Brealynn’s Mission

Well its my last letter. I am at a loss for words. It has gone so fast and I am so glad for these experiences that I have had. I am glad that I still have one more week to see miracles. I will have the opportunity to share my last testimony here in brasil on Sunday and I know that I will just cry and cry. But there is a time for everything.  I am so grateful for everything that i have learned here. I am so happy that I have met so many great peolpe. I LOVE BRASIL WITH ALL MY HEART! . I LOVE THIS MISSION. I sent my flight plan to you. Until next Wednesday :) Love you all.  Sister Jacobson

This week was great. Like Daniel I don´t really know why, but it just was. We have been working so hard in the sun and rain that every day we get home exhausted and either covered in sweat or mud.  Its weird to think that I will only be doing this for two more weeks. It is really sad to think about. The hard part is that I am trying to not think about it and just work, but everyone keeps reminding me that my time is slipping away. So the hard thing is that I need to really push myself to work and not just hang out with the people i love. I am really happying to be serving in the area. It is the hardest one I have served in, but I feel that I have grown so much. At least I hope so.  These last few days have been full of mental reflection of everything that have happened. Question like ´´Have I changed?´´ ``Did I do my part?´´ ´´Is God happy with my service?´´ or ´´Am I a better person, daughter, sister, friend because of what I have learned here?´´ have been swirling around...

This week has been a growing experience for me. I have learned so much. We had a zone conference this week and we learned about how to be consecrated missionaries. (I am having a really hard time spelling in English so just ignore the mistakes).  It was a really good conference for me because I have been trying so hard to not be  a ´´dying missionary´´ and it was an opportunity for me to see the things i need to do to be better. The Mission President´s wife spoke to me afterward to thank me for my service and to thank me for being a consecrated missionary. With these words i started to cry because these past weeks i have really been questioning if I have been doing everything I can. If I have done what the Lord sent me to do. I love my President and his wife. We had a GREAT ward activity. It was a all you can eat ice cream night. It was crazy. We had so many less actives that participated and some investigators too. Wow it was crazy. I don´t even know how to describe it. O...

Well apparently I can´t leave Brasil without a few more sick days. hahaha So this week was great and rough.  I started to feel really sick Tuesday night but nope we have to keep working. Of course it started raining so my cold got a little worse. But Wednesday I was pratically sleeping during all the lessons and just not feeling well. Thursday morning we had surprise interviews with Presidente and he just said, ´´is there anything i can do for you other then send you to the hospital?´´ So he sent me to the hospital. The hospital is always a great experience because i really don´t understand medical terms in English so in Portuguese its just funny. But my companion helped me alot. I ended up getting an MRI to look at my sinuses and my lungs and the conclusion of the story is that i had a really bad sinus infection.  I was given a bunch of medicine and set to bed rest. Two days in the house feel like an eternity. I was dying to leave so Saturday and Sunday everything was b...

Well i recieved my final transfer call last night. It is official that i will die in José Américo 2 with my companion Sister Silva. I am happy. I reallly like this area. it is really hard but i love it. My companion is happy to stay with me, but at the same time she is really sad because she already has one year in the mission field and she is the junior companion. She feels like president has forgotten about her. So part of me feels really bad that she is companions with me, but at the same time I love her so it will be fun.  This week we spent a bit of time in the doctors. My companion was sick with a virius that I think I am coming down with too, but it passed really fast and we were still able to work so that is good.  We had a great week. We fasted almost every day to try and have more results in our area. It was a great feeling, but wow did we get hungry. hahaha. We have been working really hard with a family of less actives that are finally starting to come back to ...

