February 10, 2014: Pajucara

Oi gente! 

One week down in Pajuçara! Sister Morais is way awesome and I already love working with her!  Our area is insane, I seriously just walk around all day saying ´´gosh our area is so cool!´´  because it is.  There is one other set of Sisters working in Pajuçara, who live with us, but our area is big enough for ten sets of missionaries!  It´s seriously HUGE!  Also, the church just barely started here so we only have a little group of members (not even a branch yet) and we meet in a school! HOW SWEET! I dreamed of opening an area and just getting to talk to everyone in the street and tell them how awesome the gospel is and then just watch it grow from ten people to a stake one day... well now is my chance! Haha seriously no one here is familiar with the church so it´s way cool because we are literally laying the ground work and finding all of these people who have just been waiting and preparing to recieve the gospel.  Pajuçara is only like 20 minutes from my last area so I´m still in the same zone and get to see the same missionaries and all so it´s great :). Also everyone here calls Pajuçara, Pajubala because it´s dangerous and there are lots of assaults with guns (I know it´s just getting even cooler).  Sister Morais and I heard gun shots the other day and later when we walked by everyone was out in the street!  It´s crazy!  We also don´t have water a lot of the time because of some problem in the city so we have to shower with a bucket of water and a cup. Pretty much this area is like way exciting and I´m getting the full Ceará experience!  

Okay so it´s hard for me to write names of people for two reasons: 1. they have the strangest names here in Ceará and half the time I can´t remember them 2. we meet with a million people every week and people turn over really fast because there is so much work!  But I will do my very best to discern those who need your prayers and include them in my emails :). This week I would say it is Dina and Erils.  They are way awesome!  They have been together for 11 years and have three kids and he has some drug addiction that they really want help with.  They are seriously like so adorable and just want to be a happy family! and this is when I just absolutely love that I get to be a missionary!  Families are so much more likely to be happy, healthy and loving when founded on the teachings of Christ and right now I get to help found these families in Christ. GAH HOW GREAT!  

My thoughts this week are how awesome that we have a loving Heavenly Father who turns our weaknesses into strengths!  Seriously it amazes me that my mistakes and shortcomings, or challenges and difficulties can be the best learning and growing experiences as I turn to the Lord.  I don´t have to dwell on the negative but can really grow and turn these things into strengths!  How amazing is that?  How wonderful and merciful is our God!

Okay love love

Sister Brittany Westover

Jan.27th, 2014 : All is well in Brazil

Hi hi!  Wow! I feel like this week was ages long and also flew by at the same time!  I guess that what happens when your mind is being totally and completely consumed by something!  And right now my mind is in Brazil, in Portuguese, in the lives of the people living here, in the gospel and it´s just very very busy!  Needless to say I never am on short supply of thoughts haha, I feel like I don´t have enough time to think all of my thoughts! and who ever said that?

So funny story I forgot: a couple weeks ago we had a family in church that we were teaching and the dad is a crack addict.  So it was like a miracle to get them to church.  Was.  We got a call during the second hour saying that Melquesedec (ironic name I know) left church.  Well obviously it was for drugs!  So what do we do? Chase him!  HA!  We literally were running through our little town trying to catch our drug addict investigator!  By the time we got to his house we totally lost him but his aunt was standing outside and told us that he had already come and gone and that when he showed up to the house he didn´t have any pants because he had sold them for money on the street! WHAT??  haha seriously Sister Mometto and I were laughing at that for so long, it´s sad but a little funny.

Yesterday we had a baptism of 5 people!! It was so great!  The miracle family that we found last week was baptized and another member of a recent convert family.  It was so awesome!!  This family that was all baptized yesterday is seriously so dang funny.  They love that I´m from the US and are always asking me stuff about it.  The funny thing is they made the comment one of our fist lessons how crazy that I came all the way from the United States to this tiny little town that we are living in (not even Fortaleza)!  I was thinking about that and how it truly is crazy!  God knew exactly where I needed to come, when I needed to come, and who I needed to have in my path.  So the fact that I am here in Novo Oriente, Ceará, Brasil all the way from West Linn, OR, United States is no coincidence!  I love that.

