Blessed Directions

So I've been meaning to get back into the blogging swing of things, especially since it's been kind of an adventure since I've been home from my mission, But of course, like any adventure it's been busy.
But this post will probably be more focused on what's been happening in school.

I will admit I was nervous about starting school again. With the timing of things I ended up missing four semesters or two years of school while serving and I was worried about picking up where I left off. But coming back has turned into one of the biggest (among plenty huge ones) blessings in the six months I've been home. It was an adjustment, and I will admit that the first week or so was hard feeling out of my comfort zone, but once I was into it again it's been gravy ever since. Still lots of hard work, but fulfilling and as much of a no-brainer as this is, educational.

Serving a mission was the best thing I could have ever done for my academic career. Taking some time to focus on others and gain experiences served so well to help me to focus and learn better who I am and who I want to be.

Anyway, so in my studio classes I feel like I've made great strides to discovering better who I am as an artist and what I'm interested in. I've been blessed with some fantastic teachers who, in different ways have taught me abstraction, which is something I've been interested in, yet intimidated by for years. So enough yammering, here are some photos of a few projects I've been working on.

This piece occupied a large amount of time, and I'm not even sure it comes across in the photos how truly enormous it is. Oddly enough it wasn't originally intended to be quite so large, but as the project wore on it just grew and grew. 

So this is a paper based collage based on an idea I had combining a quilting technique my mother uses. I started with three large collage drawings then cut the drawings into strips, glued the strips onto a new large paper to make a new drawing, then cut again. I cut and pasted the strips together several different times to create the pattern and texture of the drawing. And I find myself really attracted to the chaos that erupted with the subtle reminder of the structure my methods of construction created. 

And like what most of what I've done both pre and post mission, textile and quilts have been a common theme. I almost never enter a piece with a concrete end goal, image, or concept in mind. It just doesn't work that way for me. I have to start drawing or painting or just making and through process I'm able to discover or encounter the concept. So for this piece and others I love how something that in a quiet way served to shape me and my childhood has emerged multiple times in my work. 

Since I can remember there has always been fabric and textiles in my home. My mother is a quilter and an artist in said medium, and I think in a lot of ways that love for creating things has shaped me.  So it felt like a natural extension to find those same kind of inspirations and influences in what I do. 

So for the sake of cutting short this already super long post I thought I'd just share one last little collage drawing I did following the super large one. I'm basically just in love with the medium and I am excited to explore more with it.  I have been blessed immensely with a renewed sense of direction.

"Prayer is made up of heart throbs"

So I realize I haven't posted since I got back from my mission in May, and there's plenty to say, but I just had a quick thought to share tonight. I was reading in 'Jesus the Christ' by James E. Talmage, and Talmage explained prayer in just a beautiful way. So I wanted to share with someone, so why not the internet.

 "It is well to know that prayer is not compounded of words, words that may fail to express what one desires to say, words that so often cloak inconsistencies, words that may have no deeper source than the physical organs of speech, words that may be spoken to impress mortal ears. The dumb may pray, and that too with the eloquence that prevails in heaven. Prayer is made up of heart throbs and the righteous yearnings of the soul, of supplication based on the realization of need, of contrition and pure desire."

October 2011

We´ve been teaching this young man named Paulo for a week or so, and he was our only investigator to go to church on Sunday. We´re pretty excited for him. He´s so ready for the peace that the gospel can bring. He´s progressing so well. It´s all pretty exciting. We´ve been noticing a lot this week that we don´t have a ton of people to teach, but the people we do have are super solid. We´ve been working really hard to improve our teaching skills and teach more according to the needs of the investigators and more with the spirit. It's been amazing to see the difference. We have all these special people to teach and as we teach with the spirit and allow him to guide the lesson it becomes a spiritual experience for everyone. Funny how it takes me half of my mission to figure out how to apply better the things I learned in the MTC.

And in other news, I made a pie the other week. It was an apple pie and it was positively delicious. I found a recipe and decided to make it. It's funny to see how I'm becoming so domestic. Some days I make dinner for us and I've made bread. It's fun. I've become very good at making rice too. Here it´s hard to see a meal pass without eating rice, I´m practically a professional. I´m still waiting to learn how to make beans though. We always have rice and beans with everything, but I haven´t figured out how to do the beans yet. But I will. I´m determined to learn how to cook all of this brazilian food, so I can make it for myself at home.

