7.29.2013

Re: missionary time.

please excuse my grammer and spelling mistakes. I am forgetting english. it´s fine.


On Mon, Jul 29, 2013 at 4:44 PM, Eliza Shumway <eliza.shumway@myldsmail.net> wrote:
Hello fam fam.
 
Well where do I start.
 
This week had lots of highs and lots of lows.
 
We found an awesome girl, Kely, Friday before last and she got baptized yesterday:) (picture included) much to her mother´s chagrin however... she´s 23 so she´s fine but her mom didn´t find out until like an hour before her baptism because she works so much and she was not happy. Hopefully we can help her understand it was NOT a bad decision that she made.
This week we found lots of people to start to teach, all of which we invited to church and called probably too many times and so none of them came. (plus it´s at 9:30 in the morning and we didn´t really teach them yet so they don´t know why they should come yet... hopefully they´ll let us talk to them some more...) That really was hard on me that none of them came (about 10 had said they would come. Only Kely came and was baptized after church which was awesome) And I went into the bathroom at church and Rosa, an amazing brazilian lady who served a mission herself was in there and i started to complain about how much work we had did throughout the week and how no one showed up... just fishing for sympathy but to which she said frankly "don´t complain." and left. hah. i love her and soooo needed to hear that. I love brazilians.
 
This week I studied and grew to learn a lot more about my Savior Jesus Christ. If you guys can get a hold of the DVD "Special Witnesses of Jesus Christ" made around 2000 with Pres Hinckley and the apostles, I HIGHLY recommend it. I don´t think we take Jesus Christ as nearly as seriously as we should. I wrote in my `daily testimony` journal last night this entry that i wanted to share with you all.
I love my Savior. He is SO incredible. He was COMPLETELY obedient to Heavenly Father. He wasn´t some servant robot either though--He had so much love for Heavenly Father so He CHOSE to be 100% obedient and He knew of His divine calling to save mankind. There´s so much that can and should be said about Him but what´s most important at least to say right now is that we--no, I have to "come unto" Him (Matthew 11:28)--go up to Him--as best as I can as I learn about Him from the scriptures and profets and try to be like Him and apply His atoning sacrifice in my life. He felt how TIRED we feel along with everything else he felt--something I hadn´t realized before until I read Mosiah 3:7 in Portuguese. The word fatigue in porguese is `cansaço` which hit me as TIREDENESS and I cried on the spot. He felt how TIRED I am. I had never thought of it that way. And man has that made me love Him and feel like I know Him a lot better after that hit me. I love my big brother Jesus Christ. I look forward to the day that I will meet Him face to face. I hope I will live worthily, "D[M]B" as my mom always says (Do Your Best but do my best), so that it will be under good circumstances that I meet Him haha.
 
okie dokie. well I appologize to my grandma for the word `freaking` that i use a lot, I´m still thinking of another one that can mean the same thing and be more missionary appropriate haha.
 
Has Brantley gotten his call yet? Keep me updated on any mission call openings. Put Noah´s mission call opening on facebook or youtube and i´ll try to see if i can get permission to watch it.
 
LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLL
 
Síster Shumway
  



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7.22.2013

Fwd: lovelies.




hey y´all.
sorry, you seem to have a friend who doesn´t love to write emails (me). Last week i didn´t even write one really. I´ll try to make up for it this week. 0.0
 
This next paragraph is an exerpt from my weekly letter to our mission president, Pres Fluckiger: (they aren´t normally like this, if they were i would have definitely given them to you too heh heh)
 
Feeling so blessed and loved by the Lord! Last night, after a full day of church, lunch with members, a baptism (our awesome Péricles) and choir practice, we finally headed out to work with a challenge from the zone leaders of 3 new pesquisadores at 8:45 pm. We really wanted to meet this goal but didn´t know we could as it was so late, but still we headed out with faith. But after talking to and at least handing out cards to everyone we could (which still was very few as it was late and no one was on the streets) we decided to start heading home. At 9:25 we passed a lady holding a cute 3 month old puppy and we asked if we could "dar carinho". We started talking to them, a mom and a daugter and they said that a recent convert of ours was a good friend of theirs. We asked if we could say a quick prayer with them to which they said yes to and motioned to a man standing nearby to join them. The dad was standing near by but we didn´t know he was with them. Sis Gomes said a lovely prayer asking for a special blessing on the dad as he was sick. The spirit was so strong. They then were more than happy to set up an appointment with us to which we will invite our recent convert and their friend. The Lord will bless us when we at least show faith in action!!
 
Well as our lovely quadruple was split up, Sis Duke and Sis Barlow being sent to open up a new area in the middle of the transfer (Sister Barlow´s last until she goes home), it´s just me and my mini-missionary here in Mem Martins. (Sis Gomes, a mini-missionary, just turned 18 and is just seeing what a mission is like and will be out in the field for one transfer, 6 weeks and she is my companion now. She´s from Angola but grew up here in Portugal. She´s a huge blessing to me.) We´re doing fine on our own so far, just learning as we go.
 
The Lord seems to love to bless us, even though we figure out every day things we are doing wrong, like staying in the house WAY too long when we should have been outside working or not filling out papers correctly or having no idea what we are doing. For a long time we had no one to teach so we just were outside looking for people to get their phone numbers and house addresses to continue to talk to and teach. We found to lovely african/portuguese girls (whom "african" love, get it) Arlene and Kelly on Friday though and then they went with us to an activity the Elders put on the next day, and then they went to church with us yesterday, and then to the baptism in the afternoon. We haven´t even taught them an official lesson yet haha. But they seem to have enjoyed what they have experienced so far and we plan on teaching them during the week and inviting them to be baptized this Sunday after church (as investigators only have to go to church twice before being baptized.. crazy i know but i get why now, baptism anyway is just the first step in the gospel, telling God you will follow Him as he cleans you of your sins)  
 
Did you get my post cards? I sent some home. Hoping they showed up.
 
My goal is to memorize a scripture in Portuguese every two days, but some take longer than others. I have memorized already Ether 12:4 (which is my missionary plaque scripture, how is that coming by the way?), Matthew 11:27, D&C 82:10, 2 Timothy 1:7, and am working on Alma 37:36 and Jacob 4:7.
 
I got my birthday package!! Thank you so much!! haha mom you´re so great. What did you have in mind when you put in the mini bungee cords?
 
The flash drive is okay, we took it to a computer fixing store after i emailed last, and got most of the pictures off that had been on there longer. I´ll take it back and see if they can find any more. I´m not deleting my pictures off my camera anymore! haha I´ll just put them on the flash drive like i have been doing and replace the SD chip when it fills up. Whew. (so I didn´t send it to you, so you won+t be getting it. haha.)
 
HOLY cow God loves us and is SOOOO patient with us. We are less than the dust of the earth LITERALLY. We have nooooo room to brag about ANYTHING nor think we are better than ANYONE as we are all pee-ons. hah. But for some weird reason God still seems to love us. And His hand is in the missionary work. Like really.
 
K i freaking love you all. Peace and blessings.
Sis Shumway
 
 
 



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