Transfer 7 week 3

thanks everyone for the happy birthday wishes.

I had a good birthday, my zone suprised me with a cake and stuff in the chapel (okay, so I was suspecting something when everyone was acting all fishy during the week with odd phone calls requiring my companion to leave the room and the sudden ``emergency meeting in the chapel``) But it was good. And even better is yesterday we had a baptism, of a dear old lady, donna Maria. Her granddaughter had been baptised a few months past and the sisters had been working with her for a while, but she finally decided to test the water. Literally, I think her biggest concern was if the water would be cold. okay, we tried to get hot water, but it just didnt give. The water was cold, but not ice cold. and it was really neat, we had one of the young men in the ward perform the baptism, our bispo here is really great about getting involved, getting the ward memebers involved. Its sad how many inactives we have, this area is small. Our goal this week is to assign a street to every day to visit members on that streeet. We did that on thursday and we found a family really neat, they were baptised in 2007 , the mom, and two sons. the father isnt a member, he has big problems with drinking so we (sister Lima and I) want to help this family during our time together. THe area here is realyl different, people arent as friendly as in Cuiabá and its more suburb, so youdont see as many people on the streets so we are going to focus our efforts on getting referrals from members. Referrals from members is like 95% more effective than street contacting. But everyone needs a chance to hear the gospel. some need it a few more times than others. IF there is one thing I could say I have learned this week is to not get discouraged. The numbers for my companionship have been low, and where we both were tranfsered in not knowing the area, its easy to feel frustrated. But its no excuse; the Lord will help us no matter what circumstance we are in if we do all that we can to seek Him, and be happy while we are doing it. Im the old lady of the sisters here in Julio de Castilho, so im really trying to be a good example to them and have patience. Rumor has it that an apostle will be visiting next month. I wont say more than this because tecnhically I shouldn´t know, but dont be suprised it the ex-president of BYU-Idaho comes. But hey, thats just wnat I have heard. Crossing my fingers we can work out a way to get to cuiabá next month!! Im working on my obedience and diligence this transfer; and patience too. I know that if I can be more obedident that I will see more changes in the work I do and in the miracles I can see. Ive got 8 months left to squeeze in as much experiences as possible; 8 months to make the most of the changes the Lord wants me to make in this time.

Love you all,

kristin