Hildie

People Say Weird Things

April 26, 2016HildieLeave a comment

This week we tried to work like loco (crazy), and had a lot of interesting experiences. First, Sister R. fell on the sidewalk and scraped all the skin off her knee. Then the next day it got all swollen and crazy so she got a priesthood blessing from our branch president. Then after church someone brought us to the doctor in São Lourenço to get it checked out. She was in a lot of pain, but when we arrived there she felt better, and when they did an x ray it showed that nothing was wrong at all. She got the wound cleaned and we went home. It was a blessing that she felt better almost instantly. the Lord really answers our prayers when we exercise faith. Sister R. also got lice which has been super fun to take care of.

M.–who has been taking the lessons–decided yesterday that he wanted to stay home and drink instead of go to church. This week will be his last chance week, because there are a lot of people we could be focusing on if he doesn’t want to change yet. Our other person taking the lessons, W., is progressing really well! He will be baptized on Wednesday if he can actually stop smoking.

An old man with a walking stick came up to us while we were talking to some investigators, and started telling us that he owns two houses on the beach in Rio, and three houses in Juquitiba and that he was married 5 times and has 7 kids… Then he told us to call him when we need to walk home and he´ll go with us and defend us with his stick. This guy weighs about 70 pounds, so I think we´ll pass.

A drunk brother of a recent convert told us about his desire to get married. He doesn´t want to marry an American or a Banana (women from the area of Brazil called Bahia who are considered really gorgeous) or a Mexican. He wants to marry an old Japanese woman who will stay home and watch soap operas while he goes on the street to drink. A woman who will make food and clean his house (BUT, he said, he´s not racist)… Alrighty then.

Another man said a prayer in one of our lessons but was speaking in slang to God ´Tá ligado , Senhor?´ (“You listening, God?” But it’s a really slang, ghetto kind of phrase.)

Another person told us when he wakes up but is still tired, he´ll go to the bathroom and sleep on the toilet.

People say some weird stuff, but honestly one of the things I like best about being a missionary is getting to know all sorts of people.

Not much happened this week. It´s supposed to finally cool down this week but we´ll see what actually happens.

Muito amor,

Sister Westenhaver

18 April 2016

April 18, 2016HildieLeave a comment

This week we spent a lot of the time at the hospital. Hospitals here are more like urgent care. And the only one they have in Juquitiba is the public hospital, which is inefficient and I´m pretty sure only has 10 medicines to choose from. Here we are riding the bus to the hospital:

So why were we there? Sister R. got bitten by some mosquitoes, and the bites started swelling like crazy, and hurting down to her muscles. So we arrived at the hospital, and the doctor prescribed her two injections to take. In the bum.
“I can´t do them there.”
“….Why?”
“…Because I´m a missionary….”

In reality, injections in the rear just hurt like crazy, and it´s super awkward to hike up your skirt. So instead she got an IV drip.

The next day she didn´t feel any better, and she woke up with big boil things on the bites resembling really bad poison ivy. So after lunch we took the bus to São Lourenço, the next town over. Their hospital was much nicer, the nurses and secretaries courteous and pleasant. However, then Sister R had no choice. She had to get 2 injections in the rear. One on each side.. Oof. Then we had to sit for a few minutes so she could stop feeling dizzy. On the tv in the waiting room was a Jackie Chan movie, very poorly dubbed into português. We started at it absently for a couple minutes, then left to go buy ice cream.

Don´t worry, she´s doing a lot better now.

We had a chance to go to the Sao Paulo temple last week. I’d never been there before at night. It’s always so peaceful inside.

One of our investigators cut us this week when I told him he had two options: salvation, or pinga (alcohol). He said “Eu não query sua ajuda mais. Leave me alone.” He speaks English really well. That hurt a lot.

The next day we went to see him anyways. He said “I´m really sorry…I need your help.” But we were realistic with him and told him if he couldn´t control himself and stop drinking every day, we wouldn´t be able to truly help him. He has to act too. He´s back on track now, and went to church yesterday!

Willian, another investigator, now has 8 days without drinking. If he´s able to stop smoking in the next couple days, we´re gonna baptize him this Sunday!!

I´m excited and loving this work more every day.

Sister Westenhaver

P.S. One thing I noticed this week… The moon waxes on the left here. I can´t figure out why!

P.P.S. Here’s our house. It’s the orange one on the left. We live upstairs (that’s not our car).