I think I recieved the rest of the new years letter this last week!  I opened letters today from Uncle Chad, Aunt Cathy, Weslee, Hailey, Blake, Mom and Brooklynn, and the Biancardi´s!  All the other missionaries were like gasping at my giant stack of letters! haha I told them I have really awesome people in my life, I´m so blessed :)

Funny thing, Sister Mometto and I are laughing a lot of the time in the street because we get so dang exhausted from walking in the hot hot sun every day and then we get a little crazy!  Anyway, EVERYONE eats literally the EXACT same thing EVERY day!! haha Everyday we have lunch with members and we have spaghetti noodles, rice, beans, chicken, soda, and maybe potatoes with radishs.  Well Sister Mometto is always saying how she will never eat rice and chicken again because that is all she has eaten for 1 year and 3 months haha.  Earlier this week we had pork with rice at one of our lunch appointments!! Sister Mometto was so happy about the pork that she started yelling in the street ´´hey!  I ate pork today!´´.  Oh my gosh I was dying I was laughing so hard, it made me think of a commercial and really it was just so dang funny that eating pork with rice made us so much more happy than chicken and rice.

My favorite thing is mango!  Everyone knows that I am ´´doida por manga´´  Crazy for mango! So we have mangos, mango juice, mango mousse at our appointments haha I love it!  It´s seriously so good! 

Anway we´ve been trying to focus this week on Christ.  Helaman 5:12 says that we WILL go through trials and we WILL have difficulties, but when we are centered in Christ, when we allow him to be the rock or foundation of our lives, we CANNOT fall!  How amazing!  Of course we will have trials and problems and they will be harder than anyone else knows (they are personal, for our personal growth).  But, when we have a foundation of Christ, we will not fall because we cannot fall.  We will overcome these challenges, these difficulties, the tragedies of life with the one person who overcame all of it, our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ.

I´m so grateful for the opportunity I have to share this message with the people right here in Novo Orient, Ceará, Brasil.

Sister Brittany Westover

January 20th 2014: Crazy Week!

Hey hey de novo!

Man it´s been a crazy week!  I can honestly say I have never worked harder in my entire life!  We are seriously running around this little town all day long in the HOT sun!  It´s a lot of work but so great!  Right now it´s kinda hard for me to say that it´s so great because Sister Mometto got sick and I am like right on the verge so I have like a killer headache and then there is a screaming baby next to me while the mother is trying to nurse it.  So yeah Brazil is kinda different haha but it´s good, I promise!  

HAILEY!! Okay so mom sent me some pictures of you from winter ball and I totally started bawling like a baby!! hahaha sheesh!  You are BEAUTIFUL!!!!  Oh my gosh I like couldn´t look away! dang you are one hot mama. I hope your date knew how lucky he was!

My thoughts are kinda scattered this week but I will be quick!  I am getting more used to Brazil every day and that is a true blessing!  A couple funny things happened this week though: Sister Mometto and I are teaching a family and the dad is literally ALWAYS drunk!  and he is seriously like the most annoying drunk EVER!  He just yells at us and is so disrespectful and doesn´t stop shouting  ughh it´s the worst. Anyway, we try to stop by when he isn´t home! So we were teaching the mom and son and the dad came home half way through our lesson (NOOO).  We were teaching the restoration and it was a really powerful lesson and then he comes in and starts yelling who knows what and is laughing and just so loud!  Anway we make it through the end and ask if we can say a prayer before we leave and he asks us if he can say it (well obviously we couldn´t say no)!  He starts out: everyone close your eyes! He starts his prayer with a lot of hand motions and like excited shouting of Jesus... obviously I did not close my eyes haha.  He then starts praying that ´´these young women will leave their missions and not be so affiliated with their church and put on bikinis and head to the beach!´´ haha! WHAT! Oh my it was quite the prayer... ha needless to say we like ran out of there hahaha.

But we did have a cool experience this week!  We were walking back to our house from a really long day when no one had been home and we were just dead tired and Sister Moetto says to me ´´why can´t we just have a big lighted sign above us and all of the prepared people will come to us?!´´ and literally not 10 seconds later a family starts yelling at us from across the street! We walk over and they ask us to come to their house and share our message with them! WHAT? MIRACLE!  So we visited them on Saturday night and they all came to church on Sunday! So awesome!  Seriously every day just when I am feeling like so low, God just turns around my whole day and makes it so awesome!!  Look for the good! :)

Turns out I can´t send pictures from these computers so maybe one day I will send you my pictures from Brazil but not now unfortunately :/  Sheesh I just have so much love in my heart for you all and hope everything is just wonderful at home!  I opened letters today from Cameron Hadley and Addy!  THANK YOU!  They made me so so happy!! I love you guys!!

