Tudo bem (It's All Good): What we needed to change was very obvious, Everything.

I have a new companion, Sister Ermácura! She is from Argentina and has been in the mission just a little more than I have. It´s a little bit refreshing to be working with someone more experienced than I am in the mission. She´s such a powerful missionary, and she´s wicked funny. She speaks English pretty well, because she watched a lot of movies from the US.

Choir Practice

Christmas Program Performance

Sometimes she just says things that I´m like "Oh my goodness. How do you even know that word!" The other day she said. "Sister, don´t you think that´s a little synical (No idea how you spell that...)?" Did I mention she´s super funny? We just laugh all day long. We have so much fun together. Because she is learning English, we speak an absurd amount of English. This helps me prepare for English class, but I end up saying things in English to everyone who has a nametag. It´s rediculous, but I think it´s helping her.

This week has been so full of learning! SO MUCH LEARNING! Sister Ermácura, is absolutely amazing! Ever since she got here I have learned so much about how to improve the work here in Embaré. Our ward has some problems, like any ward, but we don´t know exactly what to do about these problems. We decided to do a "40 days of purification." You start by fasting with the purpose being that Heavenly Father will show you what it is that you need to change in your conduct, in your thoughts, in your habbits, anything that´s not going to help you be a better missionary. We fasted and when we ended our fast, the answer came very fast and clear. The next day was zone conference. President and Sister Cabral taught about the way we need to teach. We are not filling up a bucket with information (at least we shouldn´t be....). We are turning on a lightbulb or inviting the Spirit to teach them. When we feel the Spirit, we need to say a prayer and leave, because what the Spirit will teach in our absence is what will help them to be converted, not convinced. As Sister Cabral was explaining what we were not to do in our lessons, or after our lessons, Sister Ermácura and I just looked at each other in horror. It seemed like she´d actually been in our lesson the day before.

The answer to our prayers about what we needed to change was very obvious. Everything. We haven´t been teaching by the Spirit and no one will recognize us as representatives of Jesus Christ if we continue this way. No one will realize that what we are saying is true if we keep this up. We took to heart the next part of the training from the Cabrals: Abandon traditions. Change. Keep Going. This is a little painful. Seriously when you go about doing what you think is right only to hear that it´s actually not at all how it´s supposed to be, it´s quite a bummer, but we have the comfort of knowing that we can start right today. Every day that we wake up, we have the opportunity to do everything completely different. We don´t have to ever be the same again. That is the miracle of the atonement. So, we are working on doing absolutely everything differently. Sister Cabral sent this comparison on teachign that I really liked and I am going to put it into practice for both my missionary teaching and my english class.