Try Harder

I learned this week that I need to be doing more and trying harder, thus the subject line. We had a training with all the missionaries in Sergipe this week and our mission president challenged all of us to talk to have 10 legitimate conversations with new people every day. Much easier said than done, but we are taking him up on the challenge and it’s been hard but very rewarding so far. We have a lot of visits this week with people that seem genuinely interested in what we have to say and I’m excited to see what happens.

Ran into our hippie friend again this week. He is this random guy in his 20~s that wanders around Brasil and sells his handmade jewelry and poems. Seeing as he is always on the streets, we run into him pretty often and have become friends. Every time we see him, he gives us both another poem. Always something new happening over here. Who knew I’d come back from Brasil with a collection of Portuguese poetry:

Also had our first companionship disagreement this week! I have a really hard time understanding Portuguese over the phone, so when Sister Cruz asked me to call and confirm our lunch I asked her to do it instead(yes, I regret this..). She got frustrated and didn’t talk to me for an hour or so until I finally asked her to explain why she was mad. She had a lot to say, but she told me that she thinks I can be doing more than I am right now. And she is right! I am very grateful she said what she did because it is what I needed to hear. In the beginning, I wasn’t doing as much as her because I didn’t have the language capacity to do so, but now, as my Portuguese is improving, my efforts should be matching hers. I need to get out of the mindset that I can’t communicate and just try as best I can, regardless of the mistakes I’ll inevitably make. In truth, there will always be more of this language to learn and I doubt I will ever feel 100% comfortable with it so I shouldn’t let it keep me from trying harder. After she got it all out and I apologized, Cruz and I went back to being friends again and everything went back to normal. Still SO very grateful for her and that she sees enough potential in me to expect more of me, if that makes sense. We are a lot alike in the ways that make it easy to get along with each other.

Still visiting Marcel and Elenilton, but we are starting to realize they like talking to us more than they actually like the gospel and church itself. We could easily persuade them to be baptized and on paper, everything would look great, but in reality it would be wrong if they didn’t truly have that desire for themselves. We are going to try ant have to cut down the time we spend with them and visit other people instead. But, we’ll see. Could go either way.

Still visiting Junior and Alexandre and they are being so welcomed by the ward here(‘ward’ is just the name of the church congregation that meets here- wards are determined by boundaries so our ward is all of the church members in the nearest neighborhoods of Aracaju). I say it all the time but I absolutely love the ward here and I’m grateful to have people that feel like family when mine is so far away. Someone asked if we get fed every day and the answer is yes! The main meal here is lunch, so every day we have lunch at someone’s house and get to know them and their families. One of my favorite parts of being here.

This email is getting long so I’ll finish it up but thank you all again for the continuous love and support. And also your music suggestions- took note of all of them!! Amo muito cada um de vocês!
Love,

Sister Lauren Mather

PICTURES:
Only picture I took this week was of the stack of flashcards I’ve been making since I arrived and finally got rid of this week! We burned them on our patio in celebration of the fact that I can speak at least a little bit of Portuguese. Really, it was just an excuse for me to burn something... Since we didn’t take any pictures, Cruz and I made a vídeo last night instead :)