A Still Small Voice - Listen, Listen, The Holy Ghost will Whisper

Another week and another set of adventures and challenges that's for sure 😊. To start off, proselyting was honestly beyond words.

As we were traveling to our proselyting area, Sister Thomson and I look out the window of the van and see some Brazilian police officials working at a crime scene.

Sister Thomson and I had tears in our eyes for the victim as we had briefly observed this activity  noting to each other that the world can be pretty cruel at times.

I am reminded of this scripture prior to the Saviors Crucifixion.

(The night before His Crucifixion, Christ met with His Apostles, washed their feet, taught them, and administered the sacrament. He also prayed out loud to His Father for the Apostles).
(John 17:15–16, 18)

15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.
16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.
18 As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.

Skyline São Paulo - SP, Brazil

When we got to the area that we were to proselyte, we had about six blocks to cover. We met a middle aged man with a cute two year old daughter. He was Catholic but had interest in the Book of Mormon. I explained about the Book of Mormon and bore testimony of the book. He had never heard of it before but wanted to read Another Testament of Jesus Christ. I´m glad that I could bear testimony of it with confidence, power, and clarity.

We also spoke with an American couple that had served missions in Brazil that were there just visiting and walking on Avenida (Avenue) Paulista, São Paulo, Brazil. Hopefully they sent the photo via text they took of Sister Thomson and myself to my family!

Also during proselyting we weren't having much success at this point so we moved to the side and said another prayer. This younger Brazilian man approached us and the conversation started out okay but then all of a sudden he starts getting closer. The Spirit immediately gave me a red flag. We immediately walk away and he starts following us and saying things. Luckily he stopped following us because we happened to bump into some Elders out doing some proselyting near us. Come to find out later he actually grabbed the shoulders of another Sister proselyting with her companion; it seems like he was targeting American Sister missionaries. I´m thankful that we could follow the spirit so that Sister Thomson and I could walk away without altercation. I know that Heavenly Father protected us.

I also got a pretty bad cold this week so concentration has been difficult. The Portuguese language and  grammar is getting harder and the work load is heavier. At times, I feel like I am not making maybe as much progress as I should. I am somewhat nervous that I will not be ready as much as I would like to be when we leave the CTM for the field; mainly because speaking and understanding natives is very, very hard.

We also got a new companion this week so we are now a trio!😊 She is basically fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. She knew Spanish before she came and studied Portuguese in college. She was supposed to only be here for four weeks but she didn't have her Visa so she is now here with us for three weeks after being at the MTC in Provo, Utah for three weeks. She is super sweet and pushes me to be successful.

Also our Brazilian roommates and a ton of other missionaries left the CTM for the field after their time here and we are trying to get to know the new Sisters and Elders that have come to the CTM; as we are now the ones senior in time now spent at the CTM.

The Still Small Voice

Through a still small voice, the Spirit speaks to me

To guide me, to save me from the evil I may see.

If I try to do what’s right, he will lead me thru the night,

Direct me, protect me, and give my soul his light.

Listen, listen. The Holy Ghost will whisper.

Listen, listen to the still small voice.

(Children's Songbook, words and music: Merrill Bradshaw, 1929–2000. © 1969 IRI)

God bless each of you. I love each of you and am grateful for your support. I love the work and have a strong testimony of it!

Talking with People -- A Small World

Talking with people on Av. Paulista, São Paulo - SP, Brazil

[Sent via text message to my family, March 24, 2018 at 7:28 am MDT]

We met Sister Smart and her companion, Sister Allison Thomson just a few minutes ago, talking to people on Avenida Paulista [in São Paulo, Brazil]. She is happy, healthy and enthusiastic.  A great missionary.

The Hancocks, Sandy, Utah

Manifest the Truth Unto You by the Power of the Holy Ghost

Brazil is definitely my favorite place on the Earth! The weather is warm all year around and the people are incredibly kind.

One of my favorite instructors here at the CTM is Irmão Lima. He is one of my heroes.
Irmão Lima will often call me Galega which means lemon  because of my hair being so light in color in comparison to many here in Brazil. 😉 He is such an inspiration to me, he helps me to be courageous! He always tells me to have courage and never forget who called me here to Brazil to serve. For example, one day my district and I were having a hard time staying focused and being one hundred percent invested and enthusiastic. He said, "Remember that you are and will be teaching real people with real problems and difficulties. You have something special that they desperately need. It is your privilege to help them feel of God's love and help them realize what they are missing." Ever since then I have  been able to see missionary work with a perspective more personal and glorious than ever before. I know that God loves me. I have seen his hand so much in the short time here at the CTM.
We had two splits (a temporary new companion for a portion of the day) this past week and I was with Sister Ellsworth and a Brazilian, Sister Barros (one of my room companions).
The gift of tongues is super real! During one of our lessons I quoted Moroni 10 verses 4 and 5 almost perfectly in Portuguese and bore my testimony with power and clarity!

