Braganca Paulista

First off-family buisness.
ERYNN- SHOUT OUT FOR YOU!!! You´re 18...wow.
Dad-read ´Men of sound understanding´ in the Ensign Sept 2008 by Daniel Judd...it's about scripture study. You´ll like it!

Wow, Wow, Wow...so much has happened this week. Thursday, we went to Campinas and met the new mission president. The other two sisters in our Zone, Sister Lira and Sister Santos spent the night at our house since we had to leave at 5am. We now have a new way to teach. There are, now, 8 lessons, not 6, though it´s more of fine tuning. I´ll get it figured out. Because we have a new mission president, we'll get changes that other missions won´t get for a year...like conferences only once every three months instead of once a month.

The mission president, President Tanner, is really cool. I love his wife! It wasn´t a full multi-zone meeting, so there were only 10 sisters and only two are Americans. Sister Tanner doesn't speak Portuguese, so I got to talk to her for a while. She´s amazing!

My packages arrived and I'll get them tommorow when we have interviews with President and the Assistants!!!

On Sunday, there was a Pioneer Day broadcast from Salt Lake. It was actually about the Motabs! The Motab sang some of their hits...Battle Hymn of the Republic, Hallelulah, etc. The orchastra played as well, and oh, I was happy! Most of the ward was there, I´m pretty sure I was the only person who understood all the words. I almost started crying when the choir sang, 'Amazing Grace', and did cry when they sang 'Climb Every Mountain' ...and nearly died of laughter when they sang '76 troumbones' (no- I´m not kidding) and 'It´s a Grand Night for Singing.' Yep, musicals follow me everywhere!

On Saturday we went on splits. I took Gabi with me, and we visited 5 of our investigators and did our contactos. I admit, I was kind of nervous, as anyone will tell you, my portuguese is quite horrible (I´m serious), but everyone has a lot of patience for me. Thankfully, all was well, and we had some very strong spiritual moments. Sister Monterio said it was a training for me for when she leaves...for the first two weeks, I´ll be senior, showing my new companion around and introducing her to everyone (even though I don´t speak well). Apparently, it went so well that either this week or next we´ll do it for a whole day with Sister Lira and Sister Santos. Honestly, that scares me!

There are 18 sisters in my mission. 6 of us are American, the other 12 Brazillian. My companion's parents saw a picture of Eric (they live in Manaus), they think he's very handsome.

Still teaching, though not as much. It´s vacation and tons of people are gone...but WE´RE TAKING ANA, JILSON, GABI, BELLA, AND CAROL to the TEMPLE on Tuesday. Our ward is taking a van, and we get to take them!!! So excited for the temple! So, in one week- pictures!!! Oh, I´m so so happy!

Talita still has some issues to work through, but we´re hopeful. Yesterday, we tracted into two men, who honestly scared me. One of them went to kiss my hand and after asked me to move in with them. The other man put Sister Monterio´s hand on his head and asked her to bless him. They were both fairly drunk. I told them I had a very serious boyfriend, and afterwards Sister Monterio said I should have a picture of my `boyfriend` to show to these people. Rolling of my eyes, seriously!

Anyway, love you all, take care, Shan