week 8 . brazilian streets + me = #minhavida

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Howdy everyone! (already running out of ways to start my emails haha)

This week flew by. Yet again, the work just takes up every second of my time and most of my thoughts. I think it was President Packer that said the secret to missionary work is work! And if we work really hard we won't feel homesick and we'll have all of these other amazing blessings. [mom note: It's actually a Ezra Taft Benson quote but we'll cut her some slack haha. The quote and the whole talk it came from can be found here] And it's so true! I definitely get homesick from time to time, especially in church on Sundays (I miss english church haha), but overall I'm thinking about the language or our investigators or the members of the ward. What a blessing!

Kay I've got a post it note in my planner with a bunch of things to tell you or ask you so this email may be unorganized. Just a heads up. 

Mom, my pilot g2 pens are going fast. haha I know this is prissy as can be, but if it's possible could you send me some? .5 size! If you can't it's not a big deal, but you know how I love my pens so I thought I'd ask haha. Also an english hymnbook? And a picture from my baptism, it's good to show investigators. Also the instructions for how to tighten and loosen my chacos, they're a mystery to me. The chaco instructions don't worry about sending, you could just email me a picture of them so I can print/take a picture of the email. Sorry if I'm coming off as needy, just things I thought of during the week. 

Alright let's talk about the nordeste. Aka, the northeast. It's very very different here than it was in Sao Paulo for the CTM. The accent is nearly impossible for me to understand haha. I can usually figure out what Sister Garcia is saying, with just a couple words not making sense, but everyone else...it's like they're speaking portuguese with their mouths full of rocks or something. But the people are sooo sweet and loving. Old ladies give me hugs and kisses 100 times a day. The members of our ward are especially awesome. I'm being taken care of big time here. Aka, getting fat from all of the treats they give us. 

Something else different about the nordeste is...paralellipipidu. (probably spelled wrong) [mom note: I think paralelepípedos was what she was going for] What is that you ask? A strange sneeze? A spell from Harry Potter? Wrong! It is a death trap pretending to be a road. And it's pretty much all we walk on. Just imagine cobblestone, but with bigger stones that jut up higher than the grit stuff between them. And they're far apart so if you look up for one second, your foot will get trapped between them and you're going down. (yelling timber). Or at least I am, a hundred times a day haha. The other day I went to hug this member outside her house, and I hardcore tripped on the paralelipoo (that's what it should actually be called) into her. Oops haha. #minhavida

Sister Garcia told me that all the sisters say that whenever you drop your Book of Mormon (we always have one in our hand) the stomach of your future spouse gets bigger hahaha. So I keep a tight hold on my Book of Mormon now. 

I saw a little tub of Cetaphil at the pharmacy for 144 reais! [mom note: $58.80] WHAT?!?! I thought I was reading it wrong for sure. Some stuff here is cheaper than in the states, but there's stuff like that that is crazy expensive. 

So we haven't had any baptisms yet in the two weeks I've been here. Which isn't normal here apparently. It's crazy to me, but people get baptized every week here more or less. But we have this amazing investigator who just gets it. He was 100% prepared by the spirit for us. And he's really patient with my portuguese and he wants to learn english and he's just a gem. His name is Tanielieson. He came to church yesterday and you could tell he just loved it. I'm so EXCITED about teaching him this week because I'm almost positive he'll be baptized this Sunday. General Conference and a baptism???? I might die of happiness. 

So I can't pick one chapter of the Book of Mormon this week to share with you, because I'm just obsessed with Alma in general right now. Before my mission I thought Alma was sort of a pain because it was so longgg, and I just got frustrated with it. But my oh my it's AWESOME! So much about missionary work, and a hundred other great things too. Some stuff that I noticed in my scripture study this week:

+ Alma the younger is a sass when he's teaching. someone asks him a question, and his reply is basically, hold your horses I was just getting to that haha. 

+ We always need to be increasing our testimony through prayer. Alma 5:45-46. Alma, the prophet says that he strengthens his testimony through prayer and the spirit. 

+ Ammon probably wouldn't be allowed to go on a mission nowadays because he passes out every two seconds because he's so dang excited about the gospel. 

+ A desire to believe and a willingness to try the word is all we need to gain faith about an aspect of the gospel (cough cough gift of tongues! haha)  

+ I want to be a missionary like Alma, Ammon, Aaron, etc. they're perfect. 

