Date
July 27, 2016
Area
Sao Paulo MTC
Companion
Sister Peterson
Week 3 !!!
Oi tudo bem!
I am halfway done with the ctm, in 3 weeks I will be all the way up in nordeste (north east) brazil in Joao Pessoa where i will spend the rest of my mission!
This week has been filled with lots of struggles, guava, parkour, and portuguese!
On thursday last week we got the chance to go to down town Sao Paulo and talk with people for an hour and me and my companion passed out 12 book of mormons! It was a cool experience, but way intimidating, also because we were running off of only 2 weeks of portuguese, but suprisingly I think most people understood us! Well they at least pretended they did. Oh and we also got rejected a billion times and had a lot of people pretend like they didnt know we were trying to talk to them. Me and my companion just laughed about it though!
Some interesting things about Sao Paulo
1. There is graffiti EVERYWHERE!
2. There is lots of old buildings and sky scrapers.
3. Driving to down town sao paulo I saw hundreds of homeless people, and a bunch were families. There was sidewalks that would seem to go on for forever and they were filled with tents set up and families living in them. It was super sad and a super humbling experience. We should all be thankful for the luxurious houses we live in back in the states!
4. lastly, there are lots, lots, and lots of people.
So a mission is a time where you leave your family, your home, and pretty much everything you have to try and help other people. You would think that its really easy to forget about yourself but this past week i found myself focusing on my struggles, my portuguese, my family back and home and how much of a hard time I was having. But that is when I realized I became the most unhappy and struggled even more.
I talked to a sister this week that works here at the ctm and she told me that when we are struggling with our own trials, that is when we need to turn outwards, and serve others. We are the most happy when we are focusing on the needs of others and serving the people around us.
When we serve others, our problems wont just dissapear but it will sure help us to get through it and not focus on them as much.
I have testimony of service, I know that we are the most happy when we are not focused on ourselves but turned outward and focusing on serving others. I know that when we are in the service of our fellow beings we are only in the service of our God. Serving others has helped to make me happy and I know that if you are ever feeling down, go and serve someone and you will see a difference! I promise you.
Thank you all so much for your continued prayers and emails. I dont have time to email everyone back because we only get so little time but just know that i appreciate them more thank you know!! I truly couldnt get through this mission with out my WONDERFUL family. I love you all, and will talk to you next week!
Love, Sister Murphy
Also if you ever are feeling down, do some parkour. I promise it will lift your spirits. ( hahaha, me and my companion have been doing it all week and dye laughing everytime.)