Well, this week was pretty normal. The time is just passing super fast. Sunday Sister Farias and I came down with a bug and were stuck inside all day. There´s nothing more frustrating than having a million things to do, people to visit, and your body telling you to go back to bed. But by the next day we were all better, back to work. But it was funny, the mission doctor called us to see how we were doing, and it was a pretty normal conversation. Only that he´s American so he spoke in english with me and I found it super hard to respond. I was understanding everything, no problems, but to answer his questions everything came out wrong. It was like caveman speech. I haven´t had any real problems writing emails in english or writing in english in my journal, so I´m not sure why speaking was such a struggle. It makes me a little worried to see where my english is in 7 months when I come home. But I´m sure it´ll all work out.

Anyway, the work just continues to move forward. Like I said last week, we have such special people we´re teaching. We´re trying so hard to have one more baptism together, but the transfer is passing quickly and it looks like no one will be ready in time. But we just have to remember that everything´s in the Lord´s timing. If we push too much for our own timetable we´ll just mess everything up. We have to just Trust that everything will work out in it´s own time. It´s hard to be patient at times, but it´s worth it. Vale a pena :)

So this week we had a miracle. For serious, up to this point in my mission it´s my most special experience. So the other week I mentioned Paulo who we´ve been working with. Our lessons with him have been almost sacred the spirit is so strong, mostly because his desire to learn and to change is so sincere. So this past week or so I´ve been praying a lot to see Paulo´s baptism. I think I´ll be leaving Novo Hamburgo this next transfer in the beginning of November, so I´d been praying to see his baptism. Sister Farias and I had already been talking about Nov 5th as a possibility for his baptism, the last Saturday of the transfer. Anyway, so we met with him on Saturday and the lesson went super well. We saw again just how much he´s changing and felt again like he´s ready to be baptized. So I invited him again to be baptized and he shied away. He doesn´t feel ready. But I talked with him about making a goal, setting a date to work towards, but nothing solidified.And as much as we wanted to see him baptized Nov 5th we felt impressed to let it be. He´s ready, but we let it be. I didn´t want to push for something just because I wanted it. I wanted to see his baptism, but we felt like it just wasn´t the Lord´s timing.
Then on Sunday we were all sitting in church in Sacrament meeting and during someone´s talk about the blessings of the temple in relation to our family, Paulo got up quickly and left the room. A few minutes later, he called us into the hallway to talk. And through his tears, he asked us when could he be baptized. Sis. Farias and I looked at each other and she said November 5th and he accepted. I asked what happened, what had changed, and from what I understood through the tears was that he wants to bring his family to the church, he wants his family united in the gospel. So we all cried together for a few minutes and then returned to the meeting where I paid almost no attention to what was said I was in such a shock. The spirit had taught Paulo and gave him a sense of urgency that Sister Farias and I couldn´t.

But my God is a God of miracles. I can´t express how much this gift that he´s giving me to see Paulo´s baptism means to me. But he only gave it, after I gave up my will for his. Heavenly Father loves me, He loves Sister Farias, but most of all he loves Paulo. I´m so excited for him. There isn´t anything more beautiful than seeing someone repent and change. Than seeing the Atonement literally working in someone´s life.

That´s what it means to be a missionary, to be an instrument in the Lord´s hands. But really all we do is live worthy of the spirit, bring it with us to the lessons, and listen to the person we´re teaching. Listen to what they have to say and then the spirit gives us the words we need and then more importantly, he teaches the investigator. The spirit is the real teacher in a good lesson. And it´s when as a teacher we learn to hand off the lesson to him, that things actually happen. That the students actually feel that desire, that need to change and apply the things learned.

Anyway, I love the gospel, I love being a missionary.
com muito amor e carinho,
Sister Hughes

September 2011

Greetings from Novo Hamburgo!
I´m keeping busy. There´s always so many people to visit. some days I wish there were two extra days in the week. One more to work and another to rest because one p-day just isn´t enough.

And our ward is good. It´s not big, but I haven´t been asked to do more than give a talk. They´re all so good. It´s amazing what happens when the members trust us missionaries. We had a neat experience yesterday where we were working in a neighborhood and almost all of our appointments fell through. so I turned to Sister and asked where she wanted to go, who to visit, and almost immediately she said Magali. After she mentioned this member of the ward I felt super good, confirmation that that was where we needed to go. So we went and visited her, everything normal. Then we asked if she knew anyone who we should teach, and she told that she had the thought that very morning to tell us about her neighbor. The spirit for sure guided us there to talk with her about her neighbor. We´re excited to see what the fruits of this referral are.

We´re just working working working. We don´t have a ton of investigators, but the ones we do have are all super special. It´s so neat to see how the Lord places people in your path so you can help them.

