Tuesday, August 26, 2014

August 25, 2014

Oi Familia!

So much happened this week.  We had interviews with Presidente on Tuesday.  I was the first one to be interviewed and when I sat down, Presidente took one look at my information and said, "Sister Dyer.  Você tem muito tempo na missão agora."  My heart just dropped.  I guess it's true, but the way he said it made it seem like he was saying ("Sister Dyer.  You don't have much time left!")  I haven't even hit my one year mark yet!  The interview went well.  I asked Presidente how I can be a better missionary and trainer, in particular.  He told me that when he chooses missionaries to train, he hopes that they will be examples for the missionaries they are training.  He emphasized the importance of exact obedience and following the 12 week program. 

Wednesday, we had district meeting.  Sister Pereira received a blessing and, as we were leaving the room, Sister Arzani rushed in with tears streaming down her cheeks and asked for a blessing as well.  It turns out she had been chewing a lifesaver during personal study and her front tooth fell out (ok, it wasn't exactly her front tooth.  It was a cap that had been placed on her front tooth, which had previously fallen out).  Sister Arzani has had terrible experiences with dentists in the past and is horrified of them. 

After she received a blessing, we called Presidente Soares and explained the situation.  He told Sister Arzani and her companion to go with our bishop to find a trustworthy dentist and get a checkup, and if Sister Arzani felt comfortable letting them work on her teeth, to go ahead and get her tooth done.  If not, she would drive four hours to Natal to see a dentist there. 

Sister Arzani was pretty freaked out as we waited for the bishop to arrive at the church.  To help out (?), the Elders started telling her bad experiences they had had with dentists.  Like the time when one Elder, who hated dentists, bit the dentist, who responded by putting a tool in his mouth to keep him from biting and putting his hands and feet in clasps to keep him from jerking around.  With no way to move or speak, the Elder had no way to communicate to the dentist when he needed to use the bathroom and ended up peeing in his pants while seated on the recliner at the dentist’s office.  In the end, SIster Arzani got her tooth fixed in a matter of hours and returned to district meeting with a smile on her face.

This week we went to visit R., who was baptized Saturday and received the Gift of the Holy Ghost yesterday.  He told us that he had been pulled over by the police the other day because he had been wearing flip flops while riding his motorcycle.  While he was speaking with the policeman, the church Restoration pamphlet that he had in his pocket slipped out and fell onto the side of the road.  He picked it up and when the police official saw the pamphlet, he asked R. what it was.  R. replied that it was a pamphlet from his church.  When the policeman asked R. if he was Mórmon, R. responded in the affirmative.  After hearing this, the policeman let R. go with a warning after R. promised not to wear flip flops again while riding his motorcycle.

The other day, Sister Arzani, Sister Lawrence, and Sister Pereira and I started noticing that the room in our house where our closets were was smelling really bad. At first we thought it was just dirty clothes, but after a few days, the smell was just fowl and so we decided that we would get to the bottom of this case and find the source of the smell.  After "sniffing around" and looking under our closets, we finally found it.  

After bending down to search beneath my closet, I saw a large, dark, dead creature surrounded by blood.  Right away, I cried out, "Encontrei Fred!" (Fred is our rat who loves sneaking into one of our bathrooms, pooping in the shower, and then exiting through the drain again.  But he hadn't left us any presents in a while). However, in the end, it wasn't Fred.  It turns out that a cat in our neck of the woods had kittens and one had gotten into our house, snuck under our closet, and died.  We immediately took all of our stuff out of the room, put the kitten in a bag outside and washed the whole room out until 11 at night (forgive us for breaking the mission rules, but I think that this was an ox in the mire situation)

I was stung by a bee, known as a maribomba, while at the bishop's house on Thursday.  It hurt really badly!  Friday I had a fever and a really bad rash where the bee had stung me.  Saturday, we went out, but I felt sick and we were forced to return home.  Sunday didn't do it for me either.  I asked Bishop for a blessing, but afterwards, I couldn't make it to church, so I ended up staying at the house with Sister Arzani while Sister Pereira and Sister Lawrence went to church and went to proselyte Sunday afternoon. 

I was so desperate for something to do.  After sleeping all morning on Sunday, I needed some mental stimulation.  Call me crazy, but it's true.  I finally resorted to asking Sister Arzani to write a bunch of math problems, mostly algebra, for me to solve.  She wrote 10 down and was way too surprised when I returned and asked her to write some more 3 minutes later.  She finally ended up making some sudoku's for me and we also ended up playing the connect-the-dot square game twice.  I felt like a fubeca (slacker missionary), but it really helped me out.  Hopefully I'll feel better this week.

I love ya’ll and miss ya a bunch!

Te Amo!

Sister Dyer

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