actually a girl that was baptized about 7 years ago with her entire family. But there were some family problems and her parents got divorced, and because of a mix up, her mom was hurt and took her children out of the church. Their mom wakes up every day with the same pain and grudge in her heart against her ex-husband - even after these 7 years, she has been unable to forgive him for what happened. Do you know what 7 years of built up, festering pain and hate does to a person? I remember that the first time we went to their house, the tangibility of her grudge was so strong and heavy that after only about 20 minutes, my heart was banging in my chest and I started to feel completely consumed by her pain. I was dying to get out of there. But with every visit over the past few weeks, bit-by-bit, the climate has gotten lighter which has really been the effect of praying as a family and reading the scriptures. And Laura, the youngest, has really suffered from the tension between her parents and her desire to go back to church. She said a prayer that really touched me when she said, “thank you Pai (Father) for sending sister Staheli and Sister Sousa to us, to save my family and give us the hope that one day we’ll be able to forgive and be happy again.”
AND THIS WEEK SHE ASKED IF SHE COULD GO TO CHURCH WITH
US. If that’s not a miracle, I don’t
know what is? God is so amazing. Don’t let one small misunderstanding or
mistake sit and fester. When we hold on
to our hate and grudges, the only one who really suffers in the end is us.
LOVE YOU,
Sister Staheli
 |
| The Oldies heading out |
