Ola Mãe!

So this week was great. I don't have a lot of time to write since it took me so long to read all my emails from you haha:) But we definitely this week had a week of personal challenges and miracles all rolled into one. Our numbers have been really really bad the last few weeks (tipo 5 novos last week), but this week we killed them! We ended with 20 novos and 26 lessons! We found two families and we actually have a teaching pool! Ah, the power of fasting! Monday we had training like all day, and after we emailed and went shopping, and then Sister Sandholtz and I ate at Burger King (well I did, she had this place called Walk to Wok and she just thinks it's hilarious to say that she got Sister Wach to walk to Walk to Wok haha). Then Tuesday we found 8 novos, 6 of them were from two different families, which was awesome, also the Sister Training Leaders came to do divisions with us. I trained with a Brazilian. She was really nice, her name is Sister Almeida. We taught a really powerful lesson to a woman named Carla on Wednesday. Then Wednesday, the sisters from the island of Terceira called and said that S. Caldwell had LICE. She'd just spent Sunday night to Monday with us using our stuff and laying in our beds... so the Brazilians gave us lice checks. I was free of them, but poor Sister Sandholtz had eggs all over her hair. She was a trooper though because then she went and taught a lesson with the sister training leaders lice and all. I would have stayed home and been freaking out. After the sisters left, we called the casal over us medical wise and they told us we could stay in the rest of the evening, and so I spent 5 hours rubbing this delicing oil into S. Sandholtz´s hair and then running a little comb through it. Irmã Alexandra was nice and brought us dinner though. It wasn't so bad. It definitely proves that the mission changes people because there is no way I could have done that before! I didn't even think about barfing. I'm just glad it was me who had to comb them out instead of me with them on my head...:). We only found one alive though and I hope he isn't alive anymore. For once I'm glad that I like my showers so much (I went back to showering twice a day...:)) or else I would have had them also...:). The things we learn in the mission... patience, charity, love, and how to tolerate disgusting situations! Thursday I don't even remember or Friday either... sorry:) The life of a missionary is that you just can't remember anything:). S. Sandholtz asked me what my favorite food was before the mission and I can't even remember...:) Saturday we walked LOTS. We had a really great lesson with a young man named Carlos that we're really excited about, and then we had a lunch appointment with the branch presidente and his wife in the elder´s area and so we walked an hour there and then we had to be in Arrifes and so we like ran the hour back and up the mountain. Mira, the appointment in Arrifes dumped us though, so that was really sad. She said that she was baptized Catholic and that even though it doesn't mean anything to her, we have to respect that.  The rest of the day was great. We taught some really awesome lessons. I've realized something and that is that when we're in the house or that when we're just kind of walking around, it's so hard to be a missionary, but when we're teaching, I love it. Sunday we had church and we had a young man named Andre there. He was really cool. The elders kept telling us we should walk him down to the baptismal font and mark him for baptism during church... he hasn't even had the first lesson;). Then we walked to the very top of Arrifes and we taught a woman named Ascenção who the missionaries taught before. Today, because we're not have a real Pday again (that's 3 out of 4 Pdays that we haven't actually had Pday...) we got up, showered (normally we run, but we decided not to today), and then went and did an hour of studies so that we finished at 8h30. Then we put our PJs back on and we slept from 8h45 until 10h30, it was great:). Then we packed up and now we're just finishing so that we can head to Lisboa! Lisboa will be interesting that's for sure. We're staying for 3 days! I'm excited.

Two other cool things happened this week! We got a referal from the church website (!!!), which never ever happens! and then one of the girls in our branch, Daniella, decided to serve a mission. She'd been swaying on it and she'd been waiting for her patriarchal blessing to come (she'd already had it, but they're really slow at sending out the typed copy) to see what it said, and she was worried about her job (she nannies the american consulate´s kids). But I told her that my blessing didn't say anything about it, but that I'd learned that the mission is something you'll never regret doing but you could always regret not doing. So that was cool.

Well I'm out of time, but I'm gonna write you a letter on the airplanes and the two hour layover we have about my blessing:) and something else this week:).

Com Muito Amor,
Sister Wach

This is Ricki:)  Meg also said that she will be able to look and see if her suitcase was stolen, slashed with a knife and stuff stolen.... this week.  The mission office told me that a claim will be filed for stolen items.  :):):)

 

Ola Mãe!

