It is so funny to me that I bought stickers and silly bandz and all these fun things to give to kids here, but all they really want is hand sanitizer. And since we usually find them playing with old tires or garbage - turned treasure (they're very creative), I am more than happy to share and usually I don't have a choice. I have a hand sanitizer clipped high on my bag and when the kids see us coming they run yelling and tug on you until you give them some hand sanitizer. They're obsessed! They giggle at each other and smell their hands over and over. It's hilarious, I love it. As an Exercise and Wellness major, their temporarily clean hands make my heart happy too.
D&C 88:86,
"Abide ye in the liberty wherewith ye are made free, entangle not
yourselves in sin, but let your hands be clean, until the Lord comes."
I spoke in church
this past Sunday for my first time on the mission, and can I just say trying to
be engaging in Portuguese is a challenge! Luckily my accent keeps people
engaged enough. I spoke on the importance of Seminary and it made me miss all
the great times I had when I was in Seminary (shoutout to all the awesome
teachers at Westlake!). My punchline was that Seminary wasn't just a class my
friends and I took, but Seminary was an extension of church and our
testimonies.
I was in charge of a
Family Night lesson this past week with a cute little family (mom and four
kids) that live way on the outskirts of our area in Cidadela. All the kids are
so bright and intelligent, they have so much potential in the church and life,
they've just had a rough past year and have had to move a lot, but now they are
here to stay in our ward boundaries and so we've been working with our ward
mission leader (a recently returned missionary from Brazil) to help them get to
church. The lesson was on the importance of prayer and I started out with a
little activity where I had the girls pretend to answer a phone call from me -
I rattled off a list of pretend problems in Portuguese (I was so proud of
myself!) and then I hung up before they had a chance to respond. I related the
phone call to prayer and how God isn't just a repair man or a number to call
and place an order, but he's our Father and wants us to have a conversation
with him. This little example is nothing new for us life-long members, but these kids
loved it and we had a lot of fun. That's one thing I am definitely going to
miss when the mission is over, how easy it is to laugh and be crazy with the
families here.
Ate mais logo!
Com amor,
Sister Hanzel
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| When in Africa... |