11 April 2016

April 11, 2016April 18, 2016HildieLeave a comment

We´re still teaching M., and in addition about 4 or 5 other men. They all drink and smoke. So one day we decided to do something… We took a cigarette from one of them, and went and made chá… Tea… We took out the tobacco and put it in the water and made them drink it. It was hilarious watching their faces as they drank. Then we asked, “So do you want to smoke now?” and they just looked at us in horror. Hopefully that lesson will stick.

Also I forgot to talk about a miracle last week. So our recent convert Rodrigo has been accumulating church clothes. He has 2 ties, one white shirt, and some slacks. Before general conference last week, he was working doing some construction, and worrying because he didn´t have dress shoes. He was thinking, “Will I have to go in my casual clothes then?” Then a couple seconds later he walked a little further into the grass and trees and found a pair of black dress shoes. In the jungle. In his size. So he went to conference all arrumadinho (all dressed up) and loved it. God provides if we have the faith. Seriously.

Also this week we made a contact with a man who, upon discovering we´re American, asked if we´d seen the burial place of Elvis Presley…of all the questions.

We ate in restaurants every day this week because no members had time to make us lunch.. So Thursday we went to a place and sat down and I was super excited to go there because they have sushi. I have not eaten sushi since August. So we discuss the menu. in portuguese. And the waiter hears us talk about sushi and salmon and stuff. And then when I look up to order he says “We´re not going to have any of the Japanese food today.” And I was like… “Huh? So like half of the menu?” “Yes.” He replies. There is nothing on the menu stating that sushi is only available on weekends. It was so disappointing. But then we ordered yummy shrimp and squash soup, so it´s all good.

It´s so hot here… still… it should be cooling down here soon. With all the walking around we do I´m as tan as the Brasileiros now.

–Sister Westenhaver

These are some of the hills we walk up and down all day. Now you know why my legs are getting so strong!

11 April 2016

April 11, 2016April 18, 2016HildieLeave a comment

We´re still teaching Marcinho, and in addition about 4 or 5 other men. They all drink and smoke. So one day we decided to do something… We took a cigarette from one of them, and went and made chá… Tea… We took out the tobacco and put it in the water and made them drink it.

It was hilarious watching their faces as they drank. Then we asked, “So do you want to smoke now?” and they just looked at us in horror. Hopefully that lesson will stick.

Also this week we made a contact with a man who, upon discovering we´re American, asked if we´d seen the burial place of Elvis Presley…of all the questions.

It´s so hot here… still… it should be cooling down here soon. With all the walking around we do I´m as tan as the Brasileiros now.

Sister Westenhaver

These are some of the hills we walk up and down all day. Now you know why my legs are getting so strong!

4 April 2016

April 4, 2016April 9, 2016HildieLeave a comment

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Wow, how great was that General Conference?? I loved every session and every talk. There were so many things that not only I needed to hear, but also our investigators needed. Problem is, only 2 of them went to conference… Sigh.
This week was great. We taught some great lessons and made some progress, but a couple of our investigators are really having problems with stopping drinking. Good thing we have our recent convert, Roberto, who has a testimony of fire and experience with overcoming addiction!
Also, transfer calls went out yesterday. Our mission president is really happy with the work Sister R. and I are doing, so in spite of the fact that she has been in this area for 7 months, she and I will be staying together. Which makes it 3 months that I have had an American companion. It´s a wonder I still speak Portuguese. Just kidding, we speak it a lot.

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Sister R. and I are both really firm, kind of stubborn sisters, so we work really well together with all these investigators with Word of Wisdom problems. I like Sister Rigel a lot. Occasionally we butt heads, but that´s always the case with 2 strong personalities. I think we´re gonna stay friends for a long time.

We found this great new investigator, Elaine, who has 6 kids! She believes what we´ve taught her and so far she´s keeping all the commitments we´ve given her. She even went to conference with us yesterday.
Our work is going forward, and I´m really happy to be here.

Love you all! Keep me informed about what´s going on in your lives!

Sister West

Happy Belated Easter!

March 28, 2016HildieLeave a comment

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This was a good week. We weren´t able to get a ton done because Sister R.´s hip popped out of place. We´re going to the chiropractor after our emailing today.

Our city is celebrating its 51st anniversary this weekend, so there´s been parades and live music and trash all over the streets all week. Also our neighbors just drank and listened to loud music all week. and left the bottles everywhere.

