Our new House!!! Burger King, Baptisms and Transfers....

I can't even believe that my second transfer in Brasil is coming to an end this week! So crazy how quickly time is flying by! Ok, so the last 2 weeks have been SUPER crazy... I'll try to keep this email short buuuuut I doubt that I'll be able to haha. Where to start? Ahhhhh, I know. Tuesday, the 13th. We talked to the secretaries that morning about the status of the house we were trying to get and they told us that we needed to print out some papers to give to Andersen, the owner. When we arrived at the LAN House, our emails were empty. The secretaries forgot to send the papers.. We tried calling them but they didn't answer. we decided that we'd try again later. We left the LAN House aand who did we see? Andersen. We went over to talk to him and explained that we didn't have the paperwork yet but we would try to have it by the end of the day. He responded a little something like this, "Hey! It's no problem! I have a sick aunt in Recife that decided this morning that she wants to move up here.. Soooooooo I'm not gonna rent to you guys anyways". As you can probably guess, we were feeling pretty down after that.That was the 4th house that we had started a contract on only to see it fall apart. We really didn't want to waste more time house hunting, but President Fusco made it very clear to Elder Constantino that finding a house was our #1 priority. So, after a quick prayer, the search was on... Again. We remembered a house for rent that we had seen a couple of days ago and even though we knew it would be ways too expensive and would never be approved, we both felt like we should start there. We were pretty close so just a few minutes later, we were there calling the owner. After 3 tries, we gave up and were about to leave when a lady across the street called us over and told us that there were some newly constructed beautiful apartments just around the corner. She was right. The apartments were so nice, they seemed out of place. We got the number of the realtor from the only person living there and called. Annnnd called again.. Again no answer. But this apartment building was too nice to give up on. We decided to give it a couple minutes. Sure enough, only a minute or 2 later, the phone wrang. Unfortunately, it wasn't the realtor. It was Elder Frye, one of the assistants to the president. By the time Elder Constantino got off the phone, he was in tears. After he explained what happened, I was too. Elder Constantino was transfered. After the call, we had 2 hours to run by a few members homes, pack, and arrive at the bus station. After 14 hours on busses, we arrived in Fortaleza. Sooooo ya. Now I'm pretty sure that the 13th is definitely a cursed day. 

So why was he transferred? Well, one of the assistants went home and President Fusco chose a Zone leader in Fortaleza to replace him, and he chose Elder Constantino to replace that zone leader. My new companions name is Elder Jacome. He was born in Brasil, raised in Columbia, and spent the last 3 years in Sao Paulo with his uncle. Because of this, his accent is extremely weird and I'm trying my hardest not to pick it up. He's no Constantino but he's a hard worker. He comes from a wealthy family so it's as if I'm more accustomed to Brasil than he is haha (he has 9 months on his mission).

You should have seen his reaction to our house hahahaha!! Talking about our house, yesterday, we moved into the appartment that Elder Constantino and I found. It's by far the nicest in our mission. 2 hot showers!!! Yay!! I'll send pics! Last monday we had athe opportunity to hear from an Apostle! Elder Anderson was super cool and, suprise suprise, he speaks Portuguese! So that was probably one of the coolest experiences of my mission so far. After that, we spent the day in Fortaleza annnnd I had American food (Burger King)!!! Wahoo! I didn't realize how much I actually missed it! This last week was super busy and we have 5 baptims marked for next week (what a difference a house makes). We didn't have very many people in church because we werent able to work very much on Saturday (little did we know it, but Christopher was in the hospital that weekend!), but it was awesome!! I'll send pics of everything!! Love you guys!!! :)

In Fortaleza

Loving Burger King!

So on Sunday I was released from the hospital after 3 days. On Friday I became really sick and entered the hospital. Everyone thought it was Dange but good news. It wasnt. 

Christopher's Mother's Day Skyping!

Some highlights of the Skype:

1. Christopher was bit by a dog with the bite marks visible on his pants, but not a mark on his leg.  He wants us to send him a dog whistle.

2. He shared with us the story of his birthday - the 15 hour drive to his "new" home.  It took hours to clean up as it had been abandoned for over a year with rotting furniture and garbage inside.  There is one bedroom which the owners will show up without notice to spend the night (or week). When the house was finished, they opened the back door and there were piles of trash.

3. For trash, you make a big pile and burn it - plastic and all!

4. Favorite food is Cuchina - breaded chicken.

Christopher's Testimony in Portuguese

Photos - May 12

Alberto's Family

All of those were scattered throughout  our backyard.. We don't go out there... Like ever..

Found this old truck

Answer to the Question of the Week?....Maybe.

My beautiful area!

With Everton

 

So the good news is that we will be able to skype. It'll probably be absolutely horrible quality but its a million times better than a phone call (In my opinion). What time do you guys have church? We need to work out a time to call.

 

So last week we had like 20 people in church (30 would have been super nice though) and this week we had 12 or 13 :/. We had church at Romolo and Anas (members) house this week and I think it went really well. We had more non members there this week! So that's pretty great :). Don't worry! I'll send a bunch of pics today haha.

 

Annnnnnd the answer to the question of the week is maybe. We find a couple houses every week, something just always goes wrong with them. We're looking at 2 right now and one of them is perfect! We just haven't been able to get into contact with the owner yet..

 

On the bus to Fortaleza!

One of our Chapels in Fortaleza

 

Fortaleza was super cool but by the end of the week I was more than ready to return here haha. On Thursday last week, we were able to hear from Elder Mazzagardi of the 70. He is an amazing speaker. I could barely understand what he was saying yet he was able to keep me interested. Super cool.

 

The food there was awesome too! And the best part about the food in Fortaleza? President Fusco pays for it. We ate a ton haha. I'll send pics. On the 18th of May, We'll return there again to hear from Elder Anderson (THE APOSTLE!!!! :D). I'm super excited for that! 

 

 

 Dinner on the 30th (Almost 150 missionaries in this restaurant. They just kept on bringing more and more of these trays / juice (the juice in Brasil is amazing).

 

 

Awesome Almoco (lunch) with Ana and Romolo

Arroz Doce (Sweet Rice) that Sister Veronica (Evertons mom) made for us.