New area: Sousa

Goodness gracious a mission is hard! This past week was good, but extremely EXTREMELY hard. I´ve never been this tired in my entire life. My first week at the CTM I thought I knew what the words `hard´ and `tired´ meant.....well i didn~t. We walk all day every day in full sun and ´get absolutely drenched in sweat. I don´t know how many miles we walk, but it is definitely A LOT. At night I fall asleep before I hit the pillow. I don~t really mind the heat too much though...I´m quickly getting back the tan I lost in the CTM. Don~t worry though...I wear sunscreen everyday...mission rule, but even with that I get darker. My feet are trying to adjust to the mission and they are taking their sweet time. I have been wearing my chacos and thank goodness I brought them. They are the best! However, I still have blisters and every night my feet are so swollen I can barely remove my shoes. Today I put on a different pair of shoes that were a little big at one time and had to squeeze into them because my feet are so huge and puffy from walking. The sisters here assured me that the pain and suffering will eventually pass, but that my first transfer will be difficult. One of the Sisters was nice enough to massage my poor feet a couple times this past week. What an angel! The people here in Sousa are very nice. Every person we have talked to is willing to hear our message...but at the same time everyone here is EXTREMELY wishywashy. People say they will do something and then don~t....it is the same story over and over and over again. THe poverty I~ve witnessed while here is Sousa is absolutely incredible. I about burst into tears several times this past week just seeing the things people go through...but don~t worry I~m getting better at holdly back the tears. Some of the children here look like they are about to die of starvation...they are just so extremely skinny and have the swollen belly that is a dead give-away for severe malnutrition. Some places have no doors and the roofs are very crude. However, in the actual city of sousa people get along ok. Yes they are still very poor, but they have running water, doors, and usually a metal gate in front of their house. I´m pretty sure I won~t see carpet until the United States...or feel AC again. THe members here are nice. We are in a branch of about 60 members and it is located in an old building that looks like it could fall apart any minute. A new chapel is being built and it will be completed next August. The members fix us lunch everyday and usually it is delicious....rice, beans, and chicken! There was one lunch this past week that scared me a little. I have no idea what I was eating and didnt dare ask. All I know is that the first bite tasted like vomit BUT I said a quick prayer again over my food and after that I enjoyed it immensely. THe Lord can definitely bless us in all things! The food here is pretty darn good, definitely different but very good. When we have had a hard day we go and get Acai sorvette, which iS AMAZING!!!! Oh goodness...words can~t described how good it is. It is kind of like a mix between sorbet and icecream and is made out of the acai fruit. They put it in a bowl and cover it in granola, bananas, and sweetened condensed milk. DELICIOUS! When you come down you have to try it! I~ve tried a lot of fruit juice down here that is really different, but good! If you havent sent off my package yet be sure to include some american candy! Load up my ipod with lots of church, christmas, and classical music. One girl down here has one and it is amazing how just listening to music for a few minutes can lift your spirit and somehow make everything all better. Well I just miss guys so much! I have to admit I cried a lot this past week, but how can we know the good without the bitter huh:??! KEEP ME IN YOUR PRAYERS!!love you,sister wood

Joao Pessoa-Here I come!

