Hey Mom, Dad, Family, and Friends,
Ok,
to start off, I think I´ll call around 5 o´clock in the afternoon your
time (which would be 7 o´clock here). I don´t know what your skype
address is, I think it´s still shicks100 but if there´s a problem I´ll
just try to call and figure it out. So plan on me calling (or trying to
skype) after church. I hope this works for you all. I am soooooo excited
to talk to you all!
So, thanks Mom so much for getting the chacos, the only other
things that I thought of this week that would be great would be a new
loofa, goldfish (let´s just say that Sister Cameron and I LOVE goldfish,
I´ve got her hooked now), bug lotion, and the tooth-cleaning pick
things. (and you don´t have to wait, you can just send the box, if
you´re able to this week) :)
Dad, that´s a good idea, I can just buy a USB drive here,
they´re not very expensive. And maybe I´ll just hang on to the SD card
until the end of my mission or I might send it (I just don´t want it to
get stolen.)
Mom: Thanks again for ordering and mailing the chacos and
everything else you send to me. You´re the best mom ever, but really you
are :) I would love just some 4x6 photos (just the normal size)
Everyone always wants to see photos of you all so I want to have some
more photos to share. :)
Don´t worry, I won´t do anything about my moles until I talk
to you all, I just wanted to let you guys know that I had gone and that
she had said that they might need to be removed.
Aah, that
must have been fun to see Brian. I´m glad to hear Hannah is doing
better. Bummer about the Correspondents dinner as well... :(
Wow, I didn´t even know that there was a new BYU pres, that´s gonna be weird when I get back, haha
Exciting about the Schmidts as well!
Dad:
Thanks for your advice about the USB drive and SD card. And don´t
worry, I promise I won´t do anything about my moles until I talk to you
all. I think it´s obviously because of the sun that they are getting
darker and changing a little but don´t worry I´m being a diligent
sunscreen user as well :)
Glad to hear that everything is going well with the stake as
well. That´s super exciting about all the missionaries, how many
missionaries are serving from are stake as of now? The stake here,
Rangel, has 19 missionaries that are serving.
Oh and I read Alma 30, like you wrote last week. I really
liked that chapter as well. It´s amazing how well Alma asks the
questions and how he is truly led by the spirit.
Taylor:
I´m glad to hear that you had a great birthday and that´s so cool that
you were able to talk to Yara. haha, she wanted to send you all a video
of me and so last night she filmed that clip. haha, it is true that I´m
ALWAYS sweaty and I`m definitely tanner than before. Yara is super
great, she´s 15 and has already been going to church for about two and a
half months now but her parents won´t sign the baptismal form. But she
is so awesome, we just have to get her parents to sign the form. And
this week she gave us about 15 referrals! It was crazy! Did you
understand the portuguese? It´s pretty similar to Spanish.
Bryan and Lindsey: Haha, I´m glad you won the fight with the
ceiling fan. haha, I laughed out loud when I was reading your email. :)
And
thanks for sending the blog post, looks like Easter was so much fun :)
And I know I always write this but the girls are just soooo big!
Well, this week was great. We had a baptism yesterday. His
name is Nascimento and he is Vitoria and Danilo´s dad. So he´s
Hermina´s "ex-husband" (they were never officially married). Now they
are just friends and Hermina is actually married with a guy who lives in
Switzerland (yes, really random). But the baptism was great yesterday
and we had water in the font! haha, a little bit calmer than last week
:) I´ll send some photos as well. :) It truly is amazing how many elect
of the Lord are here and the field truly is ready to harvest.
Oh, random story from a few weeks ago:
So we were
waiting to meet up with a member and we started to talk with some men
who were sitting nearby. Obviously (like almost everyone does) they
asked us where we were from and then they asked if we lived by. We told
them that we lived in the Bancários and one of the men´s answer was
pretty funny. He just said, "Congratulations." afterward, Sister Cameron
and I just looked at each other, "Yes Sister, congratulations, we live
in the Bancários." Maybe it doesn´t sound too funny but in the moment it
was pretty random.
So another story from yesterday,
So, two streets
behind our apartment building there are a ton of inactives (especially
young teenage boys). We´ve been trying to help reactivate them and
there´s one teenager, Leo, and he´s 16. His father is inactive as well
and drinks, a lot. So last night we were just talking casually with Leo
and before we left we asked him if he needed anything. He paused for a
moment. And we asked him again, "Are you sure? Do you need something?"
He said that he was too embarassed to say anything and then Sister
Cameron asked, "Do you need food?" And that was what it was. He said
that his dad just spends almost all the money on alcohol and sometimes
when he´s drunk he just throws stuff out. Leo told us that sometimes he
just feels like he has no one to talk to because his mom drinks as well.
It truly broke my heart when I was listening to him last night. We told
him to give us 10 minutes and we went to our apartment and grabbed some
food that we had. We´re going to try and visit him today again with the
bishop. When we gave him the food, you could just see how grateful he
was and as we were walking back I just began to cry because I just want
him to have parents that love and care for him. I thought of the hymn
"Have I Done Any Good?" It truly is amazing to help others and I am so
grateful for the privilege I have to serve a mission.
Well, I love you all sooo much and I am so grateful for your never-ending love and support! I can´t wait to talk and see you
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