We had a normal day on Easter, but the irmã who made us lunch yesterday gave us each a little box of assorted chocolates, so that was nice! Holidays don´t really mean anything on the mission. They eat chocolate easter eggs here, but they´re incredibly expensive so we bought Kinder eggs instead. Even though they’re from Germany they’re a lot cheaper.

We made lots of visits with our baptism from last week–I’ll call him Roberto– and he helped us out a lot. He knows lots of people in the city, and he has a strong, firm testimony. Yesterday we were teaching a drunk man, and in the middle of talking about Joseph Smith, Roberto just randomly recited the First Vision, and our mouths just hung open… When did he learn that? He told us he remembered from when we taught him. But here´s the thing.. when we taught him about the Restoration, he was high. So that was a miracle.

My legs and feet just are exhausted from this hilly area. And my back hurts a bit. Especially because we did a service project digging a foundation for a house for someone. the buildings are very poorly constructed, so it was just digging out a bunch of dirt to about 3 feet deep. We brought our recent convert to help, and the elders were there too, but it was exhausting. Roberto does work like that a lot, so without him I doubt we would have finished on time. We were both super sore when we were done. But we got there, and at least 4 members of the family we were helping said “You guys can´t do it! Dirt is heavy, and you´re women!” And then when we were working a little girl came up and was like “Why are the sisters working? They´re women.” So of course we were more determined to show that we are actually capable of shoveling dirt and helping, so we worked really hard and got super dirty and sweaty. People´s view of women is totally different here. Did World War II not teach them that women are strong?

We´re teaching a guy named M., and he has a serious drinking problem. but after we taught him about the Atonement and about The Restoration, he stopped. Cold. Turkey. In the middle of church yesterday his hands started shaking and he kept breathing really hard and fast from the withdrawal. So one of the elders gave him a blessing and he felt a bit better. What a brave guy! The Gospel really has the capacity to change lives.

We´re teaching these three ADORABLE little boys who are the sons of one of our former investigators. I´ll try and take a picture of them this week. But we were walking home one night, and their dad´s car pulled up next to us. Their dad was hammered. Driving. With his son in the car. So we coaxed his son out of the car and walked home with him. We couldn´t persuade the dad to leave his car and walk home. We are constantly confronted with serious substance abuse here. But really I´m learning that the grace of Jesus Christ is sufficient to help anyone, no matter how far away they are from God. That our work
really is the work of angels for this people, and that our message has the ability to change eternity for these people. And it´s not me that gets the credit for this. It´s God and the Holy Spirit, working through us.

Some days we walk home through the forest, look up at the crazy bright stars, see the points of firefly light and hear the cicadas, and I think that I am so grateful to be here. I remember in December telling Heavenly Father that I would stick with this until I hit 6 months, and then decide to stay or not, but that He had to make something change for me. And then I hit 6 months and realized that He did His part. I´m staying for sure! it´s gotten a lot better in the last 3 months. I´ll be halfway done before you know it!

I love you so much, everyone! Have a great week!

Sister Westenhaver

21 March 2016

March 21, 2016March 28, 2016HildieLeave a comment

My six month mark of being on a mission just passed!

We had a baptism this week!! This guy, whom I will call Roberto, is someone we´ve been
working with since I got here. He had some addictions to clear up, but once he set his mind to it, he quit, and turned his life around. I´ve never seen faith like he has.

So Friday night we walked around for almost an hour looking for Roberto, and didn´t find him!! Then we said a prayer in the street, and a couple minutes later a young man from our ward found Roberto and made him call us! Then we met and talked with him to see how he was doing. And, wow… He started talking about the Book of Mormon, which he had evidently started reading. He was talking about Lehi´s vision of the tree of life, and all the symbolism, and he understood everything!! He said it was because he prays before reading every time! He was so excited, and we were too, obviously, to see him being more and more truly converted before our very eyes.

The Book of Mormon really is the key to all this. With a testimony of the truthfulness of
the Book, you can know of a surety that Joseph Smith really was a prophet of God, and that is the church of Christ on the earth once more.

Roberto was baptized on Saturday, and confirmed on Sunday. It was amazing! Because we had to spend so much time getting him ready for his baptism, we didn´t really have time to do much else… So this week we´re gonna be making up for a lot of slack.

We also had our interview meeting with Pres Dalton, and Sister Dalton had made us all sugar cookies!! It was so great to eat cookies again! Also, I bought some peanut butter from her a few weeks back (Sam´s Club here sells it), and I finally received it at the meeting. I´ve
been enjoying some great tapioca tortillas with peanut butter and nutella. Yum!