Sorry, no pictures today! I didn't bring my camera cord again... today was just crazy and I didn't think we were actually gonna get to email so I brought my regular bag instead of my Pday bag with the cord. Talvez next week. I don't have any good pictures. Though I would suggest checking the mail because I sent my SD card and I'm praying really hard that it gets there safely. I sent it on like Thursday, so it should be there soon-ish.

Well, this week has been good. A little bit more towards crazy and exhausting, but good. Today we had a zone conference and so all the missionaries from the other island came (S. Rad and S. Caldwell and the elders) and the sisters spent the night with us. We stayed up talking until way late because we all were in the MTC at the same time and were already friends. We also had popcorn (which I made on the stove, I'm like way pro at it) and watched the funny parts with Korihor in The Testaments. It was like a big sleepover. More sisters (the Sister Training Leaders) are coming tomorrow, for divisions, so it's like one big party here. The conference was good but it took up most of Pday. I needed a nap and I didn't get it. I also wanted to write letters and I didn't get to. I'm never gonna get to write letters or nap during the whole mission! Today was stressful:). Though I did just get a great phone call. It was a private number (meaning a prank call) and I was trying to call someone else and accidentally answered it, and it was this rapaz and he asked how I was and what I was doing and so I asked him who he was and he was like someone who thinks your beautiful and he asked if I had a boyfriend and I told him yes and he said that he thinks we should get together sometime and so I told him we couldn't talk about that but if he ever wanted to talk about Christ and be baptized we could talk (S. Sandholtz was cracking up laughing), but he said no he didn't want to, and so I said sorry, then we couldn't talk then we said goodbye. Saying goodbye takes so long when you talk to Portuguese people. They're like `tchau tchau adeus, obrigada, nada nada, tchau, boa tarde, tchau` it's such a process! But it was hilarious. Convite suave over the telephone anyone?!?! 

This past week was good. S. Sandholtz  and I worked really hard. I don't remember what we did, only that I'm tired haha. We're still teaching João. He's still having problems with the Word of Wisdom and everytime I see him he has a cigarette in his hand. I tell him to drop it and he just gives me this hurt face. Whenever he's with us we don't let him smoke and he's funny about it:).  He also tried to give us coffee. He said if we don't drink it, he's not going to stop smoking haha. I guess he missed the part about coffee not being allowed either. Wednesday we spent all day with the Família Pinto. Irmã had given us a bunch of references and she spent the day going with us to all of them and every single one of them fell through. It was a long day. She's super sweet though and we ended up just knocking on doors and teaching lessons to the people who let us in. None of them wanted to hear more though, so that was kind of stinky, but we ended up teaching 4 lessons with a member present and we ate more fish. Thursday the branch threw a BBQ! We got to go because we took João with us. We even got to wear pants. It was super weird. I played soccer with the Português, which was really fun and supposedly I have a really good kick, E. Brooksby now tells me everytime he sees me that that is what the Portuguese keep saying haha. It was so exhausting and hot though. It was from 9 am until 5 pm, which we didn't know, so we missed a bunch of compromissos. When we got back we showered and we could hardly walk we were so tired. We had the hardest time leaving the house to go back out and work.

We've been teaching some cool people. We're teaching a woman named Mira who is great. She's so free spirited and awesome. She prays all the time and she LOVES the BofM. If only we could get her to come to church! She loves when S. Sandholtz brings her violin though. She's older, like 61, but I love to visit her and hear her ideas about life. She's so full of wisdom, she's just great. I hope that she keeps letting us teach her. She's meeting us at the chapel tomorrow to see it, so I hope that she likes it and will come to church. We're also teaching a man named Isidro that I met and taught the first lesson to last transfer with S. Davis. He missed the compromisso that he had with S. Davis and I though and so he like fell off the face of the earth. But S. Sandholtz and I saw him and so we met with him and taught him the second lesson. He likes everything we say and he's awesome also. We marked him for baptism during that lesson. I invited him to be baptized (convite suave!!!) and he said yes, and so randomly I just said `when?´ (usually S. Sandholtz and I would pray alone and talk about it first) and handed him the phone with the calendar opened. He then said the 28th of September because it's the day before his birthday. He's excited and we let him see the baptismal fonte which he thought was cool. I hope he keeps being interested because he's a great guy. Then we're also teaching, again, a couple named Celia and Nelson. Nelson is inactive and Celia is his girlfriend. They have two little girls and a baby on the way. They're not married and that's what's stopping them from being baptized. The church agreed to pay for the wedding but something happened on the part of Celia and Nelson and the money given was used on something else instead and so they didn't get married. I really hope that everything will work out this time. I really want those two little girls to be raised in the church. We visited them the other day and we asked to say a pray with them, and so Celia had the whole family kneel down and I asked Serena (age 7), (I have a picture of her and her sister Rafeala and their cousin Dolce, which I'll send next time)  who is adorable to pray, and wow, out of the mouth of babes. It was just amazing, and it's what these girls need in their lives. I hope we can help them get it.

