A New Calling and Challenge in Maiobão

September 10, 2014

I forgot my paper with your last letters so I don’t remember what I wanted to say in response :( desculpa [excuse me] ... but I did read them and I know that you all had too much fun at 7 Tea Cups and helping Sister Goo cook in Hawaii!!  haha. 

Wow what a week!  .....  I don’t know where to start.  I will just start with some of the fun little highlights of the week.   hahahha

So, the first morning after Preparation Day last week, I was eating an orange and couldn’t find the knife so I grabbed what I could and found a fork..... and I started making cuts in the casca [peel] of the orange to open it and .... I cut my finger.   hahahahaha.

I seriously felt like that one dude who was drying knives by swinging it around.  hahaaha. Everyone asked about my cut up finger and I didn’t want to say how it happened, but then I remembered that this is like normal in my life.  lol

Also this week, I finally fell.  Apparently,  in this mission it’s like tradition that every American will fall  at least once in the mission here, because "we americans are all rich" and used to the fancy life of sidewalks and roads without holes and rocks sticking out everywhere.   hahaha.   So we’re literally always tripping all day every day and its normal.  But this week I finally became a true Brasilianized American missionary and fell.   hahahah.  We were walking and I tripped -- like normal == but it was night time and I didn’t see the raised part and after I tripped with one foot, the other tripped on the same spot so i had nothing left to save me and I fell.  hahaha.  But lucky for me no one saw but the drunk people so they just thought I was one of them.   hahaha.  But my poor companion was so shocked and worried because she was talking to me and all of a sudden I was gone.   hahaha.   She said it was like “That’s So Raven,” the tv show.   hahaha.  I started laughing at myself after I fell and I think she felt better and laughed too but she was still watching me ... to make sure I wouldn’t cry or fall again cause usually the falls of the americans are way worse and they like break something or get a concussion.  haha. amo Brasil.  [I love Brasil]

But okay, now is the fun part: 

I was transferred...........

Super far.

I’m now in

Maiobão 1. 

Instead of Maiobão 2.  Hahahaha.  I was transferred to the other area in the same ward to be with Sister McKinney. She’s from Washington and is finishing the mission this transfer.  So I know for sure I’ll stay here until the end of my mish.  :)))  How lucky,  I will never truly know the heat of Teresina.  muahaahahahha.  But seriously.  I will have spent my mission in the 2 coolest parts of the entire mission.   hahahahha.  I’m seriously so incredibly  blessed.  lol.   But also, these last 2 transfers of my mission will be suuuuuch a growing period of my mission because I’ve been called to be the Sister Training Leader of this zone.  We have 10 sisters. I am sooo incredibly scared.  This will be THE challenge of my mission I think.  I definitely felt something coming because I was really feeling that plateau-ing feeling, again -- the feeling I got before leaving any area, before receiving my visa, before becoming trainer, before Sao Luis.  I knew something was coming but I didn’t feel like I was leaving the ward.  Also, I was really being prepared for this calling this past week or so because I was reading in the Liahona of General Conference -- which is coming up and I’m soooo stoked!!!! -- but I read the talks from the women’s conference which I usually don’t like reading.  I don’t really know why, but I actually really enjoyed it for the first time and I was thinking, “Wow, this is good stuff!” 

Then, I remembered a part of my patriarchal blessing.  Remember how I got 2 blessings because of the recording machine?  Well, I remembered the one part that changed in the 2nd blessing was about me having  a big part in the Relief Society in the right time of my life.  And before now I never really paid much attention to that or to what that truly means but I just thought “cool.”   But now I am thinking, “woah... thats super intense”.  I don’t even like working with other girls. but all of a sudden I just became so aware of how incapable I am of this future calling I will receive.  I felt so worried and so upset that I prayed and thought, “Really, I’m here on the mission and I need to learn to prepare myself for this future plan that God has for me, whatever it may be.  So literally this will be my last final battle to overcome on the mission.  I was excited and ready to make some plans on how to love sisters more and all that, but I still had no idea really how I can do that.  And then the day of transfers I received a call from the mission office and the AP told me of my new calling. 

I was like seriously thinking “what ... sorry elder, but I think you called the wrong sister.”  Seriously, I have always thought this is one calling I will never receive because I am just not that bubbly screaming jumpy happy sister that the STL's all are.  Not that it’s bad to be that, just that they are all so good at it and it just isn’t me haha.  But now that I’m truly studying and preparing to fulfil this calling I’m really starting to feel the weight of it all.  All of these sisters are sisters, cousins, friends, daughters of people somewhere in the world who are praying for them, who are waiting for them to come home, trusting the Lord to take care of them.  Now, I have that responsibility to not just help them in their work, but to make sure they are good, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.  I’ve been called to really just love them and to truly sacrifice my comforts and desires and stubborn judgments and truly make important to me what is important to them, to truly care about what they are going through and what they have to deal with and that is the hardest part for me. 

I’ve been studying a lot about sacrifice since the letter from Travis about his mission.  It really changed how I look at the mission and this is the perfect opportunity I have to apply this, to really sacrifice sleep, comfort zones, time in my area, and really my fears for these sisters.  I know I will feel a huge love for them.  I won’t lie.  I’m still a little nervous and unsure if I can truly love them how I should, but I know that this is exactly what I need before I leave the mission.   I’m so sooooo not excited to give trainings to the entire zone every month, but I know I’ll learn patience and confidence in the Lord, big time.

I’m excited to work and to help this new area grow as well!!!

I can’t wait to see how the Lord will shape me these next two transfers. 

I love the mission with all my heart.

I love this evangelho [gospel].  I love my Savior.  I know that My Heavenly Father is sooo incredibly aware of me and of every single one of His children.

I love you all sooooo much and pray for you all always!!!!!

<333

-Sister Yoshimoto

p.s.  I’m so excited for General Conference! 
I LOVE YOU !!!!!!<33333
ps. I forgot to tell everyone, but Francisco e Irismar finally got married and baptized in Tiangua. Oh my gosh!   I am crying,  I’m so happy!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ll send pics when I get them. :*)))))