watermelon in winter

Well what a week it was, full of miracles, trials, and opportunities to grow and learn! And in the end, transfers are tomorrow, and I am pretty sure I am leaving my beloved Vista Verde. I know that my time here was difficult, but I have a family here, and saying goodbye to that....it is hard. I can look back on the 4 months I spent here and see that I have grown. I can't really put a finger on anything specific, but I know that I have grown and changed here, and all the experiences, even the less than awesome ones, were for my benefit. I was talking about this with one of my Zone Leaders who was here in this zone since I got here, and he commented on how this time here was good for me. And it was. The call hasn't come yet about transfers; that'll happen tonight...but we had interviews with President on Thursday, and he said I'd be leaving the area. Oh how it was wonderful to have interviews with him! (Even though we had to get up at 4:30am to get there at 6am) Anyway, w

Well, where to start. First of all, this week is Thanksgiving...so here's what I think. I think you should all remember that you are thankful for me, and on your day off from school and work, you should write me letters. :) I think it's a good plan. And it'll help me celebrate the non-existent thanksgiving here in Brazil! Great plan...let's do that. :) As for other things....This week was hectic, but oh so wonderful! It had moments that were harder than anything I've ever done before, but it had moments where our level of happiness was up in the clouds! Let's start with...Tuesday! Tuesday after our district meeting, The Zone Leaders (Elders Smith and Nóbrega) came to our area to knock doors with us all afternoon. So we went to a new area, where I've never worked before, and we split. They went in one direction and we went in another, and we just started knocking and teaching. And it was fantastic....FANTASTIC. We found almost everyone we talked to was marri

Itaaaaaaaaa minha querida família!!!!! Well, this week was kind of crazy, full of fun people and adventures to set things askew. Oh well. This is going to be a quick email, as the time is short this week. If i forget things...well, you'll never know anyway. Hahah. Oh well, at least my journal is up to date on the week! So remember how I was basically going crazy here? Tuesday and Wednesday, I spent in a different area. Tuesday morning, the Zone Leaders called to let us know about a 2-day division we would be doing...every single companionship in the zone had a 2-day division those two days. I was less than thrilled, as we had some stellar people planned for those days. But in the end, it was wonderful. It gave me some time and space away from the chaos of Vista Verde to clear my mind, think, ponder, and really pray, and find answers. I am grateful now for this time I had. It was wonderful... and then when I got back, I just had to try harder not to sink back to where I was. :) I

Hey everyone! Well this Pday has been long awaited....last week was basically destroyed, and ridiculously stressful. I just need a day to relax and take my mind off of things. Anyway, how was the week. Our toilet got fixed, which was unexpected, and destroyed a good part of Wednesday, cuz we had to stay at home while they were fixing it. So that's good. But now the water meter is spinning backwards, but still counting against us, and spinning even when no one is using water...so as I suspected, there are other problems with this house. Like a leak underground. Or a broken water meter. Or someone stealing water. I have no idea. But that's interesting...now we just try to turn off the water when we leave and when we sleep at night, and hopefully that will help. As for other things, the secretaries came to our house on Saturday to deliver a new mattress and a new desk. They also brought all the packages for our zone, which will be interesting to take with us on the bus tomorrow.

Sister Gubler adds..."And when you keep on taking a shower even when fire comes out...there is something wrong with YOU!" Last Tuesday, we had our usual district meeting. It was actually a zone meeting, since it was the first one after transfers. Our zone leaders now, Elder Nóbrega and Elder Smith, are hilarious. Basically I have almost never met any combination of people so hilarious....at this meeting, I was laughing so hard I was crying. For real. They like to imitate President, with some of his funny mannerisms, and they set up the zone meeting like a zone conference. And they taught and burned, the same as President. It was hilarious. And in the middle of it, in walked a guy from the street, a nonmember, and Elder Nóbrega invited him in to listen to our training. And he just kept on burning us in front of this guy, but also taught the guy at the same time. Oh, this guy's name is Carlos. Anyway, he invited Carlos to be baptized, marking Nov 14 as the date. Carlos acc