new week, new area

So after a six hour bus ride from my last area I arrived in my new area Itapeva. Six hours on a bus is SO long, ok it´s not that long but it is just so much time doing nothing, I felt like it was such a waste of time. When the bus got there and the doors opened I felt this gust of freezing wind I was sure that it was snowing by how cold it was but it wasn´t. The bus driver said it was 2 degrees Celsius, it has been so long since I have felt cold. The bad part about cold here is there isn´t a heater in the house so we have to do jumping jacks to warm up. Also it takes a lot of strength to want to take a shower because it is so cold, these last days I have been taking my quilt into the bathroom so I can use it to leave the bathroom before entering into the refrigerator/study room. Last night it was negative 2 degrees, everyone here in this city is freaking out saying that there is going to be an ice age! I am glad that I brought a good jacket though.   Oh I can see the stars in my new area, in the other areas, because of the pollution, I could never see stars. The air is so clean here, it is super nice

So my new area is super cool, other then the cold, I love it. It is super pretty here and I heard that there is a waterfall in my area that we will have to go to one p-day. It is very rich here and the people are a lot more cold hearted so here we are going to have to rely a lot more on the members to help us with our missionary work. The members here are amazing though! We mentioned that we didn´t have very many blankets in our house to someone and that night there were like 3 members that came with their car full of blankets. Usually here the members think that missionaries are slaves but this area really respects us and really wants to help us with our work. 

My new companions name is Elder Williams, he is from Idaho. He is cool, and obedient, which is super nice, he also helps with planning at night and everything it is super nice to have a companion like this again! We share the house with another companionship one is elder Roberts, he is from Texas. I like him a lot, he is super cool, he is also very humble and a super hard worker. His companions name is Elder Araújo, he is very new on the mission but is also a super hard worker. I really like living with them, is has been a blast so far!

I am still zone leader but our zone only has 4 duplas. The zone is super big here though, the church is just starting up here we are a branch to tell you the truth, there are cities where I am at where missionaries have never went before which is a new cool experience. The only hard part is to do an interview or division with the other areas it is like one hour and a half by bus, so that is hard but it is ok. In between the areas there is just forest, our zone is made up of 3 small cities but is so beautiful here, this is what I was expecting when I first opened up my call seeing that I would serve in Brazil. It is such a small city that there isn´t even a McDonalds here!!! haha but it´s ok, I guess it is good...

This last week was a little crazy because the day after we got here the secretaries called us telling us that we would have to go back to go to the federal police because my companion is going home here in 5 weeks and he had to do a couple things so Thursday afternoon we got the bus at 2:00 pm and got to the mission office at 8:30 pm!!! The next day we woke up super early to go to the police station and then once we finished we got the but and got back to our area at 6:00 pm, so much time wasted!!! It was a little hard to work in our area this week because of that and also because we didn´t have any investigators, we went and visited a couple recent converts some other elders baptized and found the sister of one and she is wanting to be baptized!!! That is exciting, her name is Stephanie. This week was crazy but I can tell I am going to like this area a lot! 

Love,