Introducing SISTER BARBOSA!

This week was pretty awesome.  I had my first interview with the President, so it was cool to go back to Campinas for a little bit.  I also ran into one of the sister´s from my CTM district, so that was really cool.  

We had a bit of an adventure with our shower.  It started only plugging out super cold water, and we replaced about three different parts before someone from the ward came over to look at it and told us we just needed a completely new showerhead.  He disconnected the one we had, and we had to take bucket baths for the next two days until he could install the new one, so that was an adventure.  I just tried to imagine I was at a hair salon or something as I washed my hair in the sink.

We were really excited about this one family that we found in our area book.  They had had the discussions and had attended church a couple times, but their dad had not given permission for his children to be baptised, and they had stopped coming.  We shared a message with them and asked if we could walk with them to church on Sunday and they accepted.  We left pretty early as it was over half an hour to walk to their house.  Aaaaaannnnnndddd they stood us up.  We stood outside of their gate for about fifteen minutes, clapping and calling, but we finally had to leave because we had to walk to the chapel ourselves, which was another forty five minute walk back the way we came.  Sister Barbosa sat down on the curb outside their house for a second and just cried.  We arrived in church about ten minutes late without a single person, so that probably wasn´t great for our image with the ward, but there´s nothing we can do about it now.  We did have one of our other investigators come to church with her member friend Elaine though, so it was good to have someone there.

There has been a festival going on in our street for the last week and a half, and it´s been really fun.  I have eaten a lot of churros because of it, and it´s fun to see the different stuff they are selling.  It´s a little hard to get to sleep as there has been music going really loud right outside our window every night, but that´s okay.

We are trying really hard to get our ward more active and enthusiastic in missionary work.  It´s hard though, because we want to jump in and help, but some of these things are outside our realm of responsibility.  We have to just be super encouraging and helpful, I guess.  

My  training period is almost halfway over, as Presidente Hill has shortened my first two transfers to being only five weeks long apeice.  It has been a but of a struggle as we are trying to get all of the stuff passed off in ten weeks instead of twelve, but we are keeping up.

It was great to talk to my family for Mother´s Day.  I went way over time but I can´t bring myself to feel very bad about it.  It´s good to hear that you are all doing well, even though it makes me miss you guys.

Spiritual thought of the week:  I have been reading about Captain Moroni (what a man) and how he was such a big military figure at the time.  I love how the scriptures emphasize that he didn´t like fighting, but when  he did it was for righteous reasons, and that he always knew when to stop and extend an offer of peace.  I think that can apply to us a lot, because we face a lot of different battles every day.  We need to be able to know when to fight and when to extend the olive branch.  We can´t compromise, but we must always be willing to extend peace to our enemies.

Thank you for all of your support, I love you guys!  

Sister Sheffer

p.s.

The food below is a "PIZZA CREPE".   Now I have been to France, and eaten the crepiest of the crepes, so I am pretty sure there was a miscommunication somewhere about what a crepe is between there and here, but it was really good.