Wow I almost logged off without sending anything. Sorry! This week has been good. A little frustrating. I feel like I relate really well to the stories Daniel tells about running to church late with no investigators. There isn´t anything more frustrating. But I know that the lord is testing everything that i have learning the the past few months to see if i can apply everything that i have learned. and it is hard, but i know it will all be worth it.  i love you all hugs!! sister jacobson

This week was really good and really hard at the same time. Me and my companion feel like we are on a stretching board and we are almost at our maximum, but we are praying and working hard.  This area is really great. Just really different than my other areas. I love the members and my companion is really great.  I don´t really have much to say this week.  I love you all and really appreciate any and all support and advice :)  sister Jacobson Skype this week :)

This week we had a miracle happen.  Our area is really difficult in regards to finding people to teach. So me and my companion have been choosing streets to do tracting, knocking on all the doors and stopping all people in the rua. Every night we pray about roads until we pick two of the same ones, and then all the next day we do everything to get into every house. Well last week we went to a road and only one old woman opened the door to let us in. She was really sweet, but really didn´t want to go to church or anything. So okay no problem and we left.  Well after two weeks of pretty much the same thing, knocking on doors, not finding people to teach, we got a call from the Bishop. He had recieved a reference from a member in another ward. YAY!! REFERENCES ARE THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD.  We practically went prancing and dancing until we got to the road. When we got to the road we stopped because it was a road that we had knocked on all the doors. But okay its a r...

I will stay here in José Américo with Sister Silva. I am happy. I love this area. It is not the easiest place to be but I love the members and they are really starting to like us and that makes all the difference. So this week the heavens have been falling. There is so much water everywhere that we are just soaking wet from head to toe all day. It is the closest I get to feeling cold. Its a nice feeling. hahahaha But its still like 76 degress when its ´´cold´´.  This week was actually a really big learning experience. Me and my companion have been having a small problem with one of the other sisters we live with and we were getting really frustrated about some of her attitudes and they way she treated us. But we decided to just let it go and go to work. Well at first it was REALLY HARD! But little by little we were able to just work and forget about it. Well the best day was Sunday because we were able to just work and talk with some leaders about our feelings and they reassure...

My week was really good. Nothing really different. My companion is great and our area is good. I learned a really cool lesson this week that I want to share as my letter today.  We all know the story found in Luke 5 about the friends who lowered the lame man into the house where Jesus was teaching. In this story we know that there were so many people that there wasn´t room to enter in the door. So these four faithful friends started to take away all the tiling from the roof to carefully, evenly lower their suffering friend into the arms of Christ. Immediately when Jesus saw the faithfulness of the friends he forgave the sins of the lame man and then healed him. The next part of the story says everyone got up and left, pondering about the things that they had seen.  Who fixed the roof?  The scriptures and the church are full of the names of faithful loyal leaders that serve God. They are important. it is how the church is run. We need prophets and apostles. We need t...

Amo vocês!!

Wow this week was just full of miracles. We worked all day every day and the Lord really blessed us after a few weeks of struggles and little progress.  We found a family that the mom is a less active, and her boyfirend isn´t a member. They have a daughter that we helped prepare for baptism and she is the cutest thing. She likes when we visit every day and is sad when we cant. Her little sister Mel, calls us ´´Tia´´ which means aunt. hahaha I love this family so much.  This ward is really helping us too. The members are starting to really get involved in the work and so everything is just going great.  My companion is awesome. We have a great relationship because we can be completely honest with each other and are still the best of friends.  Easter here was great. We got a lot of chocolate :) A family from my other area Ipes visited here on Sunday and brought me a huge chocolate egg! It was awesome.  I am so excited for Conference.  Sorry i feel...

Wow this week passed by really fast. We had a zone conference which was great because i love seeing all my old companions. One thing that i really love is that i have had a lot of companions and although alot of times we passed through a few difficulties, we are the best of friends.  I feel that i have a special bond with everyone of them, Americans,  Hispanics, and  Brazilians alike. We have been spending a little time trying to get to know the ward members here. They are really starting to open up to us more.  We this less active that is the spitting image of  Charly from the film charly. she is so cute and I love her so much. We are trying to help her return to church with her two daughters.    Really it is amazing to me how much love we can feel for others that we met , three days ago. hahaha.   I have been studying alot this week about light and how our purpose here on the earth is to fortify and add to our light everyday. I love light....

