God Hears Us!

Olá Everyone!!!! 

I can't believe another week has gone by!  I will say though, they aren't going by very fast out here in the field, haha! 

The language is coming. That's all I will say haha. This week at a member's house the brother asked me if I would like some watermelon. Long story short, my portuguese was so bad everyone thought I had never eaten watermelon! (my favorite fruit by the way) And they were showing me how to eat it and telling me its okay to eat the seeds. Haha so I went along with it! "You can eat the seeds??? what??" (in a suprised voice)... I just didn't have the heart to tell them I knew what watermelon was! (or maybe cause I didn't know how lol)

So we had splits this week..It was kind of fun! It was like a sleep over! BUT I just want to tell you so much about that day. haha so here I go. My companion was sister Chavez.she is from Mexico. she is super nice and cute... but she is sooooooooooo weirdddddd.. ok sorry that was dramatic but let me just tell you. She loves to sing okay? So here we are at a random house. she claps and this woman comes out and we ask if we can share a message, she says yes. anyway, I see sister chavez pulling out a hymn book. I was like oh how sweet, she wants to read some words of a hymn to her, that would be so lovely. She loks at me and says do you know this hymn? I said yes not really thinking much of it. and then she counts 1, 2 3... and starts singing... "oh crap... you have to be kidding me" I said to myself... not kidding.We sang a duet to this woman... and not to this woman but to 4 other random people!!!!!!!! just to random people on the street as other people walked past. One man said to sister chavez, you have such a beautiful voice... thenhelooked at me paused for a second, said thank you and we were off.. LOL Look man, I know I got a bad voice but you have to give me some credit haha I dont speak this language!!! hahah anyway, it was alonglong day and I was ready to go back home.It was 8 and we had an hour and a half of traveling to do. (Metro, bus, train) I was kind of looking forward to it... just sitting.BUT NOOOOOOOOOO That bus ride was a workout!!!!!!! I have never been on a crazier bus ride than that. (And ALL bus rides here are crazy and scary) PLUS the man next to me was holding on to the rail on the ceiling.. his armpit a foot from my face... I DONT THINK HE HAD SHOWERED IN WEEKS... lets just say, I about died hahaha!

I also witnessed a man getting hit by a car this week. I think he was okay... I think. seriously guys though. the drivers are crazy here.

On a more spiritual note, I want to share something I thought was really cool.It's kind of more personal, and usually wouldn't share it, but I felt like I should. Ok so the sidewalks here are so bad... they're not even sidewalks haha.They're uneven blocks of cement and stones, with steps, they tilt... its just awful haha. And my ankles were starting to not do so good, (I've had feet problems my whole life) my first thought.." crap. no." So I said a prayer. Instantly the pain was gone. Never in my life have I had that happen. With all the pain I've had in my feet, I have never had a pain so sharp relieved so fast. It, I thought, was a miracle. I witness little miracles everyday! Whether its when I am so hungry and a member gives us a treat to take home, or my companion gives me a compliment.. or the toilet flushes (lol thats a funny story.. one that I do not want to share hahahahaha) BUT I want you all to know that I know prayer is real!!!! GOD HEARS US!!!! I love prayer with all my heart! Whether its to ask for something, give thanks, or simply to have someone to talk to! God is there for all of it! He wants to listen to our worries and fears, He wants to listen to how our day went(eventhough he already knows), He wants to listen to the drama (yes even the drama ;) and most importantly He wants to answer us!!! Like in the talk by Pres. Nelson this past general conference about Personal Revelation, there is so much God wants us to know!!!! We just have to ask! 

I love you all!!

-Sister Egan

These are some women in the ward. They are crazyyyy but I love them.
If you cant tell which one is me, 'Im the white one with blonde hair in the middle

This is Areta, she is a less active member who is coming back to church! shes so sweet, and like 20 years old

My splits companion. 

Another little view of my area.

The church building

View from the metro... and pretty much from every angle.

Another Talk

Hello everyone!!!!

Really short email this week! Not a lot happened! Same old, same old. Still walkin around like I know what's going on, haha!

So this week pretty much consisted of eating at members' homes, knocking on doors, walking (a lot), and talking to people in the streets. So a normal missionary week, I guess, haha! 

Also, I gave another talk in church on sunday!! Oh how fun was that! Two weeks in a row!!I love it! (that was sarcastic by the way, if any of you didn't catch that) I will say though, I really took for granted being able to give a talk in ENGLISH!!!! 

