Vila Sônia - Week 6

This week's update is nowhere near as organized as the last ones, so I apologize for that. But something cool that happened this last week was that one of our investigators, Alfonso, told us in a visit that the other day he had seen us walking along the street and he was about to say hi to us, but he thought to himself "no, if they're really from the Lord, they'll stop by tomorrow". And guess what? We did! So that was cool :) Even though it wasn't like we just felt that day that we needed to visit him, it was something that we planned to do the night before.

On Thursday, the Irmã that was going to do lunch for us had to cancel, so she gave the four of us 70 reais(!) instead. Which was a lot. And so, the other elders decided that they would take advantage of that blessing and go to McDonald's. So that's what we did, and we all got Big Mac meals (even though Elder Zenger and I wanted Quarterão meals - quarter-pounder - that's what the Brazilian elder ordered for everyone. And we got mango/pineapple juice, which might be something that I'll miss at American McDonald's, and also McFlurry's, because...we're irresponsible, I don't know. But they were awesome, and it was a pretty awesome lunch in general.

The next day, we did divisions with the other elders in our district, since Elder Richards needed to do a baptismal interview, and for lunch that day, with 6 elders at Irmã Barbara's house, it got a little crazier than usual. So we ended up doing Verdade/Desafio [Truth/Dare] after lunch for a little bit, and the challenge I got was to suck on part of a lime without making a face -.- But I just ate the whole thing instead, since that's a sissy challenge. The same day, we had a family night with a member family, and they had little mini pizzas and chocolate cake for after! Brazilian-style pizzas, but pizzas nonetheless.

And an even more random thing, we found super nice Oral-B-3D-whitening-whatever-it's-called toothpaste at the supermarket for 2,80ish (reais, so basically less than a dollar) for a normal sized tube, 140g. Which is super cheap! So I stocked up on that.

On Saturday, we did some necessary repair work on the branch's piano (with super glue, of course), so a couple of the notes sound a lot better now. Just the felt part of the hammer was coming off on them, so we just glued it back down, and it seems to be working much better now. I'm not sure if that's how you're supposed to fix pianos, but that's what we did.

The red spots went away, so don't worry about it :)

 

The weather here is starting to cool off a little bit too, it was only 80 in our room last night, so I was pretty cold.

 

Irmã Barbara said that she wouldn't accept money, she said that it just makes her happy to be able to help, and that she doesn't see another purpose to life other than to serve others, and that she thanks you (Mom) for sending the greatest fortune of all (or something like that, I'm not super sure :) ).

 

Oh, and Irmã Barbara has been making some super awesome juices lately, with...carrots! It's usually like a lime and carrot thing, which is better than it sounds (to me, I know it probably sounds awesome to you). So I hope you're proud of me for being healthy :) Although not too healthy, there's a lanchonete (I don't really know the translation, it's like a small sorta restaurant/snack thing) that sells milkshakes for pretty cheap! So I had a white chocolate shake and a brigadeiro shake this past week :) They also do burgers and stuff, but it's only a sad representation of what it should be. They are still very good, though, all things considered. Also, another interesting thing I ate the other day was sweet potatoes, except they are yellow here! Same exact thing, just not orange. And I ate them, even though you know sweet potatoes aren't my favorite thing in the world :)

 

Also, I'm about a third of the way through my first journal, so it looks like I'll have to buy another journal while I'm here :)

We also found a family that was in our Area Book, where the wife had the missionaries over all the time, but didn't want to change churches. Also, her husband was always travelling, and so he wasn't learning about it with her. Now, though, he is, and so they can get baptized together! :) She was super excited that we stopped by; it had been a while since the last pair of missionaries had been over there, and she was even trying to tell her husband about parts of the gospel while we were visiting (even though she really didn't remember all that well), so it was super good to see that she's excited about being taught again. So they'll definitely (hopefully) get baptized this transfer.

And speaking of transfers...we're in a new one now! The transfer came in last night (Sunday, 8th) and it was pretty surprising. Elder Richards got moved to Rio Branco, to work as a Zone Leader, which is interesting because that's the same exact situation he was in just the transfer before he trained me. So that was pretty sad, because he wanted to stay here to work with the members and investigators and everything. I think he's come to terms with it now, though. Which also means that I'm getting a new companion! I haven't met him yet, but his name is Elder Lindsey (not sure how you actually spell it), but he's another American, with about 6-7 months on the mission, and apparently his Portuguese isn't that much better than mine. Which is...a little scary :) So I'm sad to see Elder Richards go, he was an amazing first companion, and he taught me a lot. It's a weird feeling to be staying in the same area, but getting a new companion who won't know anything about anything here (apparently he's also been pretty much exclusively in Santos, so he's only had the nicer areas and so Vila Sônia should be a pretty good surprise for him :) ). So I'll have to show him around and all that good stuff. It is weird to think of how fast the transfer went by, which I guess is a feeling I should get used to. I am very glad that I don't have to pack up and leave, because I'm just getting comfortable here :) So it's more that I feel bad that Elder Richards has to leave and go back to being a leader. But that's the life of a missionary. And I know that President Cabral said that missionaries will stay in their areas for 6 months, but I think that that rule will probably be starting now, this transfer. So I'm pretty sure I'll stay in Vila Sônia for a good time, still.

Anyways, that's the big news around here. More news next week, I'm sure! Everything is going great over here. As usual, thanks to everyone for the prayers and support!

Elder Bratsman