Week 61 - Camaragibe

Dear Family and Friends,

Congrats Rae on your track meet! You are a beast. What events did she run? Why was it already a state track meet? Thanks for the pics! Tell Rae to send me an email!!

This has been a good week. We have been keeping busy and we went to some different parts of our area that we didn’t know before and found some awesome people to teach. We met a woman that works at a kiosk and we stopped to ask her for directions but ended up teaching her about the Book of Mormon and she loved it. She told us how she’s been praying for answers and for direction ever since she left her church that she attended before. She is recently divorced and has a young daughter and just barely moved here. We gave her a Book of Mormon and went back the next day and she had already read a good portion and told us everything that she had learned and had some great questions for us. It was exciting :)

The wedding plans are going good. We went to the wedding office--I don’t know the name in English haha--and got all the information and today they are going there to pay and sign some papers. Last night Bishop went there to talk and plan with them the actual day of the wedding. I hope everything can seriously turn out how we want. At least organized and that it can be a special day for them. They are the best and deserve it. I feel like they are my family here in Brasil. The mom treats us like her daughters.

We did a companion exchange this week and I stayed with a sister missionary from Mexico. It was cool. I want to travel to Mexico someday. It seemed awesome all the things she told me. I could relate a lot with her, her family, her childhood. So it was a lot of fun. I have pictures but I’ll have to send them next week because I don’t have my adapter to send pictures.

Well I love you all and thank you for the email! I hope you all have a great week.

Love,

Sister Bedke

Week 60 - Camaragibe

Dear Family & Friends,

Thank you so much for the emails. You guys help me to be better. Also yesterday I got 3 boxes! Thank you thank you thank you! I love everything! Seriously you guys are the best.

We have had a great week again. I have a few stories for you... ok so first do you guys remember the lady that prayed for us like “please bless these 2 girls that I don’t understand and I think that they don’t understand me either”?  Ok so we decided to go back there. At first I was like what the heck are we doing but when you feel like you need to go back it means you need to go back. So this time she lets us in her house and she opened up and told us about her life. And she has a really sad story.  Her husband left her and her kids are grown up and married so she lives all alone. And she told us that the first time we came she got scared that we were bad people so that’s why she rushed us out the door. But we taught her about the restoration of the gospel and it was such a good lesson. We felt the Spirit so strong and she was so excited to get to know the church. She was busy this Sunday but promised she would come the next. I think I need to read that talk that you mentioned mom because after we left I felt really bad for judging her and thinking that she was crazy when that’s not the case. 

The family we have been teaching is doing pretty good. They need a little more like excitement! I don’t even know. But it seems like things are going slowly with getting the wedding all organized. And it’s one of those things where we can’t do much for them (or else we would) but they have to go and do the paperwork and schedule everything. I don’t even know how it works, I just know that they can’t wait till the last day and expect everything to be ready and done. Dad, are you happy that I’ve learned this lesson haha?  I thought about me and signing up for my college classes and how it just doesn’t work like that. Yesterday we read with them from Alma 40 which talks about life after death. It was so cool to see how the Book of Mormon was the main teacher in the lesson. It can teach 100x better than us anyways. It explains everything so perfectly and simply. The Dad didn’t want to stop reading. I love the Book of Mormon and the Spirit that it brings.

A guy from our ward was telling us about a book-I forget the name- that he read. I think maybe it was the Path to Perfection. He talked a lot about the quote "where much is given, much is required." I’ve been thinking about how blessed I have been in my life starting with my family. I am so grateful for you guys and the example that you have always been in my life. I’m grateful for everything that you have always taught me. I am grateful for how you raised me and the love you both always showed for me. And when I think of all these blessing it helps me to be a better missionary. I have been given so so much, so I need to give more to the Lord and His work. I need to show my gratefulness by being better and serving others. I think the best way to show our love for God is by serving others. I think that’s what makes Him the happiest is when we serve His other children that He loves.

Thank you guys for everything. Love you all so much! I hope by next week I am an Aunt!!!!!! Thinking and praying for you Jess!

Love,

Sister Bedke

 Fresh coconut!

I love them!

Week 59 - Camaragibe

Dear family,

Thank you for the pictures and letters. Congrats Rae for your track meet. I can’t believe that it’s already starting again. Wow time passes by so fast!

A lot has happened this week! I’ll start with the biggest and most exciting. The family that we have been teaching is going to be baptized!! They have made the goal to me married on April 10th and their baptism is going to be the day after on the 11th. I am so excited!!! I’ve always wanted to help someone plan and get married but it always seemed like such an impossible task. But God has been working so many miracles with this family and truly has touched their hearts. They have made night and day changes in their lives. The husband this week told us how grateful he is for our help and that his family is a lot happier now. It is just amazing and I’m super grateful to be a part of it. We still have a lot of things to teach and do but everything will work out. We had a meeting with the Bishop yesterday and he is super willing to help in whatever we need and also the other leaders of the ward.  It’s gonna take a lot of work, but we are excited. Keep this family in your prayers!