Then Saturday we had a baptism!! Marcelo, the husband of a member got baptized and it was amazing. He´s such a good man, and he was so prepared for the gospel. Marcia, his wife shared with us the other day how a few months ago, she and her brother who´s a member would be talking about the church and Marcelo would try to say something negative or wrong about the church, and finally, Marcia told him that if he wanted to say something to first read the Book of Mormon. and now he´s a member. It´s amazing the power of the Book of Mormon. Sunday morning when he was confirmed I thought about how little we actually did. We were there to teach him what he needed to know, but really he, and the spirit did all of the work. We were just there as spectators. But regardless we´re a part of the family. And the baptism really was super special. There was a spirit so sweet in that meeting. He´s going to do great things.

There´s a million more people I could write and talk about, but I´m tired so I won´t. But life is fantastic, we´re just working hard. That and I just love Sister Farias to peices. We´ve decided to grow our hair out super long so that we can sell it and have enough money to visit Portugal together after our missions. haha. We´ll see how our master plan works out.
But life is good, I´m super happy.

We found a super special family this week that we´re teaching. They´ve truly been waiting for the gospel. Everything just continues. There´s lots of work to do, lots of fun to be had. And spring is arriving with plenty of sunshine. They even have Azaleas here. I took a picture and everything.

I´m ridiculously happy to be staying here in Novo Hamburgo with Sister Farias. We´re ready to keep up this pace and get a lot done this transfer. Então, tudo jóia :)
Enjoy some of the pictures we took at the Santuária das Mães.

August 2011

Oi gente!

Saturday we worked in a neighborhood kind of far again, but it was so worth the bus fare. We´re teaching the husband of a member there and he´s progressing so well. When we began teacing Marcelo his wife warned us that he´s a slow mover, that he doesn´t like to feel pressured. So we´ve been taking it easy. But in the week since we last taught him he´s read about 19 chapters in the Book of Mormon and he prays before and after every time he reads. He doesn´t like to be pressured but he has such a sincere desire to learn for himself if what we teach is true. He´s coming along so well.

Then we had another neat experience with another family in this neighborhood. Last week when we met them we just left a super short message and promised to return. So we returned and when we were talking with them they expressed some of their concerns with some religions, and their experience with God and how they feel in relation to him, etc. Then they talked about how when we showed up at their house the other week they felt a peace when we were there with them. It was incredible to hear how they recognized the spirit. It was one of those special, holy cow I´m a missionary, kind of moments. They´re a super special family too.

Basically all of my good news comes from this one neighborhood that we have to take a bus to get to. A good chunk of our area here is tall apartment buildings and larger houses belonging to wealthier people. But there in Roselândia the neighborhood is a little more humble. But I think the difference is working with a member there. With Marcia working with us, we have so many of her friends, family, and neighbors to teach. And so many of them are just ready for the gospel. It´s way exciting.
Anyway, but life is just good.

We´re just continuing to work. But today is our last real p-day of the transfer so Sis.Braga and I decided to do something more exciting. So this morning we went to Lomba Grande. It´s a little town kind of far from the center where we live, but it´s still in our area. So we caught the bus and went there for the first time for either of us. We heard there were touristy things to do so we went. Turns out there´s almost nothing there. Maybe in the summer there´s more to do, but all we found was a tunnel of trees over some road. And we had to walk pretty far in order to find it too. We walked forever and finally found it, then walked for forever again just to find a bus stop to take us back to Novo Hamburgo. It´s kind of annoying to be more tired on our day off than on our usual work day. But it worked out. It really was pretty out there. Very rural with lots of pretty views. It´s interesting to think what spring and summer are like here. It´s winter now and all of the trees are still green, but everyone says spring and summer are much nicer. It´s hard to imagine things being more green.

I wish I had something else of note to share, but our week was pretty mundane. Now we´re just getting antsy for transfers next week. We´re so curious to know what´ll happen. If we both stay, if one of us leaves... etc. But I´ll let you know if anything changes next week.

So we´ve started a new transfer off with a bang. Sister Braga was transferred and Sister Farias has joined me here in Novo Hamburgo and I just love her to death. She´s from Forteleza, way up in the northeast, and has the longest most beautiful hair I´ve ever seen. Lots of times when someone has really long hair it looks unkempt, but hers is so shiny and pretty. But most importantly she´s a hard worker and a phenomenal missionary. I like her lots, we´re working really well together.
And in other news, we´re preparing Marcelo for baptism! So Sister Braga and I began teaching him, and right off the bat he was so sincere and diligent. Then last week we were talking with Marcia, his wife, and out of the blue she tells us that Marcelo wants to get baptized. But we didn´t invite him right away, for some reason we wanted to wait until the next lesson. But then this Saturday we went to teach him again, and Sister Farias in a very simple direct manner invited Marcelo to be baptized and he accepted. The spirit was super strong and we´re all super happy for him. He knows what´s right. He´s a very sincere person. When he dedicates himself to something, he sticks with it.