+ If i don't get married in this life, I'll marry one of them for sure

And thus ends another week in BRAZIL. So grateful to be here. I can't remember which chapter, but I think it was 30something in Alma, he says that it is our privelage (spelled wrong? don't have spell check and i'm forgetting english) to believe in and to serve God. I'm feeling that big time here! I'm so amazed every day that God trusts me with this work, the same work that the Savior did when he was on the earth! I'm so blessed to be here in Brazil, so blessed to have a knowledge of this gospel, and so blessed to have an amazing support system in all of you. And to have the best family in the world. I'm sure of it. I miss you guys and love you so much. 

Have an awesome week!!

Paz fora (Peace out. Doesn't actually make sense in Brazil so I'll use it with you guys)

Sister Baker

PS The billions of cats here are still the best. Or you might even say the cat's pajamas hahaha

laughter, tears and lots of spilled water

Today Megan said goodbye to the 4 sister missionaries that she has grown to love over the last 6 weeks. The sisters are all off to the Recife Mission while Megan and the elders are headed to Natal. We have enjoyed reading the family letters from a few of these sisters and love hearing little snippets about Meg, some of which are below. I know she will miss these girls and all the fun they had.

::We had to take the bus to where we were going in Sao Paulo, which was to say the least crazy. I'm pretty sure we almost hit like 30 people. But you would not believe it, Sister Baker gave away two books within the first 10 minutes of being on the bus! It was impressive. She just wasn’t afraid at all to go and talk to them.

::Our schedule this past week goes like this...

6.30 wake up (which hasn't been too hard surprisingly)
7.00 personal study in the classroom
8.00 breakfast
8.50 language study
8.55 cry because of portuguese
9.30 exercise
10.20 study time
12.00 lunch
1.15 class time with Irma Mendes
3.00 cry some more about portuguese
4.00 prepare to teach investigator
5.40 dinner
6.30 prepare to teach investigator again
7.45 teach investigator
8.15 cry because we had to teach investigator
9.00 laugh time (as a district we just talk about random things and just die of laughter together, nice way to relieve stress)
9.30 snack time
10.30 bed time

Yeah.. we do a lot of crying... and seriously it's for no reason. Of course we miss our families (like a lot) and are stressed out. But seriously we will just look at each other and then burst into tears. I found that snickers you stuck in my bag the other day and I shared it with Sister Baker. No joke, we took one bite, looked at each other and then started to cry. It was so funny. Everyone walked in right when we started to cry and thought we were going insane.

::Sister Baker - I seriously love her. She is amazing. She is always dancing. The other night she performed the entire Les Mis musical, every song (except for the not so good ones) and acted it out. Took her 45 minutes. She definitely understands portuguese which is awesome because I have no idea what in the world I am doing.

::I was laughing way hard one night. Aaaand I may or may not have peed my pants. Ooops. I have never laughed so hard in my entire life. Sis Baker and Sis Johnson are hilarious.

::Sister Baker is seriously a clone of you. [mom note: the missionary is referring to her sister] It kind of scares me. She loves cats, can draw amazingly well, she dresses like you, is dorky and awkward but adorable. She loves puns and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is one of her favorite movies, she quotes it all the time. Its scary how alike you two are. She is the second funniest person that I know, her life is seriously like a funny tv show.

::Something else that was good was that Sunday night we decided to have a sleepover with Sister Baker and Sister Clinger! We knew we were probably getting new Brazilian roommates the next day so we figured this would be the only time!! They came and slept in our room and we had a blast! An elder in another district had his brother send him a bunch of song lyrics to music that he likes and we were borrowing it to copy. Sister Baker used the music to compose a musical of a sister missionary that was on her mission for four days and decided she wanted to move back home to marry her boyfriend who didn’t even know who she was. Haha. Like a creepy BYU stalker sister missionary. It was a one man show and she played all the characters. Again, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard in my life!! (I didn’t pee my pants this time though)

::Sister Baker has managed to spill water on just about everyone in the CTM. This week it was my turn! She spilled water all over me! So funny. I’m going to miss her when she leaves for Natal Tuesday.

week 5 . C(ya)TM

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Oi!!

LAST PDAY IN THE CTM!