Another thing...we had two meetings with President Bigelow in Recife this week for the leaders of the mission. He is awesome. I love listening to him and learning from him. In the first meeting we talked about some of the changes that he wants to make, but the second I liked even more. We had trainings on how to be leaders. I learned so much. He talked about not just being examples, but being models for others. He explained how we can just keep to ourselves and be a perfect example but not always that will make a difference or make someone follow our example. But our role is to help, uplift, inspire, and all those things. I don’t even know how to explain everything that he taught us but it was awesome. We had to do like role plays of how to correct directly but with love. It was really good. The whole day was perfect.

The last thing...  I ate a bug this week!! I still can’t believe that I actually did it and I feel sick when I think about it but I did it! It’s called tanajura so you can look that up on google to see what it was that I ate haha. We were at a family’s house from the ward for a FHE and they showed us all these bugs that they caught to fry and eat later that night. But they said that it’s good to eat raw too. And then the dad and all the boys ate one and asked us if we wanted one and I just thought what the heck I’m only in Brazil one time! It was alive too! So the dad pulled off the wings and legs and I ate it!!! hahahaha It tasted like cheese. It wasn’t that gross, just the fact that it was a bug was gross. I have a video on our cell phone that I need to figure out how to transfer to my pin drive to show you guys. But yeah so now I can say that I’ve eaten a bug!!

Thank you so much for everything. Everything is going great here. The weather is turning into "winter" or a lot of rain. A few nights ago there was a thunder storm in the middle of the night. I woke up to a lot of squealing because the girls I live with aren’t used to thunder and lightning.  Hahaha it was funny. Sister Vasquez made me go to the bathroom with her because she was scared to go alone. But anyways love you guys and hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Sister Bedke

Week 58 - Camaragibe

Dear Family and Friends,

Transfers were yesterday and....I’m staying here!!! Yay! It was nice to not pack my bags this time haha. Sister Vasquez is staying as well so I’m excited for this transfer, it’s gonna be great!!

This week has been a good one, we have kept busy. I got sick for real for the first time on my mission. Don’t worry I’m completely better now, but I had some kind of virus. I don’t even really know what I had, but my skin broke out in a whole bunch of red itchy dots for like 4 days and I had lots of stomach pain. It was really weird, but now I’m fine!

The family that we have been teaching for a while all came to church yesterday!! Usually just the mom comes, but the dad surprised us and was there yesterday too! We’ve been talking to him a lot about faith and putting his trust in God and all the blessings they’ll receive from obeying the commandments.

This week a member gave us a list of like 10 of his friends to visit! I love getting references. I am super impressed with all the missionary minded people that I have met here. His work has a whole bunch of pictures of Christ and stuff from the church and he has a special notebook where he takes the address and name of people who are interested in the pictures. He is the best.

Something funny that happened this week...we were knocking on doors and a lady answered but seemed like she was super busy or running late or something. We asked if we could say a prayer with her before we left so she invited us in. Sister Vasquez started to explain to her how we pray with our arms folded and our eyes closed and that it’s just a conversation with God, but while she was explaining everything the lady thought that it was her prayer, so she already closed her eyes and bowed her head. So I was like uhh did you understand? She pops her head up and stares at us for like 10 seconds without saying anything and then says "ugh lets gets this over with! Dear God thank you for sending these 2 girls. I don’t understand what they are saying and I don’t think that they understand me either but please bless....." I could not stop laughing!! hahaha During the middle of her prayer we were both laughing so hard but trying to control ourselves which just makes you laugh even harder. It was so funny! Also this morning when I was sending those boxes I went to pass my card and put my pin in but the button wasn’t working. It already was taking foreverrrrr so we were all out of patience. The lady that was working there says "let me try" and grabs the machine and yells "GOD IS MORE!" and then pushes the button and it worked hahaha. It was so funny because she was 100% serious. Brazilians are the funniest people ever.

I’ve been learning a lot and focus a lot on always doing Gods will. It is so cool how God answers our prayers and helps us with our righteous desires. Ok for example we have to study at 8 in the morning and at 7:59 I’m busy folding my clothes and I just want to finish real fast before I study. But then I remember that no I’m going to do everything even the little things exactly in Gods way. I know that it’s not about what I want, but about what God wants, and I’m always happier this way anyways.

Ok so I already told you about the boxes, so be looking for those. One box has a pillow case that a lady made for me. You can use it if you want, it’s really pretty!!! But I think that’s all for this week. Love you guys so much!! Thanks for everything!

Love,

Sister Bedke