Alina Letter - 10/12/15

Woo! I am in actual Santos, Brazil and life is crazy, stressful, awesome, smelly, beautiful, inspiring and a whole lot of other adjectives! I am in a smaller area called Boa Esperança with a small, but nice ward. Our ward mission leader is a fairly recent return missionary and is the BEST. He works really hard every week to help us with various things and go on visits with us. Our mission goal that we are supposed to at least do is teach 4 lessons every day and 20 contacts each, a contact being introducing ourselves, the church, and asking if they want to learn more. To make all our goals we usually end up teaching a random lesson in the street so someone who is interested, but it is all good haha I love here how it isn't a completely strange thing to pray on the streets and sidewalks and teach someone about the plan that God has for them! 

Something entertaining is that I stand out SO badly everywhere we go here hahaha. It is a small area and pretty much no one is blonde with blue eyes, so people stare at me constantly. I'm considered exotic so strangers tell me all the time how beautiful I am, which is nice haha. Missions are definitely humbling, but you can't help but appreciate someone exclaiming "Que maravilhosa!" when you walk by or having someone gasp or exclaim when they see your eyes. It is getting ridiculous though and almost annoying, especially when we are trying to teach about the Savior and the person just keeps saying, "Your eyes! They're so blue!" or they just love at my horrible accent and ask where I am from, so hopefully with work that will improve! One man the other day was killing me hahhaha he kept asking me to marry him, like begging and it was hilarious. His friend was a little curious about the gospel, so my companion was trying to have a conversation with him, but this guy just kept saying, "I have a car! I have a house! I'll give you everything you need! Marry me!" So, if I don't come home 16 months from now I'm probably married to a 50ish year old crazy man in Boa Esperança, Brazil. 

A scripture from The Book of Mormon that has really touched me lately and that I have shared with various investigators and members is 1 Nephi 17:50-51 where the Lord has instructed Nephi to build a boat to carry him and his family to the Americas. His brothers are teasing him and saying, "You don't know anything!" essentially when he says (not a direct scriptural quote obviously), "The Lord has done so many miracles, why couldn't he direct me to build a boat?" We all have our various trials, and "boats" in our life, but if we are following the commandments of the Lord He WILL provide a way to accomplish all things!!! Hope everyone has a great week:)