What?? I can't believe how fast time has passed here. I swear I just barely got here. I am going to miss the CTM and my district. I love my district with all my heart and soul and I'm going to miss them so much. I feel like even though I've only known these people for six weeks, they've already become lifelong friends. That's been especially true because for our last week here in the CTM we decided that by the end of the week everyone would have shared their testimony for the district. So every night a couple people share their testimony. And oh wow. These missionaries have amazing, beautiful, inspiring testimonies. These elders and sisters have seen really hard times and really beautiful times and turned to our Savior through all of it. I am so grateful for the examples they are to me. I know Heavenly Father put me in district 32A for a really really really good reason. I needed these people!

Last Sunday was fast sunday, so we did a district fast and we had a mission conference and then a testimony meeting and then we watched 17 Miracles (again. still sobbed) and then a devotional. So basically the BEST DAY EVER. Seriously the spirit is so strong here in the CTM. And during our fast and testimony meeting I got to bear my testimony in Portuguese! It was scary beyond belief but also a very very cool experience. I loved being able to talk about what I love about this gospel in this new beautiful language! #blessed (but for real)

The Tuesday night Devotional was phenomenal. It was all about how there are people on the other side of the veil, in the spirit world, waiting for their ancestors to discover the gospel so they can be baptized. And that those people will be guiding angels for us, to help us find investigators. And it got me so pumped up about temple and family history work! But no more of that for me for the next year and a half, so fam. . . get on it! Go do baptisms at the temple! Go do sessions! Find names on FamilySearch! I'm bringing people to the gospel here in Brazil, but family history is missionary work too! Those people need this gospel just as much as the people here!

Today was my last time to go to the temple for a year and a half. [mom note: There is not a temple within Megan's mission boundaries so she won't be able to go while she is in Natal] And when we were leaving I could not stop crying. The temple is like home. It's a place of so much love and peace where Heavenly Father's presence is so strong. But as I was thinking about how sad it was that I wouldn't go back to the temple for so long, I had the thought come to my mind: What's more important? That you can go to the temple and feel this way? Or that hundreds of people down the road can go to the temple and feel this way because of your work here? I know that was God giving me a little talking to for having a bit of a selfish moment haha. And I know that that is why I'm here! To help people feel the love of our Heavenly Father that I feel daily and especially in the temple.

Speaking of hashtags. . . #minhavida ::

Well. . . this week we were playing volleyball. Which if you know me is #minhavida by itself, but I managed to make it even more embarrassing than normal. The ball was coming over to my zone on the court so I go to hit it. And I'll have you all know that I definitely would've hit it (probably) if Elder Phillips hadn't jumped in front of me. So instead of hitting the ball, I hit him. In the butt. Hahahahaha. So not missionary approved. So now my whole district has just been making fun of me for the whole week, and poor Elder Phillips was traumatized.

weekly scripture ::

2 Nephi 32!!! Love it so much! I've been focusing a lot on trying to feel and recognize promptings of the spirit more, because those are so vital as a missionary, but just in life as well. I want to do God's will always!!

Alright, I'm going to finish this up and go eat some unlimited meat with my district to celebrate our last Pday. I love you guys so much! I am so so so grateful for the family and friends and life I have back home, and I'm even more grateful that I have the opportunity to be a missionary here in Brazil! President Faust once said, "The field is white and ready to harvest. But it's a little whiter in Brazil." hahaha. But genuinely, I feel so lucky and so blessed! It's going to be scary to go out into the field. Like I'm panicking a little bit. But I also keep remembering that I'm here to share this gospel! Not to sit in classrooms. So I'm nervous but so excited too. And I know it will be hard, but the CTM was hard too and it has ended up being one of the most amazing experiences of my life, so I'm just keeping that in mind.

Kay. LOVE YOU!

Peace out girl scouts.

Sister Baker

PS // KATE MIDDLETON IS PREGNANT WITH ANOTHER ROYAL BABY??? THIS IS REAL? I GENUINELY HAD TO SIT DOWN WHEN I READ THAT LETTER I GOT SO EXCITED I'M PEEING MY PANTS RIGHT NOW JK NO I'M NOT.