So they are letting me email today! Yay! I~m in my first real area, Sousa which is about 8-9 hours west of Joao Pessoa. I arrived in Joao Pessoa yesterday at about 1pm with about 6 others elders--4 brazilians, 2 americans who were in my district. Joao Pessoa is BEAUTIFUL! The pictures definitely don~t do it justice. I felt like I landed in a tropical paradise! After landing we went to the mission home where we had meetings until about 6:00. Then we had a wonderful dinner at the Presidents house where I met my first companion, SIster Young. Yes she is american. She has about 3 months left in the mission field and speaks amazing portuguese. I just hope she has patience with me! We spent last night in the mission home and then jumped on a bus at 9am this morning headed for Sousa. Sousa is in the middle of a desert and from what I´ve heard one of the hottest places in the mission. I guess I will find out tomorrow! I thought I new what poverty was when I drove through Sao Paulo, but this place is POOR. Many of the houses are about the size of our dining room, and some are just made out of sticks stuck in the ground and covered with black tarp or pieces of sheet metal. And I´ve never seen so many farm animals loose in my life. There are random horses, cows, goats, and chickens that just aimlessly walk the streets. It definitely is a different world down here. I´m very excited though and in good spirits....but please pray for me A LOT this next week because I know it is going to be tough getting adjusted to everything. My companion and I are opening a new area I guess and the church isn~t way big here, but it will be! We live in a nice apartment with two other sisters who are extremely nice! The only sad thing I have to report is that it sounds like Christmas will be late this year for me. The mail is slowwwwww down here and because the postal system is almost constantly going on strike all letters and packages are sent to the mission home in Joao Pessoa. (so my mission home address is my permanent address for my entire mission) I think we only get our mail every transfer...so every 6 weeks I guess. My companion has been waiting for a package for a month and a half! Ill be ok though...át least I get to call you on Christmas!!! Here we have full sun. Luckily at night the temperature goes down quite a bit and there is a light breeze...It is probably only 85 degrees outside right now...very nice compared to midday. My last week at the CTM was awesome! I was asked to give the closing prayer in the fireside on sunday and was worried because it is always a member of the area seventy or a mission president who speaks. Anyway I probably shouldn´t have worried about giving a prayer, but I was...During the fireside I tried to plan out what I was going to say, but then just decided to ask the Lord to bless me and pay more attention to the speaker. When the time arrived for me to say the prayer...I calmly walked up to the stage and the prayer. As soon as I closed the speaker and his wife along with the CTM president and his wife all jumped up to congratulate me. They kept saying, ýou are ready! you are ready. They said my accent was perfect and I was overjoyed, but the praise didn~t end there. As I went back to my seat to collect my things people kept coming up to me and complimenting me on my prayer. Several people said they opened their eyes during the prayer to see if I was really the one speaking...because I guess I sounded like a native brazilian. The elders in my district said as I walked off the stage the head of every brazilian elder popped up...they were all amazed i guess! ha ha.. Anyway, over the next 2 days, no less than 20-25 people came up to me and complimented me. Now I say this not to brag, because I really dont speak portuguese than well, but to show you that the Lord does bless his missionaries with the ability to speak this language! See what is possible with the Lord~s help???!!! Well I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Obviously they don~t have it down here, but it was never one of my favorite holidays...so I dont think I´ll miss it. Like I said I´m doing great. It is wonderful to FINALLY be in MY MISSION! It is awesome to know that I was called to teach these people for a reason. They all seem so happy despite their poverty. The Lord really does bless all his children with what they need to be happy in this life. ~Well I hope you are all in good health and doing great. Sorry that letters will be few and far between. At least emails will be weekly! Give everyone my love and have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I can~t wait to get your email next monday!!!

Last time in CTM

Photo from Luciana Fonseca Fiallo....(right of Ariel)

Sister Wood & Her District

November 18

This past week was good for the most part. We~ve progressed a lot in the language and I feel confident about leaving the CTM next Tuesday. Proselyting in Sao Paulo was an adventure. They dropped us off next to a Catholic Cathedral in the downtown area. Since it is next to a church you would think the area would be great for proselyting....not hardly. The street and plaza were full of illegal venders. Everytime a policeman drove through, everyone packed up their things and hid/ran. It was the most amazing thing to see about 50 illegal venders all of a sudden pack up in 5 seconds and then as soon as the police left the set up shop again. Compared to our proseltying in Casa Verde, Sao Paulo was SOOOOOO HARD. Wow...I~m crying just thinking about it right now. Hardly anyone would listen to our message and those that did only talked to us because we were blonde americans. I think I got more cat calls and vile looks than I~ve ever gotten in my life. I felt more like a piece of meat than a missionary. After 2 hours of getting cat-called, Sister Gricius and I just had a good cry once we returned to the CTM. It is so frustrating when you have a message that you know with all your heart is true and you know it will change a person~s life for the better, yet no one will give you the time of day. The mission will be full of days like that though. I will have my highest highs and lowest lows while on the mission....and I~m looking forward to them both. I~ve grown so much in these past 2 months and I know the next 16 are going to be just as influencial! I love the mission. I can~t believe there was a time in my life that I thought about NOT going on a mission. What a mistake that would have been. Well. My next email will be from Joao Pessoa...and I think my pday will be on Monday once I get there.

Well I~m out of time. Thanks for all the cards in emails. I live for them.
Got to go. Love you all!!!

love,

sister wood

p.s. we did have a blackout here in sao paulo, but the CTM has a generator so we didn~t have light for about 3 seconds...the rest of sao paulo though was completely dark that night!

"Dancing in the Rain"

OLA! Another great week...and once again almost zero time to write.....this is going to be super fast! The CTM is still going great. We are down to about 130 missionaries here which is sOOOO different from when I arrived (400 missionaries). THere are 168 missionaries stuck in the Provo MTC waiting to come to Brazil. There are MAJOR visa problems going on and the president~s wife said many of them will be reassigned to state side missions. SO SAD. Anyway I am very blessed because the VISA problems started happening about 1 1/2 weeks after I left the U.S.! They are only expecting to get 1 american missionary before the end of the year! Crazy!