I also got a cool blessing from the elders this week, which I don't have time to talk about (I have 3 minutes until my internet shuts off!), but lets just put it at, I know that Heavenly Father really does hear our prayers and he is mindful of all of us!

Have a great week!
Com Muito Amor,
Sister Wach 

 

Ola Mãe! 

I hope all is well at home, thanks for the email and the cute pictures. You'll have to take really good care of Sister Pinto (or Rodrigues in Utah I guess) and give her lots of hugs (her mom always hugs me) and just make sure everything is good because her mom spoils me. She spends whole days helping us teach and she always has food for us. She's always making sure that we have our fruit everyday and she's been helping us apartment shop (talk about stressful). Next week she's taking us to Lagoa do Fogo too and she's taken me all around the whole island! She's taught me some cool recipes and when we didn't shop after I spent all day with her, she like unloaded all her pantry and gave it to me plus leftovers from that day and another. 

Awww, Kim´s baby was born? How awesome that they spent time with you, I'm jealous, it's hard not to be allowed to hold babies:). Aww, I'm so glad Sister Davis´ (Kelsey!!! weird) went well. She emailed me this week and she says that she is going to come over and make arroz e feijão for Dad:). I want to hear her talk! I'm sure she did fabulous:).
Well, this week was good. A little rough just due to settling in with a new companion. Getting used to the area again, the different ways that we learned to be missionaries, our schedules e etc. My new companion is great, I miss Sister Davis though, but if I can't have her, I'm glad to have Sister Sandholtz. She speaks good Português, so that's good because we can figure it out together. We're gonna teach each other. 
Monday though, while I was waiting for her, was really fun, I have some gorgeous pictures, but I think I forgot the cord for my camera. I'm gonna send my SD card to you in the mail though because I filled it up and I've already got a 100 on the other, so it only has space for 3,900 more so I'm sure I'll be sending it home soon;). I learned how to make Levado and some weird soup and how to correctly make the tart that she made S. Davis and I the other day and then they dragged me all over the island. It was fun. I got to see some beautiful beaches and Sete Cidades again in the sunlight and then she helped me teach a lesson. Their family is really great. 
I can't really remember much else of what I did because normally I write in my journal what I've done and then I just read it and tell you, but I haven't written in my journal oops:). But we did our normal activites, we talked with people in the road, we walked lots we taught a few lessons, we had the visita guiada and we had our noite familiar. It was a good week. This week will be good too because the ramo is gonna have a BBQ and we get to go! I'm super excited and the Elders said we can wear regular clothes since we're gonna play soccer! I'm super excited. Not much happened this week. Oh, though we did find out that the mission office in Lisboa got robbed by a recent convert (who was baptized by our new ZL here in the Açores since E. Fuller was transfered), who stole the keys from the mission secretaries (they thought that'd misplaced the keys, and so they'd been leaving the mission office and the chapel unlocked at night!) and the recent convert slit all the suitcases that were there and stole stuff from them. I don't think I had anything valuable, but I might not have any winter clothes, so that's kind of depressing. I'm just hoping my pink coat (and my makeup and contacts) is still there because I have been so so excited to wear it. We won't know what's been stolen until we go back to the continent, which we have no idea when that will be. Could be forever. When we get there we're supposed to go through and see what's missing, that is if I can remember what I even had there. Don't worry though, because I'm not worried, so you don't need to talk to Sister Fluckiger about it haha. Well at least Sister Davis left me enough clothing that I can't complain too much. 
Oh, I have a recipe for you! I was gonna send it in the mail, but I'll just type it out, it's the tart that Imanuel, the son of Irmã Alexandra, made. You'll have to use the internet to calculate the ingredients and translate the words though.
 
