Panambi, Brazil - Week 17 (January 20, 2014)

Hellooooo my beloved friends/family/acquaintances/strangers!

This week has been a lovely end to my stay here in Panambi. That's right, I am being transferred, finally. The past four months have been quite a ride! I've been through basically everything here. As much as I've suffered physically and emotionally in my beloved city of Panambi, I have also learned and grown so much here. And more than anything, grown to love the people here. It really is very hard to say goodbye. This will be my first transfer as well, so I'm excited/nervous for what's to come. I'll be going to Camobi, an area in Santa Maria that is known as the college town. From what I heard from the Sisters here, it is a very "chique" area. Or in other words, fancy. The ward, apparently, is perfect, and the members have pretty houses and they always have dessert at every lunch appointment. So I'm pretty pumped for that! It's quite the opposite of Panambi, so it will be a weird adjustment. Camobi is also a huge area, but it's totally flat, so that's going to be different. Tchau tchau, montanhas de Panambi! I'll be teaching a lot of young people, so I'm excited for that too (also the opposite of Panambi, aka City of the Elderly). FINALLY I'll have investigators who have INTERNET!!! Yes...

This week has been great, though the last few days have been rather sad, having to say goodbye to everyone. Robson and Cristina, two of our best investigators, are pretty heartbroken that we're both leaving (oh yeah, Sister Saito's being transferred too because she's going to be the new SISTER TRAINING LEADER in Uruguayana, woohoo!) but Robson said he will try to come visit me in Santa Maria. They are planning to get married soon so they can get baptized, and I love them both to death. :) Our perfect investigator, Janice, and her son Gabriel and husband Fabio are really sad that we're leaving too, and Sister Saito and I are pretty heartbroken to be leaving them the week before Janice and Gabriel are planning to get baptized... Boo... But Fabio said that they will try to come down to Santa Maria one Sunday and go to church in my new ward so they can see me again. :) Awwww I LOVE THEM! Then saying goodbye to all the members in the branch was super hard yesterday... You know you're loved though when people cry when you leave. ;)

In conclusion, I am very sad to leave Panambi because of the people, but everything else... I'm not so sad to say goodbye to. Tchau tchau, Panambi! Óla, Camobi!

Love,

Sister Gold

Panambi, Brazil - Week 16 (January 13, 2014)

Oi friends!!

Sorry it's been so long since I've written anything! It was crazy over the holidays, and so much stuff has been happening recently that I haven't found time to give any updates until today.

So quick summary of the last few weeks! Christmas was awesome, talking to the fam on Skype was the highlight. <3 I cut my hair! It's short now. My birthday was fantastic, best birthday ever. Every house we went to when my companion mentioned that it was my birthday everyone freaked out and gave me hugs and kisses and their best wishes for this year, and then gave me some food. Haha, it rocked pretty much. Pity I won't get to spend my next birthday here. :/ At the end of the day we went to Geovani's house (our unofficial ward mission leader) and ate birthday cake with a couple other members and the other Sisters! And they all sang Parabéns (Happy Birthday) to me and Geovani recorded it but he didn't know how to work my camera at the end so instead of stopping the recording he just turned off the camera and the video didn't save... Haha so I only have it recorded in my head. But it was awesome, trust me!

Recently, some awesome things that have happened: we found a couple of amazing families that have come to church or are planning to come next week! They have the most hilarious kids too. One family that has already come to church has four kids, the oldest being 8 years old. They are crazy and super funny. And they love the missionaries. :) The other family couldn't come to church this week but they're coming next week and they have two daughters who are 11 and 8 who are super cute and hilarious. The last time we went to teach their family, they asked if they could paint our nails at the end of the lesson... And we said they could... If one of them said the closing prayer. They both volunteered. ;) Haha only we had to catch a bus in 10 minutes, so they frantically painted our nails in three. It was adorable, and hilarious.

We also had an awesome activity last Saturday: PIZZA NIGHT! Sister Phelps has this delicious recipe for pizza dough that is seriously the best thing I've ever tasted. So we made 11 pizzas and fed roughly 40 people and had an awesome night!

I'm excited for today because we're going to Janice's house (I don't know if I've already written anything about her but she is an elect among elects, and I love her to death! She's like our mom out here in the mission field) to watch Charly with her and Gabriel, her teenage son who we've been teaching recently. Janice really wants to be baptized, but she wants the support and company of her family at church too, so we've been teaching her son and working on becoming friends with her husband Fabio, and yesterday all three of them committed to go to church together as a family next Sunday, and afterwards we're going to go to their house and make lunch for them! Wooohoooo!!!! :D

Anyway, the mission field rocks. It's the best experience ever. I looooove it! Tchau tchau for now, amados! Until next week!

Sister Gold