Hello There :)
Wow the weeks go by fast, dont they? Sorry about last week, it was kinda crazy! but good :) Its nice to be busy because then you dont feel home sick, right? :) This week has been a good one. Last Monday we went to mail letters and all of Brazil was in the post office so we had to wait until this week to mail them, then on our way home a drunk guy stopped us and wanted to talk about religion, so we got away from that as fast as we could ;) Then went home and made cake to celebrate p-day! The cake here is so good, im not quite sure what they do to it but it is amazing. I think it has something to do with sweetend condenced milk, why we dont use this more in the states, I dont know but its wonderful stuff! Also this week we had to stop teaching Eotildes (an 80 year old man who has cancer and is very catholic). He believes in everything we have taught him but doesnt want to change religions after being catholic his whole life. But we still stop by sometimes and say hello to him. Hes very sweet. I remember the first time we met him was my first day in Lucas and he was sitting in front of his house watching the cars go by and eating leaves off the ground.... haha :) Alot of older people do this, im not really sure why. This week we have still been teaching the family I spoke about in my last email. They love our visits and their little girls (5 and 4) call us Chia (Im pretty sure I spelled it wrong but it means aunt in portugese, you know kids like you when they call you chia because if they dont like you or are not very comfortable or familiar with you they will call you Senhora) They are a very sweet family. Today the mom (maria Lucia) is going in for surgery on her leg and will have to stay in bed for about a month. They absoulutley love the Book of Mormon and they love going to church. Its kind of funny though becasue thier oldest son Carlos loves religion and attends all the churches in Lucas on Sundays but he wont attend ours :) haha :) Hes really smart and when we were trying to teach Maria Lucia and Joao how to pray he got really excited and helped us teach them. I think if he gives our chruch a chance he would really like it. :) Yesterday was kind of sad though. They have this puppy that Joao (the dad) found at work and brought home but they dont really have money to feed it so it was straving and yesterday while they were at church, it died. Its kind of weird to see the difference in people here than from the states because I know if my dog would have died while I was at curch I would have been pretty upset but when we went to visit them that night, the two little girls ran up to us laughing saying their dog died. I wasnt really sure how to react :) haha however I was glad that they werent upset. We are also teaching the parents of one of our recent converts. They are neat people, we havnt really gotten to know them that well yet but they seem to enjoy our visits so far :) Also we are teaching a woman named cinech, who we contacted one day and she is very very receptve to hearing the gospel and keeps asking us when were going to come back. She has three teenagers all of whom are very nice and respectful and like hearing the lessons as well, I have a feeling that she is going to be baptised soon :) Well that was my week :) Im doing good and sister silva is still amazing and wonderful :) My portugese is getting better and I can now understand people most of the time and I can teach the first lesson with out getting tounge tied so thats nice :) Well I better go :) I love you all! Thank you so much for your support and prayers :) Love shelby
Monday, May 26, 2014
Monday, May 19, 2014
Short but sweet!
Hello everyone
sorry this is going to be a quick one. I don't have very much time, I guess I need to manage my P-days a little bit better :) This week has been great sister Silva and I found a family that wants to be baptized but first they need to get married and quit smoking (the dad) but they're willing to do because they know its true :) We have been working really hard :) Thanks for the prayers and the emails:) I love you all so much and I'm really sorry its so short :) Love Shelby
Friday, May 16, 2014
Monday, May 12, 2014
Hello from Lucas!
Hello everyone!
Well this was my first week in Lucas do Rio Verde! and it was AMAZING! I have a new Companion, her name is Sister Inez Da Silva and she is from Brazil (a city close to Salvador) and I love her! She has one transfer in the mission, so we are both pretty new but she is such a hard worker and such a good missionary. Lucas is so beautiful, clean and organized! I love it!