So since I leave to Joao Pessoa in less than 2 weeks I would probably start sending mail to my Joao Pessoa address! I~ve gotten two letters this week from missionaries serving in Joao Pessoa and they told me a lot about what I am to expect....HOT WEATHER, LOTS OF BUGS, and VERY VERY POOR PEOPLE. THis is really going to be interesting, but I am so excited!!!!

Today we went to the temple again and it was wonderful! I forgot to tell you mom that the temple is surrounded by gardenias...the smell is possibly the best smell in the world...and everytime I walk by one I think of you!!!!

THis Friday we are going proselyting in Downtown Sao Paulo and I am so excited. It is going to be quite an experience so look for to my email next week for the details!

I have brazilian roommates and they are the best! We speak Portuguese with them everytime we are in the room and it is really helping our pronounciation.

I~ve officially become the pianist my branch....and I~ve been playing for musical numbers! All those years of piano lessons are finally paying off!!!

THe poverty in Brazil never ceases to amaze me. Today I saw houses that roaches shouldn~t even live in. And then when we were driving on the highway we passed a boy sleeping on a piece of cardboard in a trash heap. So sad. I~m sure I~ll see worse in Joao Pessoa because everyone tells me Sao Paulo is the richest city in Brazil.

This past week has been pretty much nothing but straight studying. I wake up an hour earlier everyday just so I can fit all my studying in for the day. The amount of information we have to know is overwhelming!!! I~m exhausted everyday, but in a wonderful way. I love being a missionary though....I~ve never been happier or closer to my Savior. When I~m not studying, I~m eating, sleeping, or playing volleyball! We have an hour for gym and I~ve been playing volleyball since I got here. I~m still not very good, but definitely improving. I play with my district and a group of brazilians. SO much fun. My district is honestly my family and I can~t wait to hang out with all of them when I get back! They bring me so much joy and I~m going to be sad when I say goodbye to them in a couple weeks!

Since I~ve been here I~ve made friends with all the branch presidents and CTM presidency. This last Sunday so many of them gave me such wonderful advice about the mission and I just have to say I love elderly missionary couples! They are the best. One branch president told me a quote I really liked and that I think fits me:

Life isn~t about waiting for the storms to pass, it is about learning to dance in the rain.

Time is up! Yikes! I love you all and miss you!!!

love,

sister wood

"Getting my feet wet"

Another great week, but this email is going to be short... they give us so little time. I have LESS than 3 weeks until I leave this place and am getting nervous/excited.

One exciting thing about this last week is that we went proselying! Scary!! Actually it turned out to be an awesome experience. They let my district loose on the streets of casa verde with 4 Books of Mormon a piece. SIster Gricuis and I met so many cool people. Some were interested, some weren~t....it was just nice to get to know people. Our portuguese was pretty darn good and people kept complimenting us on our languages skills! SInce I~m an outgoing person I made sure as soon as we were done talking to one person, we immediately started talking to another. We talked to old ladies, old men, young men, mothers, fathers, children, teenagers....everyone! The best experience of the day is when we were walking up a hill and I saw a woman with her two children coming down. I was a little nervous to talk to her, but I quickly gained the confidence I needed. I stopped her and talked to her about her family for a few minutes and then talked to her about Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon. She was so attentive and had the cutest little girls---ages 3 and 8. During the message I looked down at them and there they were staring up at me with their cute little faces just waiting to see what I would say next. Towards the end of the message I started talking about the love of God for us. I looked into their eyes and all of a sudden felt a rush of warmth overcome me...and I realized how much God really does love his children...all of them. When I realized this I started to tear up and the lady did too. Through my tears I bore my simple testimony..it went something like this: I love you. I don~t know you very well, but I love you..because you are a child of God and he loves you so much. I know I don~t speak Portuguese well, but I just want you to know we have a God in heaven who loves us. Because of that love he sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us. The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. It is so very precious to me. It has blessed my life and the life of my family so much, and I know it will bless yours.

Well after I had us both in tears, she gladly took the Book of Mormon and told me she was going to read it with her family that evening. Before they left we showed the daughters the pictures of Christ in the front of the book. They were so excited. It is so easy to see why God loves the little children...they are so innocent and uncorrupted. Anyway it was a wonderful day. We gave away a total of 5 Books of Mormon ( i had an extra one) and 2 DVDs---finding Faith in Christ and The Restoration. I can~t wait to get out and proselyte again. A week from Friday we are going to Downtown Sao Paulo to do it!! yIKES!!!

Well I wish I could write more...but I~m out of time. I~m doing great...in good health, love this glorious work!!! Eu amo voces!!!

Ate proxima semana!
Sister Wood