Lots and lots of love!

Sister Brittany Westover

Jan. 13, 2014: "I believe in cookies"

Oi! Tudo Bem?  All is well here in Brazil!

So first off I have to say that I seriously have the best friends and family in the whole world!!  I got letters this past week and here we can only open them on pday so today I got to open a letter from Lindsey (Sister Lopez), Sister Jasperson and Eric and then Sister Jasperson also mailed me the letters that I got in Virginia also so I opened letters from Taylor Bloom and Thomas and Cameron!  What the heck! It was like Christmas!!  Seriously it made me so happy I was almost teary, almost.  But HUGE thank you to my peeps back home in the good ole USA who I just love so dang much. You are too good to me!

This week was a big week!!  Not that anything like monumental happened but I feel like I just grew a bunch this week!  My tan lines got a little darker, my face got a few more freckles, my language improved and most importantly I feel like I really for the first time felt like I understand what I am doing here.  It´s hard to be confused all the time and it was really wearing on me to just feel useless here because I don´t understand what is going on haha but this week I really felt like I started to get the hang of the culture, the people of Ceará, the language, and my purpose as a missionary in the midst of all of this! 

I went on splits again with Lizzy (who is so adorable, I just love her to death!) and taught a bunch of lessons during the week where I was the senior companion.  I had a moment of shock when I was teaching with a Brazillian who has been out on her mission the same amount of time as me and I realized that I was leading the lessons and directing the work for the day!  WHAT??  It is super funny because I seriously confuse English and Portuguese all the time!!  When I get really excited or really frustrated or when I start talking fast, I want to speak in English because I can´t express myself very well in Portuguese and all the time I will think that something is happening in one language when it´s really in the other. sheesh, my brain is just confused!  But it´s good I think because I think that I´m improving in the language!  I am kind of teaching Sister Mote English and it´s way funny.  Since we are always talking (in Portuguese) and actually have a relationship I just assumed that she speaks English but then we read the Book of Mormon together (me in Portguese and her in English) and she like can´t say anything and doesn´t understand a thing and it cracks me up!  I always forget.  Also yesterday Larissa looked up my facebook and she wanted to friend request me because I told her that Brooklynn had my account.  But friend request wasn´t an option so she clicked the message option and asked what she should say in the message.  I told her to say whatever, that it didn´t matter, and then looked at me all confused and was like ´´in portuguese??´´ haha I started laughing when I realized that she doesn´t speak English and Brooklynn wouldn´t understand her in Portuguese.  So she typed the word she knows in English: Hi. haha so there you go Brooklynn!

We are teaching a bunch of teenage boys right now and Sister Mote has me sit by them in church because she thinks they all want to sit by the American haha it´s hilarious.  One of them has a less active dad who is an artist and he has the coolest paintings!  He told me he would make me a little one and I am so excited!  Their family is way awesome and we really want to start teaching the mom!  The work has been slow so far (which apparently is abnormal) but I think that it will start to pick up in the next couple weeks.  I have been praying really hard and working really hard so if it´s God`s will I know that we will see miracles!  

Random stuff from Brazil:  I had some yummy fruit this week (mangos, papaya, acerola, other random things)  and this DELICIOUS tapioca stuff.  It´s not like our tapioca, it´s like a tortilla with sand... except edible hahah and then you put butter and cheese or sweetened condensed milk on it... YUM.  Elder Seawell is in my zone so it is a little tender mercy that I get to see him a lot!  On Tuesday he was on an exchange with the assistants and they were working in our area and at the end of the day we got to eat tapioca at a members house and just relax for a second and since the assistant he was with is American too we got to speak English! Ah it was a little piece of heaven. But, I have to say the cookies here are awful.  I didn´t realize what I big sweet tooth I have until now!  I always want some REAL baked goods and theirs are not good hahah.  We always have chocolate wafers in our house and that´s about as good as it gets. But every morning you can smell the fresh bread in all of the stores and it´s the best!  

Okay well that´s my week in a little nutshell!  I LOVE you all SOO MUCH!

Be happy and eat cookies!

Sister Brittany Westover

Week 18: January 6th, 2014

Ola familia! 

