Sister Katelyn Anderson: Uma Semana Mais! (One more week!)

Olá! I hope everyone´s had a good week!

It´s crazy to think that next time I email, I will be out in the field!! It honestly worries me a quite bit because my Portuguese isn´t where I want it to be, but I know it will work out. Yesterday, the CTM tried something new and we did splits with Brazilian missionaries. So for a couple of hours, Sister Klimes and I split up and got new, Brazilian companions. I was pretty nervous about it, but it ended up being super great! We had lunch together, then planned a lesson together, and then gave the lesson to some "investigators" and it all went super well! There were a couple times where she had to repeat things over and over, but for the most part we were able to communicate! Haha. It gave me more confidence to go out to the field!

So something kind of funny-- I guess I´ve been talking in my sleep a lot and doing weird things in the middle of the night. We have two new Brazilian roommates, Sister Silva and Sister Vicente. I love them both a ton! But I guess I keep waking Sister Silva up in the middle of the night. She told me that one night I kept sitting up in my bed and then laughing and saying something and then laying back down haha. But I guess it was scaring her that I was going to fall out of the bed (I´m on the top bunk) and so she kept getting up to make sure I didn´t fall out haha. She´s so sweet. She speaks a little English and so she always tells me to "sleep with care" or "sleep with the angels" before I go to bed haha.

So I think I´ve talked about this, but every Sunday and Tuesday night we have devotionals. Before the devotional we have choir practice and all of the missionaries get together to learn a song to sing for a musical number-- I love it! And for yesterdays devotional I had to play the piano with the choir and for the opening and closing songs! It was a little nerve wracking, but a lot of fun! It was cool to look out over 200+ missionaries and think of how much goodness and light they are going to bring into peoples´ lives. Sister Snyder who directs the choir was telling me that President Grahl was telling her how he believes angels comes down and sing with the missionaries and I have to agree with that. The spirit is so strong when you hear so many missionaries singing together.

On Sunday, because it was fast Sunday, we had a special CTM Conference in the morning and it was so good. I´ve been having a hard time with a couple of things, but the messages that were shared were EXACTLY what I needed. God is so aware of us and our needs. But anyways, there was something that stood out to me so strongly and will probably be something I´ll hold on to for the rest of my life. One of the speakers had us watch a video with parts from talks by Elder Holland and President Eyring. Elder Holland was talking about how hard missionary work can be-- but the reason it is so hard is because salvation was never easy. Christ suffered for us, more than we can ever imagine so we can be saved. We´re not meant to go through life without feeling at least a little bit of what He felt-- without shedding at least one of the tears of sorrow that He shed. And then the video went to a clip from President Eyring and this is what hit me so hard-- When life gets hard, when we´re struggling and want to quit, remember Him. Remember Christ. I realized that when we are going through trials but choose to remember Him, it suddenly makes those hard things okay. Because He has felt exactly what we´re going through. And when we share some of that suffering and pain with Christ, it´s only going to bring us closer to Him. And I want nothing more than to be close to my Savior.

I love you all!

Ate mais!

Sister Anderson