(Moroni 10:4,5, Book of Mormon)

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

By holding the trumpet to his mouth, Moroni symbolizes the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

(Mathew 24:30, 31)
30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: [ ... ] they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. 

The Spirit is so real!  Never forget to pray and love others. I know with the Spirit I can and will help those of Heavenly Father's children here in Brazil realize what they are truly missing. I´m so thankful that I have the privilege to do this great work for eighteen months!

The CTM can be a challenge at times - in fact almost every hour and every second you are expected to be doing something and ninety percent of the time it´s something "brain power" oriented. 😊 This for me is like college times a billion. I realized when God sees that you are becoming too comfortable and on the edge of pride he gives you a challenge to bring your humility back to the forefront.

Sister Thomson and I are known as "always studying"  or "always  sitting with the Brazilians." - this has been asked of us to help us learn the language as well as the culture.  By doing this and being obedient, I will often  feel Heavenly Father's love for me.

My first P-day, walking around outside the CTM it was difficult to understand people because of everyone's sataki or accent; each of which is so different. The Northern Brazilians speak more clearly and eloquently and the people of the South tend to talk faster and mush their words together. Since São Paulo is so diverse, you have to learn all of these accents, so I´m basically learning four languages.

São Paulo, Brazil with a rainbow

I get to go proselyting for the first time tomorrow [March 24th, 2018]! Someone from the CTM is basically dropping you and your companion off in an area and with the expectation that you are to get contact information from those you talk to. I´m really nervous about this but also excited because everyone that has gone said people love talking with Sister missionaries!

We are now one of the oldest districts in the CTM so we have a lot of younger missionaries here at the CTM!  I had to pray in Sacrament meeting this past Sunday which went super well. Our current zone leader is going to the field so Elder Jarchow from our district just got called as the zone leader and  Elder Jones is our new district leader. Sister Conlin is the lead training sister for our zone so I would say we are doing pretty well!

Life is still good, I love the work!

Beans, Rice and the CTM!

What a crazy week! So I mentioned prior that new missionaries have a blue dot on their name tag labeling us as new missionaries or "greenies." Good news! They are letting me take mine off today which is awesome!

I feel like I have been here forever but this is actually probably the happiest I´ve ever been. I love love love the CTM (Center to Train Missionaries)! My district is like my family in so many ways we get along so well and I love each one of them. They really are my Brothers and Sisters. My district consists of Elder Jarcho, Elder Jones, Sister Peterson, Sister Conlin, Sister Uryan, and Sister Thomson and I.

We have a lot of fun especially during our atividade fisica or exercise time in English. ;) We usually play Lightning [a basketball game to determine who can make a basket before the other] with a bunch of other missionaries. Elder Jarcho played basketball in high school, so we get pretty competitive sometimes...well all the time actually! :)  After about four times of me beating him he finally had a win [however, I did not tell him I also played basketball in high school]. He was sweating like crazy after he finally got the win.

When we got to the CTM they told us the fastest way to learn Portuguese was to sit by the Brazilians at meal times. At first it was hard because I didn´t know a lot of Portuguese but now I can actually carry on a conversation with them, which is pretty crazy since I´ve only been  here almost two weeks!

The missionaries will call me Sister Smartchee (that´s how they pronounce it at least) or just smartchee... which I´ve started to actually like. For some reason Brazilians think that having the last name Smart is funny, I get quite a bit of attention which is really nice to have lots of friends and people to talk to. I would say eighty percent of the CTM missionaries are natives so it makes learning the culture and language really easy.

There is a hall in the CTM that has no ceiling - in order to let sunlight in but when it rains the hall gets super slick. It started raining really hard one day and we, Sister Thomson and I realized that we had left our window open so we started sprinting back to our room. Luckily I saw the Elders on the other side of the hall shaking their heads to stop running but Sister Thomson didn´t see them trying to get her attention before it was to late. She fell good and hard -  kind of like the falls you see on America´s Funniest Home Videos - most of all I am glad Sister Thomson is okay!

So I´m known as smartchee and Sister Thomson is known as the "American that fell." We can´t say we never made an impression while at the CTM!

A lot of the Brazilians like to learn English from us as we learn Portuguese from them. I think the greatest thing about Brazilians is that they are genuine. If they think you messed something up they will tell you , if they think you aren´t good at Portuguese they will laugh at you. But I´ve actually received lots of compliments about my Portuguese and how I can speak extremely well for only being here for almost two weeks! I can actually understand pretty much everything which is a huge blessing I know God has given me. One of the instructors actually said that I don´t have an English accent when I talk in Portuguese, maybe one day when I also get a tan and  I´ll start looking like a Brazilian too.