(also I forgot to tell you guys I was a Sister Training Leader here in the CTM! That's why I was in a leadership meeting. Guess my stake president didn't write down that I'm more of a follower type hahaha)

added 2.28.15 [mom note: we received some CTM pictures from Megan's CTM companion's mom this weekend. I also had a couple from another sister in her district. I'm adding the photos to this post as it was her last letter from the CTM

Campinas Temple 

Sister Clinger and Megan 

Sister Clinger, Sister Hatton, Megan, Sister Hartvigsen, Sister Johnson

Sister Johnson, Sister Hartvigsen and Megan

Sao Paulo

Sister Hatton, Sister Clinger, Sister Hartvigsen, Megan and Sister Johnson

District Elders...Elder Fallon, Elder Elder Phillips, Elder Collier and Elder Giles

CTM dorm room

the view of Sao Paulo from the CTM

Sao Paulo Temple 

CTM district with a few random missionaries

handwritten

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(mom note: We are able to get handwritten letters from Megan in just a couple days via MissionTies. Megan can send or drop of her handwritten letters to MissionTies (located across the street from the Brazil CTM) where the letters are then scanned and emailed to us. These "handwritten" posts will consist of excerpts from those letters and will be in addition to her weekly email)

Oi Familia! 

I'm sorry that I haven't really been able to answer all your questions, especially you momma. Time is just crazy here, especially email time. 

PLEASE email pictures/mail pictures. I love them. I miss you guys and want pictures of your lives. NYC, fun stuff at home, everything.

Kay, I'll try to answer some of the questions you asked::

*Pday is on Fridays in the CTM. The time will depend on when we get back from the temple. I have 45 minutes online.

*Portuguese...sometimes I love it, sometimes I really don't. But I have learned a lot for how short of a time I've been here. I just get frustrated that I'm not able to say what I want to to investigators (mom note: people who aren't members of our church that are learning more about it through the missionaries) I love this gospel and I have so many thoughts and experiences and feelings that I want to share, but I have to resort to the vocabulary of a three year old.

*The CTM. I'm still homesick, and it's definitely hard here, but I'm also having a really great time. I literally am always laughing with my district. The schedule is busy, but I think that's good that I don't have too much down time to miss home. For gym time we either play basketball or volleyball. The sisters and I just shout "SPORTS!" and run around like idiots. It's honestly a riot. And of course everyone just laughs at my total...(mom note: the scan for this page got cut off so we can't see the rest of this sentence. I will assume that it said something along the lines of "my total inability to do anything athletic" Do we not all remember her pre mission mishap while trying to ride a bike. Photographic proof below haha)

(mom note: because of the bottom of the previous page being cut off we also cannot read the beginning of the next sentence. It obviously mentioned the food) here is usually good, I mean there's definitely weird days and we're not always sure what the meat is, but there is a really good dessert that is like creme brulee/flan-esque  that I love. So I'm being healthy ya know haha.

I'm trying to finish this letter on the bus back from the temple so I'm going to wrap it up. I miss you guys tons but I genuinely love it here. My district is amazing. I love my teachers. Portuguese is hard but really cool too, and Brazil is the bomb. I especially love Pday and walking around and exploring so that will be really nice when I'm out in the field in real Brazil.

I hope everything is good with you guys, you're my favorite people. xoxo

Ballin' in Brazil 

Sister Baker

PS. Mom please tell Grandma Wood hi and that I love her. I didn't have time on email to send her a letter.

(mom note: I'm a fan of photos so I've searched the internet for some pics to include with this post since it's my understanding that the missionaries have no way to send pictures while in the CTM.)

The Brazil CTM where Megan is spending her first 6 weeks of training

Drink machines in the cafeteria feature Guarana, the national soft drink of Brazil, carbonated water

and fruit juices 

Outdoor track where missionaries can run/walk

the street in front of the Sao Paulo CTM

week 2 . Ain't nothin' but Elder "HOLLA"nd

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Hey hey everybody

This week was pretty chill, pretty normal until. . .ELDER HOLLAND SPOKE TO US YESTERDAY! 

