Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Welcome to ATIBAIA!!!!!!! (Apr. 29)

Hey everyone!!!!!!
THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL THE BIRTHDAY EMAILS!!!!!
You guys are great! =] 
Love you all and hope you all are doing so well!!!!

So, about my life.....
Got transferred last week and now I am in Atibaia! (say it like this...AT----CHEE---BY---- UH). This area is over half of a city and our area is HUGEEEEEE. 
I thought Araras was big, but its like only a puddle in comparison with Lake Coeur d'Alene..... hahaha. 

The bus system here still doesnt make any sense to me....... and we live a good 40 minute walk from the bus station, so we end up having to walk a TON to get anywhere..... 
There are SO MANY HILLS! I think this entire area is hills..... 
Kind of funny how when you look at the map it all looks so close together and easy, but in real life, it is a different story.... hahaha. 

My "daughter"--Sister Bispo and I got seperated at transfers.... She is now serving in a TRIO in another area in Campinas...

My new companion is AWESOME. Sister Menden from Gilbert, Arizona. She got here with Sister Bispo´s group, and so has only been in the mission field for 6 weeks now... I´m finishing her training, but she is a ROCKSTAR. Seriously. 
She´s fairly shy and quiet (not sure if she is like that for reals, or if she is gonna just blow up and start talking more here in a couple weeks... haha) 
She reminds me of Ashley like everyday.... A LOT. It is weirding me out. All those weird Ashley-isms..... Sister Menden does them as well. What the crazy???! 
Sometimes I think she is really just Ashley, prentending to be someone called Sister Menden........ but then I realize that´s crazy and remember that my sister is busy playing in CALIFORNIA at DISNEYLAND..... WITHOUT ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hmph. 

Okay, so back to my companion.................. Sister Menden is great. Really. She speaks Portuguese SUPER well already, but she doesn't know it/want to admit it yet.... hahaha. She keeps quiet a lot, but when she starts speaking or reads a scripture its like BOOMMMMM "take that perfect pronunciation!!!" hahaha yep. Kind of like that. 
She is very chill/cool/funny/spiritual/awesome and we are having a lot of fun together already. =]

We´ve had a lot of miracles this week....
1) There is this AWESOME family in this ward who adopts all of the sisters.... they have 11 kids (so there is a ton of people...) haha. And they help out a lot with everything. One of the oldest--- Renata, just got baptized 6 months ago and is preparing to go on a mission when she completes a year of membership.... She is AWESOME and taught our gospel principles class like a rockstar this week. I love them all a LOT already!

2) The ward is big and excited to help with missionary work!!! We have a ward mission leader ANDDDDD ward missionaries!!!! The ward has been doing weekly integration night activities, and we have already got several activities planned for the upcoming week.... SO FUN! 
We have a meeting with the ward missionaries every thursday to plan our activities, and plan to help all our investigators and stuff. It is SO GOOD!

3) Besides the ward here, we are having a second sacrament meeting out in  a poorer neighborhood WAYYYYY far from the chapel... These people don't have money to take the bus into center for church, and the bus hardly ever passes on sundays, so they started a meeting for them in an upstairs room above a member´s house for these people to go to church. 
There was about 20 people there yesterday, but apparently, there are usually more people.... It is way cool, and these members are awesome! 

4) We spent a lot of time this week trying to find all the investigators that the sisters were teaching here..... we got lost a lot, but now we are doing good. 
One couple we are teaching are doing very well!! Jurací and Cleonice....unfortunately, they arent married yet, but they really progressed a lot this week! We read the Book of Mormon a lot with them this week and talked a lot about the gospel of Christ and baptism.... Jurací has a drinking problem, but Thursday, we committed him to stop drinking, and as of yesterday, he hadnt drinken anything!!!! He also read the chapter we marked and actually understood it very well!! Yesterday, they came to church with us.... ANDDDDD, when we went by to pick them up, they were actually awake and waiting for us!!! ah. We couldnt believe it. 
I´m very excited about them and their progress!!! Now they only need to keep it up and get married!!! hahah. 
But miracles are REAL!!! 

5) My birthday was great!!!!
Well, as great as a very-un-birthday type of birthday can be. hahaha. 
We had church in the morning, lunch, and church again in the evening..... over all, a very long busy day, but SO GOOD!!!! 
OH, and I gave a last-minute talk in our second sacrament meeting......... My companion might have known about it before-hand.....but forgot to tell me until the last second.... hahah. Good thing it was only for a room-full of people...... And I was the only talk we had.... hahaha. 
 
Love you all so much!!!
have the best week!!!
be good!

SISTER WARD

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