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| Rio das Otras |
I will be sister training leader – senior with Sister Burris
(and yes if you think that sounds like an AMERICAN name you would be
correct!!!!) We will be opening an area for
sisters. All I know so far is that
zona macae is the farthest from the mission office, is a huge area, we live by
ourselves, our house is very far from the chapel, the area is calm and
beautiful and close to the beach. It
will be a huge change for me, that’s for sure!
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| Our last FHE in Jacarepaguá, with Alexandre & Franciele, and Edna. They are great people with amazing testimonies of love and sacrifice! |
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| Picture with our former Mission President and our new area Seventy. |
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| The view from the veranda of our new house! |
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| New Comp and I walking to our house |
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| Here we are...looks great from the outside! |
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| Sister Colvin and Sister Burris |
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| I just have to lug these bags up those stairs. |
Sister R and I (with the help of our zone leaders) lugged our 5
suitcases onto the bus and rode two hours to the Rodoviaria Novo Rio, where all
of the missionaries meet to do transfers.
We ended up leaving around 11 am…and didn’t get to our house until 4:30
pm – that was one long bus ride!
But, I stinkin' LOVE my new companion. We just mostly chatted and enjoyed the scenic ride. It was
actually beautiful in a nice bus with private seats. We arrived at our house,
which is a lovely little upstairs space with a nice veranda overlooking a
quiet beach town street. But when
we entered the house we were hit by a WALL of stink, filth, garbage, and
insects. I took loads of pictures,
but it doesn’t even do it justice of how utterly disgusting the Elders left
this house….GROSS! One of the
Elders (I won’t give names) is now our district leader. Soooo I have to try to forgive him as
I;m wading through his trash and killing his fruit fly farm. Seriously awful! We didn’t even end up working at all on
Tuesday because our house was so trashed.
In fact, it was so bad that Sister Lima took 100 reals out of the
Elder’s account and put it on our cards so that we could buy cleaning supplies,
and so that they would learn to NOT leave their houses like this again.
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| Moldy disgusting filth |
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| Uggh! |
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| Trying to figure out the drainage issues. |
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| Pile of trash left by the Elders |
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| Moldy Fridge |
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| Fruit fly farm |
June 4th, 2014
Wednesday
started with a bang at 4 am when the blinding light entered our curtain-less
bedroom. We both tried to go back
to sleep, but the stress of 1,000 problems to resolve didn’t let us. Some of the problems include: clogged
toilet, clogged bathroom vent/pipe (contributing to the foul stench in the
apartment), broken shower, and literally hundreds of fruit flies, filth
everywhere, etc. We cleaned until
8:00, then did our studies, and headed out for our first lunch with Irma
Magda. Our new area is HUGE. We didn’t have very clear directions of
how to arrive there, so naturally we ended up getting lost. (Shocker!) Just picture two super white American
girls reading a map on the side of the road, with everyone passing by and
giving sideways glances. Yeah. We
were getting pretty flustered and I said a quick prayer that the Lord might
help us out. Barely 30 seconds
passed by (I am not even kidding), and an energetic 13 year old member of our
ward (who we had not yet met) hopped out of a van and approached us offering
help. I am 100% certain that it
was a direct response to a simple prayer for help. She had taken a
different route that usual, and noticed two white missionaries looking very
lost. She offered to help and knew
exactly where we needed to go because she happened to be best friends with on
of the kids in the family
After
our lunch, we went straight to our district meeting in Cabo Frio (1 ½ hours in
a bus), then after the meeting we went on to Andarai (4 hours on a bus) to meet
with the sisters there. It made
for a long and unproductive day, but at least it was spent in good
company. We spent the night with
the Andarai sisters (I got to see Sister Brown who finally had been transferred
after serving for 10 months in Campinho.)
It was goot to see her again.
SIDE NOTE: It
is not just the Elders who are slobs – the sister’s house in Andarai was NASTY!
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| Sister B. struggling to scrub grease off the walls |
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| Almost Done! |
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| A greatly improved bathroom! |
June 5, 2014
We woke up early to get ready so that we
could be on time for zone training which started at 7:30. The training went to 4:30 pm, and we
didn’t get back to our area until 11 pm because of the traffic. Ugh! I don’t know why we have to have such long training meetings
– it is a long time to sit on a church pew. I am not good at just sitting. It was fun to see some old
friends: E. Van Wagnen, S. Packer, E. Neu (who is now a great zone
leader!) I also got two letters
from my brother and one from Bessie Porter (she gets a big hug when I get
home). It is so nice to get mail
and kindof special to get handwritten notes from my brother.
June 6, 2014
Friday
was our first real day of work in our area. We had weekly planning, then hit the ground running.
Unfortunately the “running” was actually a lot of walking in circles and
getting lost. But hey, that’s just
what happens when you stick two Americans together in a new city with ZERO
credit on the telephone, and only a crappy map to guide them. We got lost a lot this day, but lovely
Irma M. and her daughter, C. helped us a lot. We found a new investigator, L., who is a family friend of
some ancient slow-progressing investigators. He is a nice man in his mid-40’s who had a lot of really
great questions and sincerely seems to be searching for religion. We’ll see.
We
also had our coordination meeting with our new ward mission leader,
Hisashi. He is a really neat
guy. He is Japanese-Brasilian,
speaks Prtugese, Japanese, and Englush.
He works as an off-shore helicopter launch pad coordinator. He is a proactive go-getter! We are going to do great things
together.
After
our meeting a brother and sister from the ward drove us home and attempted to
fix our shower. It is almost
lukewarm now, which is at least tolerable. I really miss having a nice hot shower….which makes me think
about all of the things that I miss at home. When I get home I want to:
- Go to the temple
- Spend as much time as possible with my family
- Sleep for about a week straight
- Get a massage
- Get a treatment for my poor frizzy sun-fried hair
- Take a hot shower
- Sleep on a comfortable bed
- Snuggle with my dogs
- Play a tuned piano
- Ride my pony.
There are loads of other things, but these are at the top of
the list.
June 7, 2014
We
had a really good day of work today.
We visited J., who is returning to activity. The Elders found her one day through a street contact. She had been inactive for 3 years. She is amazing. I am very impressed by her
determination to come back to church and get her life in order.
June 8, 2014
We had stake conference in M., which was
great. It was broadcast from Salt
Lake City specially for Brazil.
Sister Carol M. Stephens, Elder Scott, Elder Ballard, and others
spoke. Elder Scott tried to give
his talk in Portuguese but I had a hard time understanding his accent. Fortunately it was the same talk that
he gave to us while we were in the MTC.
I got to visit with all of the missionaries in our zone inclusing Sister
R. (my last companion). She was
kindof unpleasant to me which makes me even more grateful for Sister
Burris.
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