okay so quick update on the visa stuff... i got all the the paperwork done and sent off! it was super stressful and im praying that i didnt mess anything up. but i got it sent out express mail and ill keep track of the tracking status. sister carone was amazingly patient with me getting all of that done. we had to run all over the place getting fingerprinted and whatnot. also i did like every single stinking thing it told me to do to try to help my fingerprints be valid, including sleeping with Vaseline and socks on my hands. so its like... this better work. :)
tuesday was sister lima's last day here and we had sister gomez here with us for the day too because her companion had already gone home. she was the one that got sick that i told you about last week. so yah i got to be sister gomez's companion for a day! she's our sister training leader and i love her. she served in brockton for a long time before she was over in cambridge area with me. and so we spent the day together and she showed me how to conquer brockton on foot. it was raining pretty hard but that didnt stop us. she had us running from house to house. its awesome here cause some of the three stories have members or investigators that live on every floor. so you can visit three families and stay in the same building! funniest part of that day was we were looking for one of our members, bezinha, because s gomez wanted to say hi to her. and so we showed up at her house and she wasnt there. but then we spotted her like five blocks away walking down the street with the elders cause they were taking her to an appointment. so s gomez takes off running and its still pouring rain and i have no choice but to follow. she's crazy. that night we drove to the mission home to make the companion switches. the mission presidency was having a meeting so we got to see all of them which is always awesome. and sister packard took care of us and fed us cake until it was time to go back to our apartments for the night.
we've been surviving without sister lima since then! its weird being in a normal companionship for the first time!! but i like it. it always felt a little awkward having three sisters come into a home. especially since a lot of the people we visit dont have much space. and sister carone is absolutely amazing. sometimes our conversations are super funny regardless of what language we're trying to talk in because english is her second language. so theres a lot of "uhhh what did you just say??" that happens. haha but i love it and we're patient with each other. she's helping me A LOT to learn portuguese. but its kinda slow going. im struggling with it a lot more than i did with the spanish. i think God helped me out a lot on that one because i was there for so short. and now its like alright time to be humbled and struggle through it for a bit. haha but it'll come. and it does when it needs to. sister carone is so patient though. she sits and helps me through language study since she doesnt have to do it because she already knows the language. haha so she helps me! and sometimes i make her just say sentences and i mimic her because my dream is to have her exact accent because it is perfect and adorable.
okay now i want to tell you about all the investigators we're working with here! cause theres like a million of them this place is crazy. we have two baptism dates set for feb 8. the first one is with this man toni. teaching him is my favorite this ever. he has a really short memory because he was in an accident when he was younger. so everytime we go we give him an overview of everything that we have so far taught and then try to add to it. he has a four year old son named Kevin. our other investigator getting baptised that day is Djena. she speaks creole and so when we're teaching her sometimes she'll respond in creole but we have to remind her that we dont understand that language and to please speak portuguese :) haha but she's awesome and has a lot of friends and people that love her in the branch.
Fatiana is 16 and had a baptism date for february too but it just got pushed back to july becaus she wants to wait for her mom to be here for it. she's in cape verde right now. also her dad hasnt been letting her come to church the last few sundays because he's super against it. so we need to work on that. its so sad because she wants to come soooo badly but theres not much she can do without his support.
Jr. is 14 and has a date for march 8. we co-teach him with the elders (elder starley and elder maldenado). he's a funny kid. he kinda seems bored when we're teaching him but then all of a sudden he'll ask these super awesome deep questions and we're just like alright youre awesome. its perfect teaching him with the elders cause then he gets two visits a week and we both help him with different things. we had a really good lesson with him this past week about recieving revelation through chruch attendance and the scriptures. we explained how we pray to talk to God, and then we do those things like go to church and read the scriptures for God to talk back to us. He really liked having it explained like that but told us that he's never had that experience of recieving his own personal revelation. and so we challenged him to pray to God and ask Him one question. and then to keep praying and thinking about that questions while doing all of those things that he's suppsoed to and we promised him that he would get his answer. and so we're excited for him to go through those steps of asking God a question and recieving and answer. because we know that he will!
okay miracle of the week!! so we were at knocking on this door trying to talk to one of our members who ended up not being home. so we turned to leave and were walking down the stairs but when we passed by the second story door we heard a bunch of yelling coming from inside. so i got out a pass along card to stick in the door frame so that when they stopped yelling at eachother they could call us :) but when we went up to the door we heard footsteps and the people inside opened it! come to find out that we have two members living there that havent been to church in forever! one of them is a little 12 year old girl that we've already been back to teach. AND she came to church on sunday for the first time in forever :) also her mom and aunt that live there told us that they love our church and want to take the lessons and be baptized and we were like OKAY DEAL. haha so yah that was an awesome experience this week to find them!
quote of the week... "someone is throwing snowballs from the sky" - sister harris
oh and yah mom we still have our beds set up like that in the living room.. MEGABED :) ill try to take a picture of it this week to send home.
yesterday we had a district fast for elder christenson. he's elder lopes' (also brazilian.. they're everywhere here) companion who got transferred here from cambridge with me. elder christenson served in brazil but got sent home sick because he got a parasite. he got better enough to be sent out again and reassigned here to boston. but now he's getting worse again and hasnt been able to go out to do missionary work all week. so we all fasted for him that he'll be healed because its looking like he might have to go home again and not be able to finish his mission. it makes me so sad.
thats about it for updates from this week. i love you all!!
love,
sister tantillo
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