Learning a language is rough. I never knew how hard it was for missionaries to do that until I became one. Its so hard not being able to understand the people when you have a desire to share the gospel. But,I will say that I know it will come, because I know God wants me to be here. I don't know why, I don't know why in the world I have to speak Portuguese, I don't know why I am in Brazil, but I know God wants me here and I know He knows why,so it will be okay. I don't know if I've shared this yet, but my favorite scripture right now is 1Nephi 3:7 because I know God won't ask me to do anything I don't have the strength to do! This goes for EVERYONE!! We can do hard things! 

I love you all!! 

-Sister Egan

Said good-bye to my mission president and his wife!
Even though I will only have them for 3 weeks, they have been awesome!! 

Cool view of the city!! I am in an area of more houses and little shops, no big buildings.

Mission Life is Awesome

Wow... this week. I can't even begin to describe it. The mission life is awesome but the craziest thing ever at the same time. We walk all day. So in the morning we do all of our studying that we need to. Then, everyday... everyday... we eat at a members house for lunch. What do we eat? You guessed it... rice and beans. Everyday. BUT, I really am coming to love it, haha!

Then after lunch, we are either knocking on doors (more like clapping :) ), trying to make contacts on the street, or meeting with some investigators. Right now, it's been pretty crazy with the language. I think I would love it a lot more if I actaully understood what was going on half of the time, hahaha! Whenever we talk to people, I just smile and try to make facial expressions to pretend like I speak Portuguese, haha! Are they the correct facial expressions? I have no idea. :)

My companion is AWESOME! She is from Brasilia. She speaks English but will never speak it with me, which is totally fine by me because I can actually understand her! 

On sunday, we went to church and guess what?? I got to speak, yayyyy... The bishop asked me 3 minutes before the meeting started. 3 MINUTES!!! I think it went okay... I think. 

I wanted to share a little experience I had this week. So we are teaching a woman, Ivonete, and her family. she is blind and they are very very poor.  She was telling us about her family and her grandson was being treated very very badly by his mother, and she didn't know what to do. It was hard for her to see her grandson (he is about 9 years old) being treated so horribly. We promised her that if she prayed to God to ask for help, everything would be okay. We returned a few days later and she was so happy because her daughter pretty much gave Ivonete her grandson to take care of! What a miracle. She proceeded to tell us how whenever we come over, she can just feel peace come into her home. I hope that made sense but it was just amazing to see how prayer helped them.

I am so thankful for this opprotunity to serve the Lord, and bring others to the knowledge that God is watching out for us: ALL OF US! I have to even repeatedly tell myself this, especially being here in Brazil! God is always there.. always. I know God loves you! 

Thank you for your love and prayers!! (sorry for the long email)

- Sister Egan

Today for pday we went to this chinese street where they sell a whole bunch of chinese stuff and food, pretty cool. The part of sao paulo that we were inb today was like new york city.. busy, buildings, etc… smelly.

Pictures of my apartment

Entering the Mission Field

Sister Silcox and I were excited to welcome Sister Egan to the Brazil São Paulo East Mission. She has been assigned to an area with a companion who will serve as her in-field trainer. You should receive an email or letter from your missionary in the next 10 days in which she will tell you about her area and her new companion. Her companion has been given the assignment to help your missionary become a powerful instrument in the hands of God in her missionary service. Sister Silcox and I will also do everything in our power to help her have a successful mission experience.

Preparation day for our mission is on Mondays. All missionaries are given the opportunity to email and/or write their families and close friends on that day. In as much as their time on the internet is limited, we encourage all to be brief in their communications.  The use of internet social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and other chat sites, including email “conversations”, are not approved for missionary use.  Note also that missionaries are allowed to call home, but only on Mother’s Day and Christmas Day. Should family emergencies arise or you have concerns or questions, please contact us in the mission office.

Letters and packages from home must be sent directly to the mission office. The office address is:

Rua Caa-Açu, 229 Belenzinho

03122-010 Sâo Paulo SP

Brazil

We are confident that Sister Egan will enjoy spiritual experiences and see miracles occur in the lives of people as she dedicates all of her heart, might, mind, and strength to this sacred calling from the Lord. We invite you to join your faith and prayers with ours in her behalf.

Sincerely yours,

President Silcox and Sister Silcox

Campinas Temple

Oi everyone!!!! 

It is officially my last p-day in the MTC! It doesn't seem real! I am so excited to go out into the field, but I am super nervous too!

Today was awesome! We had the opprotunity to go to the Campinas Temple! It is so beautiful!!! It was also so cool to see more of Brazil. Now I can say I have seen more than buildings because literally every direction I look in São Paulo there are buildings and more buildings. BUT Campinas is beautiful!!!

