Monday, February 11, 2013

Katie's Feb 11 email

Boa tarde, familia! Tudo bem? Como vocês estão?

I cannot believe it´s already been another week... my goodness time is flying. I feel like I just barely wrote and everything is the same.. haha I´ll try to think of some stories.

First off, how are each of you? Please keep the pictures of Bentley coming! What a little cutie. Oh I can´t wait to just mush him and love him everyday! So fun. Love all the stories and updates. Why is everybody sick?! Bah! I hope you all get feeling better soon.. that´s no fun. Bec, thank you for your email! It´s so great to hear from you! Oh all you cute faces.. I miss you! But glad to hear everyone is well. How is school and work going? Can you believe it´s February?! Sheesh. Tell me more of what´s happening, alright?

I got a letter from mission ties last week with pictures of baby :) So fun. Thank you! Also, got a letter from Grandma Carol which was so sweet. Thank you, Grandma! I´m still horribly behind on letters so bear with me for a little while...

Well, this week was good! We´re teaching a lot and we have some really good people we´re working with right now. A few.. but we´re struggling with our group right now because nobody is really progressing. And those who are progressing are progressing very very slowly. So it´s been difficult because many are ready and they want to move forward, but they have fear or hold ups somewhere and are not moving. We´ve been trying this week to focus again on finding new people. We´re working in different areas and different neighborhoods to try to find people who are ready for the Gospel, but it´s proving to be a very difficult task. So so many people we talked to this week either have already met with the missionaries and aren´t interested, or met with the missionaries and think it´s all good but aren´t willing to change, or are already baptized and have left the church for various reasons... bah. It´s been a challenge. But not a challenge that we can´t handle with the Lord´s help. So we´re just striving to do everything we need to be doing in order to be worthy of the Lord´s help so that we can find the right people and really begin to do what we´ve been sent here to do.

I´ve been studying a lot about faith this week. And been doing a lot of searching.. searching my heart, searching the scriptures. My companion and I have been talking a lot this week about how we can have more `fogo nos ossos´ or fire in the bones´.. how we can have more desire and passion to be doing what we´re doing. Some days we´ve been walking around just doing what we need to do, without really remembering why exactly we´re doing it, or remembering how important this work is. That´s been a lot of our focus this week is trying to really focus on what we´re doing and how we can best help this people. To genuinely lose ourself in this work, so begin to love the people more fully, and to be in tune enough with the Spirit to know how to help them. It´s a work in progress. Hopefully this week we´ll get better.

This morning we studied a talk called ´´A Four Missionary´´ (I think) and it´s so powerful! It talks all about becoming who we want to be. To creating a vision of the kind of person we want to be, and then acting on the vision and doing everything we can to strive to be that person every day, every moment, in everything that we do. And as we do that, then soon it will become our nature and we´ll genuinely be that person. I´m going to be focusing on that this week as well.. really striving everyday to become the kind of missionary I thought I would be and that I want to be.

Man, I´m boring this week! Sorry... I´m completely exhausted in every way :)

I finally tried matte (not sure how to spell it..) yesterday.. it´s a drink here that EVERYONE drinks all the time. I dont know how to explain it very well.. (lookit up on google), but it´s essentially this green herb or plant stuff that they put in these certain type of cups and then hot water and drink it... horrible explanation haha sorry. Look it up. But it´s the thing here. And everyone just passes it around and drinks out of it. So yesterday we were at a member´s house and they made me try it... they were trying to explain exactly what the green stuff was, and ignorant me was pointing outside at the grass and asking how to say that because it looks like shredded up grass... when they realized what I was getting at the whole room was rolling and saying, no no no no! You can´t call it that! Apparently it´s very offensive to the Gauchan (I don´t think that´s a word...) culture to say they´re drinking grass, `the food of cows´as they said... haha oops :) But I tasted it.. and it is grass. I´m convinced. Looks and tastes like grass. It´s gross. But, it´s a huge part of the culture, so I had to try it. Maybe one day I´ll learn to like it..... then I´ll be a true Gaucha!

I think we´re going to start teaching English this week... hoping it´ll help us find new people! I have no idea how to teach english though... it´ll be an adventure! I´ve also been asked to teach a few members how to play the piano... we´ll have to see how that goes too!

Okay, going to cut it here because I´m just as boring as boring can be. I´ll send some pictures to make up for it :)

I love you, cute family! I pray for you every day. I hope you can feel my love and prayers being sent your way! You are the best ever examples to me. Thank you for your faith! You are an inspiration to me and I look to your letters and examples often for advice and how to handle situations. You are such a blessing to me! I LOVE YOU! Have a most wonderful week!

Until next week...

Sister Kane
Xoxo!

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