Oi Família! Okay this week started out really rough. I have never opened an area before so it was a little stressful for me the first few days. Literally we didn´t have any idea where our area started and we didn´t have maps to show us. Rough start. But Monday night a young woman helped us meet some of the members that live really close to our apartment so that helped us feel alittle better.  Tuesday we walked allllllll day with a recent convert and he showed us what he said was our area. So we walked all day with him, met some other members, found some new people to teach, only to be told by our Ward Mission Leader that we were working in the wrong area. Oh it was terrible. I burst into tears hahahahaha. I think then he felt really bad so he showed us our area by driving us around. And it turns out, he was wrong and we were working in the right area. So everything was fine. He is a great ward mission leader. A little c.r.a.z.y. but I like him.  Wednesday and Thursday ...

Okay so after six months of being in Guarabira I have been transfered to the other side of João Pessoa in an area called José Américo 2. My companion is Sister K. Silva from Brasilia and she is cute. She talks faster than anyone I have ever met. So that is a challenge, but I am excited. We are opening this area, which means we are both new here and both pretty lost. I am trying not to panic. hahaha. But I am exicted to literally start with zero and work our way up to the top. We are living with two other Sisters that are also opening José Américo 1. Everything is very different so I am excited. A little nervous as usual, but I am happy to be back in a ward.  My last week with Sister Lins was really great. Honestly we became the best of friends our last two weeks and just cried and cried when I was transfered. I learned so much with her. We had a really hard week to be honest. I went to another council and it was honestly terrible. We arrived an hour late because the car broke dow...

This week went by really fast. So we had a field trip to Frei Damião on Monday. It is the 3rd tallest mountain in Brasil with a statue on the top. hahaha. So it was really beautiful. There was no one up at the top so it was peaceful and just reminded me how much I love to explore and be in nature. You can see all of the city from the top.  We had interviews with Presidente also this week. It was okay. This transfer has honestly been one of the hardest on me physically. I am just exhausted, and because of that, it is really easy for me to start doubting my abilities. So I know that I start beating myself up for not doing everything exactly right the first time. So as usual when Presidente asks me how everything is going, I burst into tears. hahaha He probably thinks I am just always crying. But he gave me a great blessing which helped me fill a little weight taken off my shoulders. He also told me that I will be transfered in two weeks which filled me with such hope. I love thi...

The sun is burning my face off. I dont think i will ever be the same shade of white ever again. hahaha So this week was a little uneventful. I have been focusing on improving my study time so I made myself a little holy place or sacred grove. It has helped me a little be more focused. It has been a little refuge for me the past few days.  This week has been a battle between feeling that we are unsuccessful and then seeing miracles. I learn more and more everyday that I literally do nothing here. It is all the Lord.  I love you all so much. Sorry that this is short but we are going on a field trip. :) picture next week :)

This week went by so fast. We traveled to João Pessoa again for another mission council which was good. I was so tired though so that wasn´t fun. But the training was all about having a positive attitude and other things that I just felt like I especially needed. I feel so lucky to be apart of the mission council. Not because of the leadership position I have but more because of all the things I get to learn through the experiences of the other missionaries.  This week was another week of contacting every. single. day. Wow. Sometimes it gets really old to have people slam doors in your face, but other times it just gets funnier and funnier. One man told us that he doesn´t need God because he has beer. #great  This is the week of Carnaval. So just imagine everyone in the streets drinking and listening to music that blows out your ear drums. Then imagine trying to preach repentance to all of them. Luckily Carnaval isn´t really big here, basically every leaves for other place...