So last Monday I rode a very nice charter bus for about five hours. I didn't really know when my stop was but I was able to ask the man sitting next to me in broken Portuguese which cities were which, and he helped me know when I needed to get off. I arrived in Lucas at about 2:30 in the morning and Sister Inez along with Sister Martinez met me and helped me with my suitcases. The next day we were kind of just in a trio and we pretty much just did contacts the whole day in our area, we found a really cute family who was interested and wanted to go to church with us and also we found a lady named Francesca who is very cool and interested as well. Then that night we had to get up at 2:30 Am in order to pick up Sister Martinezs´ new companion. Her Companions name is sister Oliveria from around the same place that Sister Inez is from. She just barley came from the MTC so sister Marinez is training her. The rest of the week Sister Inez (Her name is sister Inez da Silva so sometimes we call her sister Inez or sister Silva, she kind of responds to both haha) and I worked really hard and walked a ton! I have blisters on my feet and am so thankful for moleskin! Right now we are teaching two girls named Kelly and Kamila and they are trying to decide if they want to be baptised or not, they have been investigating the church for about a year now so we are trying to help them become more excited about it. We are also teaching Francesca, who is awesome. She has a tiny dog and a tiny cat. The dog is kind of an angry little dog but she loves the cat and is like its mother. Its kind of funny because usually when we walk up to Francesca's house the dog comes running out barking up a storm but its hard to be afraid of it because Francesca likes to dress her in these little dog dresses and tutus. Anyhoo We taught Francesca the first lesson and we told her to pray about its truthfulness and she said I don't need too I already know its all true and I want to be baptised. However she wants to be baptized in a few years because she doesn't feel prepared. So were working with her as well to feel prepared and excited :) Well friends and family I love you all! I got to talk with my parents and family yesterday and it was so great! It actually helped me to not feel as homesick and to be more excited about my mission :) I'm so thankful for skype and my mission and you:) I love you and Ill talk to you next Monday!
Love Shelby
Monday, May 5, 2014
Hello from beautiful Brazil!
Hello Everyone :)
Well it has been quite the week! We received Transfer calls this week and today I will be traveling 5 hours to a new area. Ill be in Lucas do Rio Verde and ill be companions with Sister Silva. I'm a little nervous about this because Sister Silva only speaks Portuguese, so I guess one thing we know about this coming transfer is that my Portuguese is about to get a lot better! I guess that's what happens when you don't have any other choice. I'm excited to meet her but I hope that she doesn't get too frustrated with me and the fact that I have the vocabulary of a two year old child. So that will be my adventure for this coming week.... more on that next Monday :) (for those of you who need to know, yes my mailing address is still the same and will probably stay the same the duration of my mission, its just the mission office :)) My adventures for this week are as such: I am now the proud owner of a live baby chicken.... Yes. seriously. In our district meeting before last, us and all the elders decided it would be fun to have a white elephant gift exchange for our next meeting, so we all drew names and went on our way. I drew Elder Rodriguez and got him a clock that has the name of the soccer team that he hates on the front. All of the gifts for everyone were like this, like toys for two year olds or for example sister Freitas received a tie, and sister Marion received men's deodorant but not me.... My district leader drew my name and bought me a baby chicken and a grocery sack full of chicken food. So for that whole day I had to carry around a cardboard box with a baby chicken inside and a bag full of chicken food until we had time to take it home. We named her Joanna. She lived under our kitchen sink for a while and now she is living in yard and has made a nice home out of some of the weeds that grow there. This week Sister Marion and sister Freitas are giving her to one of our members that has chickens, because were not actually supposed to have pets :) so that was my adventure this week :) Something cool that happened was we taught Anna again and she is very prepared to be baptised. She says that she believes in everything we have taught her and that she wants to be baptised! She is super cool, she has a really cool husband too and I hope that he lets sister Marion and Sister Frietas teach him as well. I'm kind of sad that I'm not going to get to see her baptism but I'm happy that I was able to play a small part in her conversion. I'm going to miss it here in Tujical, the members here are so great and so nice! Its kind of funny though because non of them really know my name because they cant pronounce it. Usually I am Sister Wipel, Sister Wiplie and occasionally Sister Apple but I have trained them all to just call me Sister Weepo since that's the closest and is the easiest for them :) haha :) Well next week ill have news on how my new area and companion is! Hopefully it will be good news :) I love you all! Thank you so much for your prayers, emails and support! Love always, Shelby
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