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Monday, September 22, 2014

A New Opportunity to Love as a Sister Training Leader



September 17, 2014

Oi Família e Amigos!!!

This week flew by and I have a feeling that it will be like this until the end of the mission, because as a Sister Training Leader (STL),  agora [now], I have STL responsibilities to do every single day and that makes the days seem even shorter than they are.  There just isn’t enough time for everything....

This week the zone is going crazy preparing for the coming of Elder Leal of the Seventy! 
He will be coming in to do a training for us and just our zone...... weird. but yeah.   Elder Leal will be coming in and visiting houses and checking area books and maps for cleanliness and all that fun stuff.  Everyone is super uptight this week.  hahaha.  Sister Siedshlag (wife of the mission president) is encouraging all the sisters to dress well and fix our hair and paint our nails and everything... I’m thinking “ woah … I never do that) ... I hope he’s not gonna be checking our nails because my feet are naaaaasty from walking around Brasil.  LOL...

But it’ll be really fun!  ... I hope.  I’m super nervous that he’s going to grill us leaders and I still don’t really know completely how this mission works.  This will be real interesting haha!  But I know we’re not doing anything bad and we’ll just be able to really help grow this zone so it’ll all work out.

I’ll let you know how it goes next week haha.

This week we had our first divisions as STL and it was interesting. i went back to my old area with my old companion haha.  It was cool, but wow I seriously have no idea what to do in this calling.  It was so interesting how really it was normal. Then at the end of the day talking with her and reviewing the day, I asked a few questions and then questions popped into my mind and I asked her and discovered that really she’s having a difficult time with the new sister.  And all of a sudden it was like boom. Vent fest.  I kinda freaked out a little but then I just knew what to say and I felt really good like I actually helped her.  It was interesting because I really don’t like giving advice on the mission because its like dang, I got so many problems with myself and I’m so imperfect, who am I to give advice to others, but at the same time, this time I just felt really good.  I literally felt my calling lift me. and while I’m still super incredibly imperfect and I still got my problems, I knew that a lot of what I was saying wasn’t just me talking trying to tell them what to do, but it was literally the Spirit guiding me to say what the Savior would say.  I truly truly know that our Heavenly Father does NOT call the qualified.  If He did, He’d call Sister Merrill or Sister Beus from Tianguá who literally would be perfect STL’s.  But I know that He calls those who need the call. There is so much I need to learn from these sisters and from this responsibility and I know that He truly qualifies those He calls. I never had to have such a testimony of this until now ... but now I just have to apply this when they make me give trainings and speak and stuff..... ;P

This area is a little tougher than the last haha.  We literally have like 2 or 3 pesquisadores [investigators] and really not many are progredindo [progressing], but we have started switching gears here to Menos Ativos [less active]. and a lot of them are the kind who were baptised as kids and don’t remember anything now 20 years later.  So they are basically new investigators. It’s interesting haha.  I feel really really good about menos ativos [less actives]. I seriously looove loooooove working with them. and I felt from the beginning of my coming to Brasil that Las Vegas was my baptizing mission, but Brasil is my reactivating mission /// and it has been the best, seriously. 

I’m here with Sister McKinney who is my companion and is going home at the end of this transfer.  It’s super strange sometimes.  We are both American, both right at the tail end of our missions and the feelings are so mixed.  haha.  It’s tough when she gets on a roll and starts talking about home and what she’ll do when she gets there – she’s not trunky, but its just strange because I feel like I’m slightly in denial that I’m going home.  haha.  I’m still so darn new here.  I’m still one of those greenies!!  But all the better, it’s going to be the best 2 transfers of my mission!!!

Well, that’s all I have time for right now.  I forgot what else I wanted to say, but what else is new.:?

Oh, I remember, it’s funny because this week alone, there have been 3 or 4 people on the street who, when they see us, they whip out their phones and take pics or record us walking down the street......................... It’s like seriously soooooooo uncomfortable. But hilarious at the same time.  Imagine what they’re thinking -- woah. a blond and a Japonaisa!  hahaha

But anyway, I love you all soooo much and you are all in my prayers every single night!!
I hope Emily is loving school -- in Hawaii … so lucky!
I hope Cami is doing better!
… and Grandma!
… and RUSTY, too.

Love you allll!!!!
-Sister Yoshimoto

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