Tart dos Três
1 lata leite condensada (condensed milk, 370 g)
2 packotes de natas (I think this is cream 200 g each)~
3 ovos (eggs)
It doesn't call for sugar, but it's way better with it, so 2+ cups of sugar
masa filhada (it's some type of sweet dough that we buy premade here)
mexer tudo
then you put it inside of the dough inside of a pan for 40 minutes
20 mins 200 C
20 mins 170 C
the top should be kind of crusty, if it's not crusty and instead is kind of jello-y it needs more time in the oven
Love you! Until next week! ~
Com Muito Amor,
Sister Wach

 

Oi Mãe! 

Sounds like you had a great week! Ryan's birthday sounds fun! As you know, I'm at the Pinto's house, and I got permission from President to use their computer, so I'm gonna try and be brief because Irmã Pinto is going to teach me how to make strogonoff from scratch! I almost barffed when she cut the chicken. Bones and all.   Irmã Pinto and I are going to go and teach a lesson to a woman named Dolce and her mother Adelena at 7 and I won't be near a computer because Pday ends at 6h30. The Lord´s work needs to be done! Sister Davis is on her way home, you can talk to her and she'll tell you all about what we've been up to! Lot's of fun stuff. She's an amazing woman, you'll love her! She's the second best mother ever! She gave me a great inheritance also (enough clothes to keep me happy until the end of the transfer!;)). I'm really excited for her and what she's going to do at home, and really sad for me because she left me!

Speaking of which, I'm getting my new companion tonight at 8h00! You're not gonna believe who it is! Maybe the name will be familiar to Aunt Cherie. Annie Sandholtz. The one who got her clothes at Ralph Lauren. Boy, is she in for a shock with this accent! The first thing that I'm gonna say to her (in Portuguese of course, but I don't know how to spell, and so I won't embarrass myself) is 'Welcome to the Island! Ready to learn a new language?' We've both been in the mission for the same amount of time, so this is gonna be really interesting, especially since I can hardly understand them myself! Stinky accent. Talking on the phone is especially interesting! 

Well, this week was really good, and really sad too because of Sister Davis leaving. We worked hard and I finally figured out how to lead a contact. Took me long enough, but I realized that it was the reason that I wasn't happy with where I was at, and that with Sister Davis leaving I'd better figure it out. Sister Davis doesn't like contacting, but I found out that I do! Turns out I have some of you and Dad in me! Always talking to random people;). It was sad also because almost all the elders who have been in my district got transferred yesterday too. Elder Fuller got made the Executive Secretary (pois, like we didn't see that coming, he's awesome, I almost cried though when he called and said he was leaving) and then Elder Yarbourgh and Andrade got transfered too. We're getting Elder Rodriguez from the UK, an Elder Wilson who was the Executive Secretary and I don't know the others name, but he's from Cabo Verde. Elder Brooksby stayed though, so I'm glad about that. He's great, he's funny also, he always notices when Sister Davis and I have done something different in our appearance. He has lots of sisters. 

This week we had kind of a hard time with teaching, we taught firm lessons but we didn't find a lot of novos or teach a lot of lessons. It was still really good. We've still been teaching João, who is the one who gave us the potatoes last week, and this week he gave a shirts. He is really worried about Sister Davis leaving because I can't understand a word he says. He's really sweet though.

Well, I have to go, I feel bad that I'm sitting here emailing instead of helping with lunch. Sister Davis can tell you what we've been up to on Sunday. Have a great week! Força!

Love always,

Sister Wach

 

I sent this to Megan in an email (I put it in because it was soo funny):

Just think you will be able to sing the bday song right along with them.  You could get a job there (Braza Grill – a Brazillian bbq restaurant- that's where we took Ryan for his 18th bday) and speak Portuguese to all the return missionaries that come there because they miss speaking/their mission. (like dad - lol - he always makes me smile listening for people speaking Portuguese- one of the things I love about him:)

 Oh, and we skyped with one of the members there in Sao Miguel so that is how the last part goesJ  lol.  Then she responded:

 Haha, I will not be able to sing with them because the Brazilian one is different:) Tell Dad that the Pintos said his Portuguese is horrible, they said he doesn't speak Portuguese, he speaks Brasileiro haha. Oh the people here are so peculiar with their dislike of Brazil:). But I guess they're right, the difference is like British English and American, definitely different:) So, they said my Portuguese is better;)

Ricki:  We got a chuckle out of that.  Chris had a good time skpying and instant messaging with the member.  I just kept smiling.  It was a lot of fun.  Today's technology - amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!