My favorite instructor that I have is Irmão Lima. He is probably one of the best people I have ever met! He thinks at this point I´m fluent in Portuguese but I always tell him I´m far from fluent but that I am always working to improve! He says the funniest things sometimes, he blames it on the fact that he is our comic relief for our stressful studying. The hardest part about the CTM is that every minute of every hour of every day you are doing some sort of studying whether it´s language study or Gospel studey or companion study it just never really ends. Irmão Lima makes it a lot more bearable! For example he calls beef jerky ´Jerk Beef´ and one time he said, "I´m so hungry I could eat a plankton." You probably have to be there for those to be funny but I thought I would share them anyways :). But I think the real reason he is my favorite is because he believes in me. He always asks me hard questions and pushes me to always respond in Portuguese no matter how hard it is. My district calls me the translator for the class. And he always asks me to translate the stuff that he says if my district doesn´t understand which is pretty cool!

I have had the opportunity to teach almost ten lessons in Portuguese. The first few were hard but it´s getting easier! In my last lesson I actually recited the discussion, The First Vision by memory in Portuguese. The gift of tongues is so real! I know that in those ten lessons, I used words to bear my testimony I didn´t know I remembered. I know now more than ever that God loves me and that he really does bless me through strict obedience, faith, and a lot of hard work.

This image is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Author: Kimberly Vardeman

Before I came to the CTM,  I had heard that Brazilians ate rice and beans for every meal but is actually 1000 percent true! It takes time to get used to but I think when I come home I´m actually going to miss my rice and beans. They are also really into eating this stuff that´s a mix between Jello and pudding, I am starting to acquire a taste for it. :)

When we went to the police station on an assignment, I met some missionaries that are serving in São Paulo Sul right now! The Brazilians call our mission São Paulo Sul-ceso which means São Paulo success; so I´m excited to see what that´s about! Also, I almost tore my skirt getting into one of the vans to go to the the police station which would have been fun... and after everyone got off,  I was still in the van so he almost drove away with me in it. I think that the biggest thing I´ve learned is that uncomfortable situations are totally okay! And that trying and putting yourself out there is so important.

This past week has been an adventure! I love it! Best to all of you!

Preach My Gospel - Eternal Difference

Bottom Row - Seated Second from the Right - Sister Smart, Sister Allison Thomson to my Left

Pres. João Roberto Martins Silva and Sister Maria Lucia Martins Silva shared the following with us recently at the the CTM and also with my family via email.

"Your missionary is about to make an eternal difference in the lives of many others. President Lorenzo Snow said, “There is no mortal man that is as interested in the success of an elder [and sister] when he[/she] is preaching the Gospel as is the Lord who sent him to preach to the people who are the Lord's children".

We love these missionaries as if they were our own.  We will watch over them carefully to ensure they are ready for a wonderful missionary experience after the rewarding time they will have in the São Paulo Brazil CTM."

This is the group of Elders and Sisters that arrived the same day, March 6th, 2018 at the São Paulo Brazil CTM.

I Made It!

I made it here to the Brazil CTM! :) I get to email today [March 6, 2018] to let you know that I made it here. My p-day will be on Friday´s while I´m here at the CTM and once I leave p-day will be on Monday's.

I am super exhausted and fell asleep on the bus through the city leaving Guarulhos International Airport, but what I saw of it was really beautiful! Tons of graffiti all over like my dad had mentioned and poverty like I have never seen before. It kind of hurts my heart to see it but I know God loves them. I actually almost missed my flight to São Paulo. In Atlanta, I asked someone for the gate number but I heard B12 instead of E12...somehow I managed to bump into Sister Thomson - Sister Thomson was on the same flight as me and going to the Brazil CTM on the same day (also we had met earlier via social media and met up at the airport in Salt Lake City prior to departing). Sister Thomson and I had to run in order to make it on time. It was actually pretty miraculous we made it at all since we only had 15 minutes to get from B12 to E12!

Departure from the Salt Lake City International Airport - March 5, 2018

Also, it´s kind of crazy how many people notice something different about you even without your missionary name tag. One of the first things I noticed is that the humidity is kind of a killer, I feel like I just hopped out of the shower 24/7!

Once at the Brazil CTM,  I was given my name tag. It has a small blue sticker on it marking the fact that I´m a 'greenie' and I don´t know a 'lick' of Portuguese :) But the advice from my trainer is to spend as much time with the natives as possible; so that´s my game plan.

I think you´ll be happy to note my companion is Sister Thomson. She is so much like me it kind of weirds me out at times. I know that she will be a great support to me and has already taught me so much!

But the work goes on and I know God loves me! I send my love to each of you!

Salt Lake City International Airport with my brother Zach - March 5, 2018

Salt Lake City International Airport - Family (Left to Right - Zach, Karen - Mom, Me, Brian - Dad)

The Book of Mormon -- Another Testament of Jesus Christ