 Phew! I feel like my email time is kind of a big breath out from the week haha.  We are running around crazy all day long every day!  Okay so everyone had like a million questions and wants to know what Brazil is like and I don´t even know where to start!  But I made a list during the week of things that explain a little bit what it´s like and maybe after a few weeks you will kind of get the idea.

First off I hope everyone had a happy new years!  We had to be in pretty early for new years because it´s dangerous so we got pizza and soda and had our own little party in the apartment!  I live with my companion and another set of sisters so there are four of us.  They are all Brazilian so I only hear and speak Portuguese all the time!  But luckily I am starting to understand!! Yay! I literally felt like I played guesstures for two weeks straight and let me tell you, I don´t ever want to play that game again haha.  Words are just so much better. Anway, everyone here loves fireworks!  So we went to sleep at the normal time and then woke up at midnight while all the fireworks were going off and watched them out of the windows of our apartment.  It was fun but also a little annoying because everyone here also loves LOUD music.  Needless to say, they were blasting music until like 5 in the morning and we wake up at 6:30 so there wasn´t a whole lot of good sleep.  But all in all it was a good New Years!

It is hot hot hot!  And when it rains it makes it worse because then the sun comes out and all of the water on the ground is evaporating and it´s like walking through a hot tub.  But it´s now pretty normal!  The funny thing is that it can be like perfectly sunny one second and in the next two minutes it will rain enough for the next two weeks!  Like literally it comes out of no where and then just dumps buckets of rain.  I already have a tan line from my chacos (Corinne would be proud haha)!  The other funny thing is the busses!  We ride the onibus a few times a week for meetings or to go into town (we live in like a neighborhood and its 15 minutes from the main city Maracanú).  Everytime we ride the onibus I feel like I´m in Harry Potter on the night bus (I think that´s what it´s called... I forget everything from before my mission and now in English).  But seriously these buses are like PACK FULL and they drive CRAZY so we are rocking back and forth and sometimes I think the whole bus is going to tip over!  They fit like 70 people in a 30 cap. bus.  And we squeeze between other onibuses and buildings with like 2 inches on either side!  Yeah I should have no problem with carsickness when I get home... haha.

Every day we eat rice and beans and chicken (maybe beef) and coke!  Usually it´s pretty good I have no problem eating it.  Usually.  So Sister Mometto and I went to lunch at someone´s house the other day and it was the regular rice and beans and beef and fanta.  We sit down to eat and Sister Mometto wanted to cut her beef so she asked for a fork.  The lady was like ´´Oh I don´t have one!´´ and she picked up the beef and ripped it in two (with her HANDS!!!) and just put one half on Sister Mometto´s plate and the other half back on the pan!! HA! WHAT! Yeah rice and beans was enough for me :)  I prayed way hard that the food was clean enough to eat.  

So I´m doing well!  I still have a TON to learn but every day I can tell that I´m growing.  The people understand me so that´s good!  Yesterday we had a bunch of lessons to teach and not enough time so we went on splits again and I went with one of the girls in the ward.  She is like so adorable and is 16.  I was happy to be with her but also nervous because she didn´t know what to do and I don´t know Portuguese!  But we were just finding new people to teach.  So we just started walking around and talking to everyone who was sitting on their porches and it was so great!  I met tons of new people and did most of the talking!  Everyone loved that I was American and could speak their language and they all were so nice!  It was seriously the greatest feeling to be able to teach lessons and hold conversations with people I didn´t know in PORTUGUESE!  Ah! CRAZY!

Well that´s pretty much my week!  Things are going well and I´m learning and growing tons and tons!  I love you all so much!!

Sister Brittany Westover

Week 17: December 30, 2013

Hey again!

Wow! So much going on!  I forgot my camera cord again this week (oops) so no pictures but probably next week I´ll be able to send some!  Skyping home for Christmas was so so fun!!  The time just flew by way to quickly, as I knew it would, but we got back to work right afterwards and I was able to focus on the language and the people again.  The past 2 weeks have been HARD but GOOD.  Trials are just so dang hard when you are in the midst of them but then they are such a blessing when you see how much you have grown because of them!  Luckily, I have learned A LOT and know that by doing God´s will I am much happier than I would be otherwise!  This work is hard, tiring, frustrating but the blessings are worth every ounce of effort that I give.  I feel like for every little bit more I give I get ten times more.  God knows how difficult it is and He knows exactly how it is going to help me and He never fails to let me know that He is carrying me every step of the way!

