I´ve officially completed my first transfer in the mission! Crazy that I´ve been in the field for 5 weeks now! I´m still serving in the Pina area, but my trainer, Sister Juarez got transferred! It´s crazy, because usually new missionaries have their trainers, for the full 12 week of training! But I´m going to have two different trainers! I was honestly very sad when I found out that Sister Juarez would be leaving me, because she´s honestly been like my mom haha. But it´s all good, because she was transferred to Boa Viagem and so she´s still living in the same house as me haha. And then my new trainer is awesome! Her name is Sister Lopez and she´s from Tennessee but grew up most of her life in Utah! It´s super different being around an American, but also really nice haha. It´s nice to have someone who has some similarities to me. She´s super cute and I´m very excited to work with her and learn from her. I´ll try to send a picture of me and her next week :)
Things have been a little slower lately, but are still really good. Fernando and Camilla´s family are doing great and we´re getting closer and closer to their wedding and baptism everyday! Eriko told us on Tuesday that he doesn´t want to get baptized anymore. That was very hard for me. I´ve never experienced a break-up before, but I think that is what it feels like haha. We put so much love and effort into our investigators and so it´s hard to see them not do something that you know will bless their lives so much. But we saw him the other day and he asked when we´re going to visit him again and so I think he´s really missing the gospel and feeling the Spirit in his life. And so I have hopes that he will return.
On Friday we had one of the more glorious lunches I´ve had on my mission haha. We had super yummy chicken, beans and rice, french fries, guacamole, potato salad, sprite, and then brownies and ice cream haha. It was super american and it made me very happy.
I´ve been really stressed and worried about having a new companion, because I have to teach her an area that I don´t really know myself and make all of the decisions of who to teach, and try to remember all of the people we have in our teaching pool. And so it´s been a little hard. But the other day I read a talk by Elder Holland from this last General Conference, "Tomorrow the Lord Will do Wonders among You", and it helped me so much. And I want to share a part of it with everyone:
"If we give our heart to God, if we love the Lord Jesus Christ, if we do the best we can to live the gospel, then tomorrow-- and every other day-- is ultimately going to be magnificent, even if we don´t always recognize it as such. Why? Because our Heavenly Father wants it to be! He wants to bless us. A rewarding, abundant, and eternal life is the very object of His merciful plan for His children! It is a plan predicated on the truth 'that all things work together for good to them that love God.' So keep loving. Keep trying. Keep trusting. Keep believing. Keep growing. Heaven is cheering you on today, tomorrow, and forever."
I want to testify that Heavenly Father really is here right next to us, cheering us on, and just waiting to bless us.
I love you all!
I going to try and send some more photos-- my mom said that those with ubtanet emails can´t open them, so I´ll try to send them in a different format. Sorry if it doesn´t work!
I hope everyone has a wonderful week!
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| Sister Juarez and I drinking agua de coco! |
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| Some of the awesome members of the Pina Ward!! |
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| Some of the awesome members of the Pina Ward!! |
