New email and a new transfer! :)‏

Hey everyone!!

So I just set up this "new myldsmail" account, and now you guys need to change the address you have for me! I´ll be writing from here, heather.madsen@myldsmail.net, from now on. The new account is powered by gmail, so now it will save drafts and I won´t have any more disasters like last week:(

So, to recap last week´s letter that got lost! I can´t remember a ton of what I said, mostly recapped the week which I can´t remember a lot of now, and said thank you, thank you, thank you for the awesome package you guys sent! So thank you again! :D It was amazing, thank you so much for the adorable earrings and the cookies and CDs and everything. Grandma, Sister Draut and I are still eating the cookies, thank you so much! They´re amazing and reminded me of home! :D

So now for this week! Let´s see. So last week when S Raphaela left, she gave a suggestion to the President. We had been working in these two areas really far out on the edge of Camobi, São José and Presidente Vargas neighborhoods. That was where almost all except like two of our investigators were. But she suggested to him to divide the area, so only the elders would work in those two areas, and we would have the other half (closer to our house and the chapel). So this week he called and said it was really happening! Our area is now divided and we´re not allowed to work in the elder´s half. So that was crazy this week, getting cut down to two investigators all of a sudden! And we couldn´t get in touch with the elders to find out about all their investigators in our area. So we ended up knocking a lot of doors, asking everyone for references, etc, but even so weren´t able to get a ton of new investigators.

So the door knocking experiences were so funny! The reason we´d been working out in those other neighborhoods is because they´re more rural and it´s way easier to get in people´s doors. So we´d end up with plenty of new investigators every week. But knocking doors in the nicer neighborhoods, we got some of the craziest reactions!! We came across the first athiest I´ve ever met in Brazil, Sr. João. The cool thing about working in Brasil is that everyone, everyone believes in Christ, so we always have common ground, even if they have very different beliefs. But this guy was really hostile and said, "Do you ever ask anyone if they NEED the church?" and explained how he was athiest, didn´t believe in life after death, etc. VERY unusual for here. It felt a lot more like working in the States must be. Also, we had the funniest exchange with a woman at her gate.

We knock, she comes out from the backyard looking confused and suspicious...

Me: "Hey! Good afternoon! How are you? We´re missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of La--"
Woman: "Thank you, my flower."
Me: "...tter day Saints....and we have a message about the church Christ estab--"
Woman: "Thank you!"
Me: "....so you´re not interested in hearing about--"
Woman: "Thank you! Thank you." *starts walking away*

It was so weird, I´ve been rejected a lot, but usually people explain themselves or say no thank you, not just "thank you" without the no! So funny. And people come up with the funniest excuses. One woman came up and said she´d like to listen, but she wasn´t the head of the house, just a friend. She said her name, Mari, and I looked up at the sign above her door that said Mari: Hairdresser. "So, you´re not that Mari?" "Oh no, my friend actually has the same name as me. Actually she´s my cousin! We´ve known each other for years." Yeah...I would expect you´d have known your cousin for years....people are so funny. Normally though, people make up really complicated excuses instead of outright rejecting us. I´m actually not sure which one is better;)

So needless to say, we haven´t managed to work up a ton of new investigators yet, but we will! And we have a family I´m way excited about, Cleusa and Elamar, a couple, about 50. THey ahve two kids, Raphael (24) and Luisa (7). Totally adorable family, SO spiritual. Cleusa was telling me what a special, blessed child Luisa is, that when she prays the holy spirit is so strong, they often get emotional. So they understand really well about the Holy Ghost, and they´re just awesome. In the first lesson we explain about Christs baptism and ask if they want to follow his example and be baptized like him. So usually people say, "Huh, sure, all of a sudden". (They use that phrase to mean kind of, "sure, why not") But Cleusa got misty eyed and emotional and said, "Oh, I want to." So I´m super excited about them. They´re actually married-married, which is a big deal here - practically no one here gets married, just lives together. So often that´s a big obstacle to getting baptized - they either don´t have or don´t want to pay the money to get married legally. How much does it cost in the states? Does it cost at all? I wasn´t aware of that.

So Cleusa and Elamar are amazing....Sister Draut is totally awesome. I´m really loving working with her. All of a sudden in the last few weeks she kind of like, came into her own in the work, getting super involved, talking up a storm of portuguese, being really outgoing and awesome. We´re just working really well together. We´re great friends, which is good, because we can laugh at people´s crazy reactions to door approaches:) Last night we had a Valentine´s day picnic! We spread a blanket on the floor and ate a box of chocolate we bought and drank grape Fanta. So we have fun:)

Also, the members in our ward have been so great this week. We invited a couple to come visit Cleusa and Elamar with us, and it was amazing. Also an older single lady came with us to visit her friend who´s our investigator, and we just had really good luck with getting people to come with us. There´s one family, Angela and Valdir, who have son on the mission, who are awesome. They really take care of us and are just so sweet, I think because Angela believes the karma will come back to her son on his mission. They´re just an awesome ward, and I´m so glad....

that I get to stay here!:) Yep, I was 95% sure I would, and I did. This morning at transfer meeting, me and Sister Draut are staying here in Camobi, no change. So that´s awesome! We´ll be able to keep working in this new area within our old area, and get to see things through more with Cleusa and Elamar, etc. I´m so glad.

So everything´s going great! I can´t think of much more to update you guys on....oh yeah, except Carnaval!! This weekend is Carnaval, which means all of Brasil has gone totally crazy. Everything´s closed today, we had to look around hard for an internet place. But, luckily, no one does anything big in Camobi (kind of like the Sugarhouse of Santa Maria) and everyone goes downtown. So we haven´t seen any craziness, which Angela says is good. But today at the mall they had the parades on on all the TVs, and they look really cool!! I know it´s associated with a lot of bad stuff, drinking and partying, but I really want to watch the parades next year. They´re just beautiful, all the different Samba schools dressed up in crazy costumes with floats, telling different stories. Way cool. So watch them if at all possible and tell me about it!:)

So that´s it for this week. I love you guys so much - thank you so much for all your letters and support and love. I love you all! Have an amazing week, big hugs to everyone from me, and hope to hear from you more next week!

Até a proxima! :)
Sua filha amorosa no Brasil,
Heather :D