I can finally understand the majority of what people are saying! woop woop!  This is like giant leaps and bounds of progress!  It is so weird sometimes how I can just turn my brain off (because translating 24/7 is exhausting) and all I hear is background noise and then when I have collected all of my energy to start paying attention again I just turn that little Portuguese switch back on and all the background noise turns into words! who would have known!?  Every day the mornings are pretty hard but then we get outside and start talking to people and it gets easier and easier and I get more excited as the day goes on.  And very excited for my head to hit the pillow at night (I think I now have record time falling asleep).  Brazil is for sure an adventure!  The culture, the food, the people, the music, the climate, the language! It sure is a lot to take in but way exciting and I`m starting to love it a little more every day :).

So Sunday morning (yesterday) I was having a really hard time and just woke up feeling slow and anxious so I prayed with all of my heart to just be able to make it through the day and be happy!  Well we walk through our little town and pick up all of our investigators for church and drop them off and then go pick up more investigators etc. When we got to church we went on splits with members to save time for picking our investigators.  I was so nervous to just be with a ward member who spoke no English and probably didn´t understand my Portuguese limits but we left and started walking around and what do you know! I understood her! MIRACLE! Mostly my responses consist of noises haha like uh huh (yes) m m (no) and lots of pointing and head shaking to get my point across haha but I could actually speak words to her and I was sooo glad!!  When we were walking back to the church there was an old man in the street and he was just like staring at me and when we got closer I just smiled and said ´´Bom Dia!´´ (everyone here talks to everyone in the rua (street))  and he got the biggest smile on his face and then just kissed the air in front of him! HA! I seriously just started cracking up!!  It was so random and funny but I felt like it was a little tender mercy to brighten my day.  We got to church and randomly President and Sister Fusco were there and just sat with our ward during sacrament meeting and afterwards President Fusco came up to me and said to tell my parents that they (the Fuscos) are very very happy to have me here and that I better tell my parents that or he would call to tell you.  It was super nice of him.  He reminded me to not stress and just enjoy the time!  Later that day we went on splits again and I just went contacting in the street with a Member who served her mission in Argentina.  It was so fun!  The people are all so sweet!

I don´t really even know what to say because it is all so different but every day gets a little better and I am happy!  We are working hard hard hard and teaching lots of lessons but that´s the best thing!  I get to talk to these people, in their language, about Christ and why I´m so far from home during this special time of year.  I love being able to tell them that I´m just leaving me family for a little bit while I get to help other people live with their families for eternity!  I´m so so grateful for this opportunity that I have and for all of the things that I am learning while I´m here!  I can´t believe that I get a whole year (2014) to just serve the people here and give them something that will bring lasting happiness into their lives!  I´m thankful for the time that we have to reflect on our Savior and what he has done for us and this next year I hope to be able to reflect on and apply this into my life more often. 

Everyone think of something that you can do to improve this next year and the person that you are becoming :)

Com muito muito amor

Sister Weste

Christmas day skyping with Sister Westover

(or as the Brazilians call her "Sister Weste")

Week 16: December 24th

Hey!

I don´t even know what to say! haha I understand why everyone who is serving in Brazil sends the shortest emails... I don´t even know how to explain this to anyone!! I´m working harder than I have every worked in my entire life and I´m more exhausted than I´ve ever been, but life is good and I am happy!  Brazil is crazy!  I´m serving just outside of Fortaleza in Maracanaú and am in a little town in part of the city called Novo Oriente Um.  It is really warm (which is actually a relief from the cold winter in Virginia) but pretty much you just get used to sweating all the time.  The people have very simple lives and are just happy all the time!  I´ve seen some really crazy things (cows eating garbage in the streets, 15 yr. old moms, a 30 person bus packed with 70 people etc.) but the best is just getting to talk to people about the gospel! Maybe because that´s like the only thing I can do in Portuguese haha, but also I think because it is way inspiring to watch them be so willing to grow closer to God and how they just have this unconditional trust in the Lord. It´s amazing! My trainer is from São Paulo and doesn´t speak a word of english but she is so awesome and I learn a lot from her every day!  I´m so grateful to be here and celebrate the birth of our Savior! Reflect on what Christmas means to you personally this week and make a small change to be a little better!

Lots of love!

Sister Brittany Westover