Second Week! :)‏

Hey everyone!!

I can´t believe I´ve been in Cruz Alta for two weeks now! I still feel super new, but at the same time I´m getting used to it fast. The mission is such a time warp! It feels like it´s flying, but also like it´s been forever. But...more like it´s flying!

So, how to sum up this week? It´s going great, we´ve been really busy! Trying to teach as many people as possible. We´ve found some awesome new people! Alissom and Jair are two we´ve found who are SUPER interested and really wanting to come to church, keep commitments...they´re amazing! But what happened this week? Oh, I spoke in Church!! It was...crazy. I found out Saturday night at 8, and we don´t even have time to stop and think unless it´s personal study time, which we don´t have on Sunday morning...so I pretty much winged it in Portuguese for 10 minutes! I really wish I had had time to prepare to get my Portuguese right, but oh well. The Spirit makes anything possible! People at least said they could understand me, although one funny old man commented about my tongue-clicking when I don´t know what to say.

I´m getting to know so many awesome people here! Sister Rafaela of course is the most awesome - I´ll definitely invite her to come stay with us, Katie! She really wants to see Utah, of course. (All the members are surprised when I say I´m from Salt Lake and ask if I know the prophet and stuff. And if they´re not members they just look at me blankly:D) But there are so many great people here...This amazing member girl, Andreia, has been going out with us almost every day. We try to have as many lessons as possible with a member present, so she´s amazing for helping us and doing missionary work! You´d never guess she´s only been a member for a little over a MONTH! She´s incredible, one of the most faithful people I´ve met, and so new to the Church. Also, we´re really close with a family here, Marcos and Jovana and their two daughters. Marcos is less active, Juliana (13) was baptized a bit ago, and Jovana will be baptized the 26 after they get married! Roberta is 5 and is adorable, I have to get a picture with her! But they´re an awesome family and it´s fun to get to know them, even though most of them (except Roberta) kind of look at me like the weird (maybe not weird, funny?) foreigner.

What else can I tell you? Oh, so this is our schedule: we get up, shower and eat, personal study for an hour, companion study for an hour, fill out the teaching record forms where we record everything we´ve taught investigators, language study (Sis Rafaela is probably better at english than I am at portuguese, but still wants me to help her!). Then the first thing we do when we go out is go eat! We eat at a member´s house every day. Then we go out proselyting til 9 or 9:30! We try to fit as much as possible into the 8 hours. It´s so busy, hard to even find time to write in my journal, but I feel so good about it every day! It feels so good to work so hard.

Speaking of member families and such...I was wondering before I got here how it would be: instructors in the MTC told me people would be super poor and to expect that and stuff....and it´s really not like that, it´s a pretty normal town like small town Utah. Small-town poverty kind of, people don´t have a ton, but I wouldn´t call them poor. It´s so weird though, the houses here are terrible! I don´t know how to describe it, they´re just terribly built, terribly maintained, weird dips in the floor, no ceiling, just looking up into the rafters...they all look like they were built by me or something! So weird. And some houses seem so poor like they were just thrown together out of wood, but then they have a table with a nice computer and their cell phone charging, TV, DVD player....such a weird "poverty"!

So it sounds like you´re all doing great! I can´t believe football season started!! You have to update me on how it goes! I don´t think you said what happened against Utah State? Surely we won. I want pictures of Caroline in her Utah gear!! And I´m hoping your letters get here soon, it feels like I haven´t heard from you forever. I think there´s just a little lag between MTC and here. And those letters you sent to the mission office are fine, they still get here, they just said it´s easier to send to the PO box. Thanks so much for writing me, I love getting your letters. I want to hear about everyone! Grandma, grandpa? Who´s getting ice for grandpa on Sundays?:)

Well, everything´s great here and not to much to tell about aside from lots and lots of meeting people and teaching them! All day every day! It´s amazing, I feel so good about it. But know that I´m doing great and everything´s wonderful! I love you all so much and hope you have a great week (and send me some Caroline pictures soon:D) Love you! Til next week!

Love,Heather :D

P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! I´ll be thinking of you on the 17! :)