We had lots of sun this week and as burned as I am, I LOVE IT. I work so much better when we have sun and not rain. I hate rain. hahaha.  We busted our butts doing contacts everyday this week. Unfortunately we didn´t seem to have alot of success. So we have another full week of the same thing.  I really feel like nothing new happened this week. oh. I ATE SUSHI!! HAHHA After a year of only beans and rice and chicken....sushi was heaven!!! Seriously!! I loved it. Honestly this week has been a little hard. I have been feeling like the weight of the work is on my shoulders and if I don´t do everything right, our area just starts to fall apart. This area is so great, but the branch is struggling. As missionaries sometimes we feel like we have to fix everything so I know I have put alot of pressure on myself to fix everyone. Its hard when you can see the potencial of others, but they can´t see it themselves. I am excited to start a new month. January flew by so fast!!! I j...

Well I will be staying here in Guarabira one more transfer with my comp Sister Lins. I am happy and at the same time I am just praying to believe there exist people in this little city that I haven´t talked to. But Presidente has given me a bit of advice about what to do in the area to help them grow and the member stay strong, so I am excited that he trusts me enough to get this work done.  We had a great week. The only thing really was hard this week was all the rain, again. It has just been gloomy gloomy gloomy and as much as the sun is hot, I LOVE IT. I am sooooo much happier with sun. I will be burned to a crisp, yes, but i am happy. And when I am happy we work harder. This week also I think just because I hit my one year mark, my body knows, just knows it will have the chance to rest a bit soon. Just like Sunday nights, my body always knows that tomorrow is Pday! So I have been feeling all sorts of aches and pains that I didnt know existed, but its all apart of getti...

This week it has just been raining and raining which is great because it is alot cooler out, but at the same time everything is just MUD! But that is okay.  So TODAY THERE WAS A RAT IN OUR HOUSE!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. IT WAS HUGE!!! I JUST SCREAMED AND SCREAMED AND SCREAMED. We played a bit of broom hockey trying to get him out of our house. Oh it was gross.  This week I will pass my one year mark, can you believe it? My body is feeling quite old that is for sure.  This week was probably my best week ok work with my new companion. We did millions of contacts and door knocking. She finally seemed more excited to work which was a blessing. Sometimes I just don´t have the strength to carry the work on my shoulders by my self. But transfers are this week and I am just praying that whatever happens, I will be calm in knowing that it is the Lord´s will.  I love you all. Thank you for all the prayers and emails. They are a really huge su...

This week was pretty good. A little bit difficult, but I am learning that you can´t have good weeks or great weeks if you don´t have a bad one every once in a while.  It has been raining a bit this week, which is a little bit good and a lot of bad. It cools down a little bit, but then gets so humid you can hardly breathe. And I can´t even begin to tell you about the types and varieties of bugs I am finding. But I am loving Brasil.  We had a baptism of a little boy who´s mom and older brother we baptized a few weeks ago. He was so cute. His name is Gustavo. He loves Primary. At first I had a lot of fear to baptize children only because here in Brasil its very common to just throw every kid on the street in the water only to have them leave the church after two days. But, I am learning that when we follow the Spirit, the Lord directs us to those that are truly prepared.  I am loving the mission. It is hard. I get really dirty and sweaty. Lots of doors slam in our face...

Oh I am so happy that this week will be normal week. We have been exhausted beyond measure. And because of this I don´t feel like I really worked with all my heart, might, mind, and strength this week. Honestly I feel like we recieved alot of blessings we didn´t deserve. Clearly I wasn´t outright disobedient, but when my thoughts are not in the work.....well you understand.  Our New Year was pretty uneventful. Everyone slept the whole day and my body wouldn´t let me so I watched a few Mission approved films. haha RIO IS HILARIOUS. AND SO BRAZIL. Also I finally had the opportunity to watch Minions. I liked it, but many its because I am on the mission, but it was dark hahaha.  I love this new year that we have to make new goals and to rededicate everything to the Lord.  I love you all so much. Enjoy the pictures  of our Christmas, rain, and I don´t remember what else. Love Sister Jacobson