That's right, an APOSTLE was here, speaking to our little 200 something people CTM and I was in the SECOND row and I got to shake his hand and it was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. No joke. His talk was honestly amazing and just what I needed to hear. It was wonderful to hear from an apostle of God that I am right where I need to be and how blessed I will be from serving this mission. I wish I had brought my notes so I could tell you all the things that he said, but you guys can definitely read them in a year and a half. Something that really stood out to me was when he talked about how by serving this mission I am trying to give my life over to the Lord for the next year and a half. I'm trying to make a sacrifice for Him, right? But that it doesn't really end up working out like that because I am going to get one hundredfold of what I gave to Him, back to me in blessings. This next 18 months is going to change the rest of my life for the better. I am so blessed and so lucky to be here in Brazil serving a mission. He was also talking about how this place, Brazil, will be the place of our "spiritual birth" that we will love it so much here. And he said that Elder Faust would be on a plane with his wife and he would be totally calm and collected and apostle-like the entire flight...until they crossed the Brazilian border (thousands of feet in the air). And then he would just stand up and start dancing and kiss the stewardess and ask for a guarana! Hahahaha and Elder Holland was acting out the dance moves from the pulpit and I about died. So funny. He was just the most amazing speaker, and it was wonderful to have it be so personal. He was talking to a couple hundred missionaries serving in Brazil right now. It was such a specific group that he was addressing and I was part of that! Ah I wish I could tell you guys everything that he said, but I don't have time or the ability to remember it all without my notes. Just know that it was such an amazing spiritual experience and I am overflowing with gratitude that I got to hear from him.  Irma Mendes said that she doesn't think that an apostle has spoken here in over 4 years! If I had come on my mission at any other time other than right now I wouldn't have been able to hear from Elder Holland. And hearing him talk, especially watching him talk about our Savior and missionary work was an experience that has changed my testimony. Changed my life. And Heavenly Father knows me so well and knows that I needed that. Heavenly Father is so aware of us it's crazy!

This week in the CTM has been so amazing. It's still hard, don't get me wrong, but it is so so wonderful too. I am so blessed in my district. (Mom, I love that you and Sister Hartvigsen's mom are texting. Sis. H and I love it. To Sister H's mom: you're daughter is THE BEST. I love her to pieces and I am so so so grateful she is in my district, she's helped me make it through some rough times and during the good times she's always there making me laugh) 

The Portuguese is... well it's coming along, but it's definitely frustrating. This week though, I realized that I can hold a conversation in a language that I did not know anything about just a few weeks ago. Like that's actually crazy. I need to be less hard on myself about the language I think. The main thing is that our district always gets caught up in speaking English together, and we really need to be speaking more Portuguese to learn this language. So we decided to do a "challenge" where we were trying to see who could go the longest without speaking English hahahaha. It was so funny. The poor Elders were miserable the whole time, and when we were all sitting at breakfast nobody said a single word. We just sat there eating our food in silence. And then I just could not stop giggling because it was the most awkward thing I've ever seen, and I'm pretty sure I slopped my breakfast soup all over myself from laughing. (sidenote: breakfast soup is something we get every morning for breakfast, and it's not actually called breakfast soup but we don't know what it is exactly. Sometimes it is kinda of like oatmeal with a lot of oatmeal juice? and other times it's more like someone made vanilla pudding mix but heated it up instead of putting it in the fridge. It's actually kind of grown on me, so Shannon we might be eating breakfast soup in our apt when we're back at school.)

Oh! At the temple today there was a man working there from America and he is Sister Herrington's dad!! Small world! And I've met a couple of Elders who know Hannah and Brooke from BYUH and Elder Fallon in my district had Cassidy as a teacher at Timp. Also the Hartvigsens know the Saylins! Seriously there are so many random connections here.

Also I know I've only been here for a couple weeks, but it feels like I've known these people for ages. Like you know how everyone in our family and usually my friends make fun of me the most (out of love and also because my life is kind of like a ridiculous sitcom) well that's already who I am in the district. If someone spills something, or trips, or says something awkward. It's a "classic Sister Baker" move. I love it though because it feels like home haha. And I've pulled out the good ol' embarrassing story repertoire that I've built up over the years to entertain my district and other random missionaries that I meet. What can I say haha 

Pday last week was an actual dream. We got to go to the temple, email family, and then hit the town. We got Mr. Cheney's cookies and I GOT MY MILKSHAKE so pumped, and we got burgers and went to the supermercado and I'm so excited to get out there again! It's way fun being out in the city, it will be cool to be in Natal and not trapped in the same classroom for 16 hours. Haha but also it will be scary because I definitely won't have any idea what anyone is saying. #giftoftongues 

I've got a little card to send home but I didn't make it to the post office last week so I'll try to send it today, and I've got a longer letter for the fam to send through missionties. So you guys should get that soon. Thank you thank you fam & Shan for the missionties letters this week. You don't even know how amazing it is to open our little #18 box and see letters for me. It is a dream come true and I love you all for it!

I hope you guys have the best week ever! I miss you guys, but I wouldn't trade this for the world. I am so so blessed to be here in Brazil sharing this AMAZING gospel with people and helping them grow closer to their Heavenly Father who loves them so much!

Love

Sister Baker

PS everyone should go read "Our Heritage" right this second because it might be my favorite thing in the world right now