September 22, 2008

Hi Mom,

This week was wonderful. It poured and poured all week long. We had so much help from the members and were able to teach a bunch of new families. We are preparing a young mother, Gisela, to be baptized on Saturday. She is the one with the little girls who started calling me Barbie. She loves the church and has made some good friends already. Our ward mission leader and his wife are friends with her family and are already planning a bunch of activities with her family to try to get the rest of the family excited about the church. Also, her nephew was baptized in the ward a few months ago (remember Lilton, the 18-year-old who I told you about who was baptized.) He is preparing to serve a mission. WOW. Also, we were knocking doors on Gisela’s road and the first door we knocked at, a woman came to the door and said, “I was so happy to see you girls”. She said she saw us and thought, the sisters came to help me return to church. She fell away from the church about 13 years ago and has been wanting to return. She went to church with us on Sunday and almost cried when she said how great it was to be back.

We also had a fun activity with our ward and the other ward that shares our building. We planted trees in an area that was needing some grooming. And the scouts cleaned up the trash by the river. It poured rain and we were covered in mud but we had a blast.

You asked about the conference. . . It was everyone in Paraná, our 4 zones.

Things are going well and we are working hard. My comp is still in culture shock but she is glad she can talk to me in English I can explain things to her. We get along great.

I am glad you got the pictures. Everything I send you, you need to save because sometimes I don’t have a copy of the pictures. My memory card is having problems and is not working. Could you send me another? I will make a cd of the pics from my comps camera but I want to be able to take pictures too. I noticed that too about the parties and food. They love to cook here and our lunches are always a special occasion.

I love you so much and hope all is well.

Love Sister Barbie