Also, I´m, starting to think that I´ll probably keep making rice and beans when I get home. Such an easy way to fill your plate and it goes with everything.

Our branch president has a borracharia, a place where they repair and change tires. We painted it bright blue as a service project!

Every week I love this work more and more, and I love Christ more and more as I help people to understand his Atonement. Sometimes I think about the fact that I live in Brasil and am actually biligual, and it seems really surreal. But I´m really glad I´m here.

Love,

Sister West

Here’s the living room of my apartment:

Don’t Worry, I’m Alive!

February 29, 2016HildieLeave a comment

So I´m in a new area! It´s a city called Juquitiba which is totally outside the city of São Paulo (it´s pronounced Zhoo-kee-CHEE-buh). It´s very green, very rainy, and muddy. To walk from one end of our area to another would probably take 3 or 4 hours, so we take microônibus, which are Sprinter vans with lots of seats inside.

I don´t miss the city. It smells, there´s trash everywhere, and tons of AWFUL music on every street. This area is DEFINITELY not as rich as the last one, but it´s more tranquil here.

My companion is Sister Rigel, and she´s from Idaho. She´s already been in this area for almost 6 months, so she´ll be heading out soon. she´s funny and easy to get along with. She´s another blonde! She´s a very firm missionary, and doesn´t take any nonsense from investigators. However, she doesn´t like dropping investigators. So there´s quite a few people that have stuck around not progressing for a long time, that in my opinion we should stop teaching, but oh well.

The bairros (neighborhoods) are really separated here so it´s hard to work all of our area in one day. I imagine this is more like what it would be like to serve in the US, except we´re on foot.

We´re teaching a couple great people, one of whom is working really hard to stop drinking, so we´ll see how it goes with getting people ready for baptism. There are a lot of great people here I think, it´s just hard because we have to walk through the forest and up hills to get to them.

Here it´s just a branch, but we´re getting very close to the number we need to become a ward. The branch president is amazing. He really is a selfless man. I really like the people so far.

Don´t worry, I´m wearing plenty of bug spray. Although the people here claim that dengue doesn´t exist in Juquitiba. You asked about Zika but honestly nobody talks about that here.

I think I´m probably gonna be here for a while. It´s way different here than in my last area and the strategies are gonna be completely different to work this area to its potential, but I´m excited!

I live with just my companion, which is different and kind of lonely, but it also means the house has more space and is a lot more organized. We live in the center of town, so all the stores and everything are really close.

It takes 3 hours to get to the main part of the mission. My legs are gonna take some time to get used to all this.

Sister West

22 Feb. 2016

February 22, 2016February 22, 2016HildieLeave a comment

India ZOna Pirangua

Hi Everyone!

Last week it was raining really hard, and a lady came and knocked on our door and said “there´s an animal here, but I have to leave, can you guys take care of it?” And there in our lobby was a cockatiel on the ground. So I picked him up and took care of him for a while, and we gave him to our neighbor. (Did you know I LOVE birds? I do!)

Also the power in the neighborhood went out all that day and we had to go teach people in the dark. Fun!

My feet and legs have been feeling lots better. The new shoes I got are helping but I think they’re finally just getting used to being used so much. And the Lord is blessing us too.

So a member brought her friend to church a couple of weeks ago. He liked church so much that the next week he came by himself and brought a friend. So we taught him the first lesson on Wednesday and he accepted the challenge to be baptized on the 5th of March, saying he really wanted to be baptized. Then we were talking to our district leader and thinking about this guy, and praying, and we decided to ask him to be baptized this Sunday.

So the next day we went to teach him, and the lesson started out rough, like he had tons of weird questions about speaking in tongues and he was arguing with us about the Fall of Adam and Eve, but then we started teaching him about the Gospel of Christ, and repentance. And the Spirit was so strong, and the way the lesson went led perfectly to
the invitation to be baptized. We talked about how he already went to church, liked it a lot, and we knew he was ready to repent and enter God´s fold. Then I said “We, as representatives of Jesus Christ, have the ability to teach people and know when they´re ready to start on this path. So, we want to invite you to be baptized this Sunday.” Complete silence. Then he started crying. It was like, boom, the Spirit just hit him. “Antonio, will you be baptized this Sunday?” And he said “I will.” Then he kept crying. After a couple of seconds, he bowed his head and started saying a prayer, super powerful, saying he would do whatever God asked him to. Then at that point we were all
crying, and it was just amazing. We did it. We followed the Spirit, and were bold. And it paid off. We ended this transfer with a baptism. It really is God that does all this work. We are supposed to just be his mouthpiece. It´s really remarkable. This work is amazing. I love being a missionary.