Anyway, so I´m doing really good. Last week I reached the halfway point of my mission and it´s super strange. Sometimes it feels like I´ve been out for more time, other times it feels like I just left. The mission is almost like the twilight zone in the way time passes. But it´s good.

So the weather here has been kind of insane. Since I got here in Novo Hamburgo at the begining of July it´s been off and on hot and cold, but never really getting super cold like it was in Venâncio. But this week it´s started to get cold cold again. I think we might have a few more weeks of winter, but all of the members say that in September it starts to get warmer. I am tired of winter, but I´m a little scared of a Brazilian summer. From what I´ve heard it gets super hot, and it´s really humid here. But I already have sunblock, so hopefully all I´ll get are freckles. I´ll make sure to be careful though. But I have another few weeks before I have to worry about it.

July 2011

So I´ve been trasfered here to Novo Hamburgo, about 40 minutes from Porto Alegre by bus. It´s a decent sized city with a fairly large downtown area with tall buildings and such. And our area is a good chunk of the city. It´s big, but that just means there´s always plenty to do. I´m sad to leave Venâncio Aires, Sister Inhuma and I were really starting to have a lot of success there, and I love the members and the people. There are families there who are literally like second, third families for me. But Novo Hamburgo is nice. It´s very pretty here. It feels like we´re nestled in the mountains. It´s very hilly, and from some parts of the city you can see for miles. And with Sister Braga we´re working very hard. My legs are already tired from all of the walking, and climbing hills. There are seriously hills almost 90 degrees. But she´s actually pretty easy on me. At times we take a longer route so I don´t have to climb some of the really steep ones before being more adjusted. And Sis. Braga´s pretty awesome. She´s from Rio de Janeiro and talks super fast with a lot of slang. So at times I don´t understand her, but for sure my portuguese is going to improve with her help. She´s very good about correcting my speech without making me feel stupid. Though there are things she corrects that I´ve been saying since the begining. I don´t know why my other companions didn´t correct me. But she´s a hard worker and we´re getting along very well already. And she´s going to teach me how to cook like a brazilian. I´m going to learn how to make rice and beans, and this cake we saw in a bakery that she said she knew how to make with bananas on top. It´s going to be great. I hope she know how to prepare bananas to eat with dinner too. Here you can cook the bananas, fried maybe? and eat them with the rice and beans, meat, everything. It´s so good. You wouldn´t think so, but really, it´s like my new favorite thing.

And Novo Hamburgo is a lot warmer than Venâncio was. I don´t know if we´re having a heat spell or something, but it´s been super warm this week. It´s chilly in the morning, but by the time we´re halfway to our lunch appointment we´re taking off our coats and sweaters and socks. And especially after lunch when we´re walking quickly to our appointments it gets pretty warm. In Venâncio everyone said that the worst of the winter was in July and August, so I´m curious if this warm weather will stay or it it´ll get cold again. Either way I think I´m prepared.

So I got the package Thursday and it´s perfect! between you guys and the package from Jackie I´m swimming in snacks and goodies. While I was opening the package my companion was like who is this child and where did my companion go? I got a little excited over the pop tarts and swedish fish, and the much needed shoes. They´re perfect, thank you.
Sister Braga has a lot of Brazilian pride and was asking why the snacks were better than what they have here, and I tried to explain how pop tarts are comfort food, but I´m not sure she grasped the whole concept of comfort food. But all the same she´s enjoying the snacks along with me. She especially likes the milanos.

This week was good. I´m not sure if I have anything distinctive to share. The area´s really hard. It´s big and there hasn´t been any real success in a while. At times it feels like we just walk and walk and walk all day without anything really happening. But our numbers are improving. In the two weeks I´ve been here we´ve had more lessons. Slowly but surely things are looking up. This weekend we´re going to a neighborhood kind of far, we have to take a bus to get there, because a member there has a sack full of referrals. We´re excited to get out there. All week we´ve been feeling impressed to go there, and so we were super excited when Marcia arranged to go with us. Neither of us know the streets there so we need a member who lives there to help us navigate. We just love Marcia. In the two weeks I´ve been here she´s brought a non-member friend to church with her every Sunday. So we´re pretty excited to work in Roselandia, this neighborhood.

But really life is good. Sis. Braga´s a lot of fun. Even when we´re tired we always find something to laugh at. The other night we were walking home and it started to rain. neither of us had our umbrellas and this was RAIN. It was pouring and we were still on the other side of the city of our apartment. But we had fun singing songs. I sang "Singing in the rain", and we just laughed and laughed. By the time we got home we were soaked through, but tudo bem. Nothing warm pajamas and hot chocolate couldn´t cure.

So that was my week. I´m tired, but happy. I´m excited to get fired up tomorrow at Zone conference.