I just want to share a little experience I had last week proselyting. So, since I have no companion, last minute I got put with a Portuguese speaking sister! I was absolutely freaked out. I couldn't understand my companion or the people we were talking to, haha!! The sister I was with was really good for me though because whenever a person would be walking toward us she would give me a nice elbow in the arm and say, "Your turn." I was praying and praying that I would find someone that just really needed to hear our message.

We had about 30 minutes left and we were walking in this huge bus station, walking up and down and up and down the different rows. I saw this lady out of the corner of my eye and for some reason I was just drawned to her. She was just a normal woman, going about her normal day, but for some reason she stuck out like a sore thumb to me. My companion and I walked passed her and at first I thought "She probably wants nothing to do with us... plus, I don't want tell my companion to turn around." Luckily, I corrected myself and said, "Nope! We are talking to her!" So I yelled at my companion, "this way!" I approached the woman and greeted her and told her who we were. My companion then took over for me and talked to the woman for a few minutes. All of a sudden the I saw tears in the woman's eyes. We got her contact information and said, "Tchau!" I had no idea what had just happened, haha!! I asked my companion and she told me that she told the woman that she was important to God. The woman responded with, "I'm important to God?" And that's when the tears came. After that, I was so thankful I listened to the guidance of the spirit and had the courage to act on it. I pray that the woman can learn more about the church and learn more about how important she is!!! 

I just want you all to know that I know this church is true!! I love it with all my heart!! And I am so excited to share it with the people in Brazil!

I love you all!

-Sister Egan

Sao Paulo Temple

Best District Ever!

One Month

Hello Everyone!!!!

I don´t have much to say this week. Once again, more and more classes all day long. BUT I have been out a month!! That seems so crazy to me! AND whats even crazier, is I leave the MTC in 2 weeks...  um not sure if I´m ready for that, haha. My district is awesome and I don´t want to leave them! 

First off!!! Elder Quentin L. Cook came!!!! It was such an amazing experience!! I got to play the piano for the choir and for Sister Cook leading us in ¨Hark all ye Nations¨... it was just so amazing to feel the spirit so strongly in the room. The message he shared with us was incredible as well. He promised us some pretty huge blessings which were extremely comforting to hear. 

I´m gonna be honest for a little bit. This week was kind of rough for me - the language is really hard and its so easy to get discouraged. I had a Brazilian elder give me a hard time about how much Portuguese I know... lets just say that had an effect on me. BUT I am coming to know that through faith I WILL learn this language. And I know I will have this struggle (10 x worse probably) in the field so I just need to have faith!!!! Through faith ALL things are possible,As we continue to exercise faith, it continues to grow!!!! 

Anyway... I love you all and thank you so much for all your love and support!!!! 

- Sister Egan

Olá!!!

Hi everyone!!!!

Nothing really exciting happening here in Brazil!! My day pretty much consists of going to class, eating, going to class, eating, and of course... going to class. Haha!! 

BUT on Saturday we got to go Proselyting!!! (I dont know how to spell that in English) Wow, what an experience that was. We literally only have 3 weeks of portuguese under our belts and we have to go teach people?!! I was beyond scared. Anyway, we all hopped on some vans and were taken to some big streets in São Paulo. We get off the vans and it starts POURING rain. I have never been in rain like that... 30 seconds later my hair was soaked, I'm not even kidding! I look at my two companions (two elders in my district) and we were all like, "lets go!" So off we went in the rain, stepping in puddles and getting drenched, to go find some people to talk to! At first no one would talk to us. They wouldn't even look at us. We walked up and down the streets for 20 min. just saying "Bom dia!!" (Good morning!) and occassionally people would answer. If we were lucky people would smile. 

At this point, I couldn't wait for the next hour and a half to go by. I was so done. Then all of a sudden, I look back at one of my companions and he's talking to a girl about the church! Of course, our vocabulary is very limited so the girl was so sweet to let us try to speak with her. And guess what?? We got her contact information!!! I was so stoked after that. And an hour later we got three more contacts!!! I don't really remember what we said to those people, and I know it wasn't good portuguese, but I hope they could understand the sincerity of our hearts. I pray for those people we found that day everyday. I want people to have the gospel in their lives because the church has CHANGED my life!!! 

I am soooo grateful for this opprotunity to serve God and to represent Jesus Christ! Right now I have just been struggling with the language but I know that through Heavenly Father we can do hard things!!!! You can do hard things! I can do hard things! 

I love you all!!

- Sister Egan

 Here's my disrict from the MTC. They're all so weird but i love em ... With our instructor Imrão Lima.