Week 10

Hola familia e amigos!!!

This week was soOooOOOoooo different! My companion is a sister training leader, and one of her responsibilities is to go and visit other sisters in different areas to have "splits" (when you switch companions for a day) ! And since I am her companion, I have the pleasure of accompanying her.  This week I traveled a TON.  Which was really nice because I got to sleep on the bus or study Portuguese or the scriptures.  Estava perfeito (was perfect). 

Remember how last week I said I´d be going to Curitiba for a mission tour?  Because of all the crazy political stuff going on in Brasil right now it got rescheduled for the end of October :( I was pretty sad, buuuut it just means there´s something to look forward to!  Also I´m going to Curitiba today for a new missionary meeting!  WHOOHOO- you know what that means?!  It means I can finally pick up letters!  I´m literally so excited for that. (I can only receive letters when I go to Curitiba, like once every 6 weeks).

Fun fact:  "Rio de Janeiro" literally means "River of January."  Pretty strange and funny yeah?

Sister Angulo and I teach some recent-members who are the same ages as my younger brothers- 10 and 12. Every once in a while they ask me what a word in English is.  This week they asked me to say a prayer in English- YALL it was so STRANGE to pray outloud in English! I almost forgot how a normal prayer goes XD  I guess that´s a good thing though, because it means I´m learning Portuguese!

Yesterday my comp and I read a WONDERFUL talk. Todos de voces precisam ler este discourso AGORA (all of y'all need to read this talk now)!!!! "Accepting the Lord´s Will and Timing," by David A. Bednar.  You can probably find it by google, OR you can search for it on lds.org.  I read this talk about 3 weeks ago and it was perfect for what I needed to hear, and I read it again yesterday and again it was perfect! Sooooo I´m >100% certain each of you will find something in it that will touch your hearts and help you feel better.

A brief summary of it is that Elder Bednar shares the experiences of a young married couple and cancer. Elder Bednar poses the Q, "Do you have the faith not to be healed?" Y'all when I read that my heart stopped for a second. It is something I had never thought about before. Normally when I pray, I pray asking Heavenly Father to help me with xxx.  But sometimes (actually always) I should be saying, "Heavenly Father help me understand and have faith to accept whatever outcome Thou hast planned for me."  Elder Bednar goes on to explain that one of the hardest things to do is allign our own will with the will of Heavenly Father.  This is so true.  He explains that strong faith is " submisselvely accepting His will and timing in our lives-even if the outcome is not what we hoped for or wanted." It is so hard to try and have faith like that.  One thing I've found that has helped me is to remember that even if I don't understand everything, I know God has the ´Big Picture.´ If I am going to put my confidence and trust in anyone, who is more perfect than Him and Christ??????????????? 

I promise that as we try our best to press forward everyday with faith in the Lord´s will and timing for our lives, He will help us become better, happier, and have more peace than if we rely on our own efforts.  The whole purpose of our life right now is to learn how to grow closer to Christ so we can return to live with God in never-ending happiness.  

I know He has a perfect plan for each of us.  I know He loves each of us more than we can understand. I wasnt to do all I can right now to make sure I´m worthy to live with Him- and to help the people in Brasil as well :) 

Love y'all lots and lots and lots and lots, 

xo Sister Councill