The Place of Becoming: Week 2 with Sis. Santos

Capybaras!! These R.O.U.S.'s can get up to 200 lbs.

Well I officially hit a third of the way through my mission yesterday day. A solid 6 months. But I feel like my Portuguese regressed this transfer because my companion and the people here speak way faster than in my other area, so I'm back to being completely lost in conversations. But it's fine. I'll learn faster this way, I suppose.

Here's a few events from this past week:

So I've been in need of a bigger suitcase because I didn't think many things through

When I brought two little suitcases out here. I looked around a store near our house, but all of the suitcases in the size I needed were R$650 reais (that's less than $130, but still). But this past week, while working in our area, Sister Santos saw a bazar in a little church and just stopped out of no where and asked if they had any suitcases. She herself said she couldn't believe that she was asking because the chances of finding a suitcases of the size I needed was slim to nothing. However, they had one. A huge one that's apparently a really nice, expensive model and I got it for R$50.

#blessingsofthrifting

I have learned for myself exactly what burning electricity smells like. No, not because of outlets, lights, or other such things. No, no, no. But because of the freaking shower head. I still can't believe they plug them into the wall, but anyway.

If you take more than a 5 minute shower, the head starts to smoke. This thing is walking a fine line between life and death, as are the missionaries using it.

We received some new bases for our beds Wednesday, I think, and, unfortunately, we couldn't fit all 4 beds in the same room, so we had to do some rearranging in the house. When Sister Santos lifted her old wooden bed frame, it immediately started to break so she just snapped it completely right there, shrieking the whole time that the pure power of God and Jesus Himself had kept the frame from breaking on her while she slept.

Four sisters sharing a house.

On a more serious note here:

We've been helping an inactive member, Eva, by calling her almost every night, reading a scripture, praying, and singing s hymn with her to help her feel better. She has a pretty serious case of cancer and is awaiting surgery.

One night, we called her to share a message and everything, and she answered on tears because she discovered some horrible things her ex husband had been doing to her 14 year old daughter. We did our best to comfort her, and we visited her later that week in person and shared a message with her there. She's living in pretty rough conditions; she has curtains covering the windows and her TV only show 24 hour footage of the road outside her house to make sure her ex husband isn't near the house.

This past week, we called her again to share a message, and she answered us telling us that she was hiding in a supermarket with her daughter, Maria Eduarda, and her boyfriend because Eva's ex husband had attacked them with a knife and tried to kill Eva. The only reason he didn't succeed was because Eduarda jumped in front of him and pushed him away.

They were able to get back home safe, but her husband has just hanging around the house for the past several days, waiting for them to leave.

Theoretically, the police should be doing something about it today.

So if you could all keep Eva and Maria Eduarda in your prayers and fasts, that would be extremely helpful because this poor woman is a mess.

On a lighter note to end:

We've been teaching a man named Ademir, and he really likes what he's hearing, and he wants to be a part of this family, is what he said. So we've been teaching him. The only thing is that he's only available after 9:30PM, so lessons usually drag on until 10 PM, at which point Sister Santos and I are dead mentally. We want to teach him the Restoration, but all of the sudden he wanted to know about tithing and other such subjects really bad. Sister Santos keeps saying that this man has no choice now. We've stayed up late for him almost every night so she said that she's just going to go to his house and throw him in the water and baptize him herself if necessary.

But he really does have a lot of interest, and he's progressing well, so keep him in your prayers too.

That's all for this week