India Knighton Antonio

Also, almost everyone in my zone is getting whitewashed. That means they´re transferring both members of a companionship at the same time and putting brand-new missionaries. This almost NEVER happens. The assistents to the president called last night and told Sister K. she was getting transferred, and then said “We´ll call Sister
Westenhaver later.” So I thought, great, I´m gonna stay here and train. But then they called and said “Sister Westenhaver you´re being transferred.” And we almost didn´t believe it.

So tomorrow our area is getting 2 new sisters and I will be going….To Juquitiba!!! All I know about this place is that it´s the most rural area of our mission, and it takes about 3 hours to get to meetings at the mission office. So thanks for the bird field guide,
Mom, it´ll definitely come in handy. We´ll see how this goes! Sister K. and I will stay in the same zone, so that´s fun! Also my new companion is ALSO American, which I can´t believe. Stay tuned to know how I´m doing out in the boonies next week.
Apparently people who pass through this area love it!!

I thought you’d like to see the pizza we had this week, It’s half cheese (they put green olives on it too, which I always take off) and half chocolate sauce with m&m’s. The entire crust is stuffed with chocolate sauce, too, so you get dessert built in to your pizza. It’s totally delicious!

This picture below is with me and my companion, Sister K. Also the two other missionaries who live in our apartment, Sister O.and Sister L. They’re very sweet and funny. If you notice, I’m the tallest person in this picture which is pretty funny since I’m only 5’5. People here always tell me I’m tall. Never had that happen before! Yes, I’m getting pretty tan, too. Everyone is the ward says “Nossa, você está ficando morena!” Which means “Dang you´re really tan now.”

Muito amor,

Sister Westenhaver

15 February, 2016

February 15, 2016February 22, 2016HildieLeave a comment

This week was HOT. I shouldn´t start every email like that, but it really was hot. I don´t think an hour passes that I´m not sweaty. The problem here is that we´re in the city and there´s no wind. We´re surrounded by concrete, so it´s kind of like we´re just inside an
oven. I sent a picture of what our area looks like. Other than that, we had a multi-zone conference and I came away feeling super motivated to talk to literally everyone in the street and be super bold and everything. We ate lunch at the meeting, it was all great.

Then, the next day, and over the weekend, I, along with at least 40 other missionaries, got sick from food poisoning or something. Basically half our mission was incapacitated. Yikes. But it´s okay, I´m all better now. I´m just all kinds of sick here. Haha.

But yeah, we´re continuing to work with our awesome married couple, but we´ve had to drop A LOT of uncommitted people this week. We had a great integration activity this weekend, and one member brought a coworker, Rosa, who we taught yesterday, and who accepted a baptismal date. Also, a man that came to church last week came again this week, and brought a friend with him! A friend who has EIGHT kids. Wow, we´re gonna jump on teaching him. It´s much better to baptize families! Families are eternal!

We´ve got some good prospects, but of course I´ll probably get transferred this coming week… Who knows.

We ate some great churrasco yesterday with this awesome family in our ward, who have a daughter, Leticia, who is putting in her papers any day now (i’ll include a picture of her). I love the members here. They´re so kind, funny, and strong in the Gospel. The church really is the same wherever you go. People are great.

I want to bare you my testimony in Portuguese even though most of you won´t understand. Eu sei que Joseph Smith foi um profeta de Deus, e por meio dele a
igreja de Jesus Cristo foi restaurado aqui na Terra. Eu sei que nós temos um profeta hoje, que se chama Thomas S. Monson. Eu sei que Jesus Cristo é nosso Salvador, e que Ele vive. Eu sei que Deus nos conhece e nos ama. Eu sei que se nós seguimos o plano de Deus, nos possamos viver com nossas famílias na presença Dele para sempre. Eu digo estas coisas em nome de Jesus Cristo, Amem.

Muito amor,

Sister Westenhaver

India in Brazil

The Adventures of Sister India Westenhaver on her LDS Mission to Sao Paulo–Interlagos, Brazil

Author: Hildie

People Say Weird Things

18 April 2016

11 April 2016

11 April 2016

4 April 2016

Happy Belated Easter!

21 March 2016

Don’t Worry, I’m Alive!

22 Feb. 2016

15 February, 2016