Week #70

Mom!

OK this week was CRAZY. It's transfers today but we still don't know anything. Everyone thinks I'm staying here for my last transfer. But I really hope I get to know another area in the mission. 

This Saturday we had a service project cleaning the health department...... which I found a little ironic. A place that should always be clean.... it was filthy. So I was thinking the whole day how blessed we are in our country to have clean hospitals and doctors offices. We moan and groan about things but we seriously don't know how grateful we need to be until we're in another country and see how they have to live and how the hospitals are. Remember when I went to the hospital in Santarem? Yeah I don't want to go to any health thing (hospital, doctor etc) until I'm home in the states. 

We had a REALLY good week. We found a ton of new people to teach and our teaching pool is huge. We have two potentials for baptisms this week. FINALLY we are having success here! Manuel and Celia said that they've prayed and have received an answer that this is the truth. We were so excited! Only problem? They're not married. And he doesn't want to marry her. I think he's afraid of the commitment. So that's another stumbling block. We had 7 people at church yesterday. It seriously was a miracle. We met an old man, Raimundo, who is just super smart and accepts everything and turns out he knows a lot of the members. hmmmmmmm. But he loved church and brought his 3 granddaughters. We met a MARRIED couple. But I don't know how interested they are.

This week we were super busy planning a surprise goodbye party for Sister Oliveira. We told her we had a "meeting" with the members Saturday night to talk about missionary work and we were going to do a PowerPoint. Only when we started the PowerPoint it was full of pictures from her mission! We stole her flash drive with pictures...... and she cried and cried and we had one of the members make pizza and cake. It was a huge success and she didn't even know! Afterwards all the members told me that I'll end my mission here too and I told them that I'll be expecting pizza and cake as well :) She left yesterday on the lancha after church and it was so weird seeing her leave. She'll be home in Curitiba tomorrow! And I was just thinking the whole time about when I'll be doing the same thing in just 6 weeks. It doesn't seem real that this is my last transfer. I think about getting on an airplane and it just.... doesn't seem real. It feels like I will spend the rest of my life being a missionary and I will never leave Brasil. But I know that in just a few short weeks I'll be home. This transfer went by SO FAST and I'm only imagining this transfer now. I love being a missionary. But when I get home I still be one! Just not with an official name tag. I am for sure helping out the missionaries when I get home. 

Funny story from this week

A member's dog ran away from home while she was away in Manaus so the house sitter has been going crazy looking for him. Well Tuesday night we were walking on the street and here comes Freddy the dog and he knew exactly who we were. He stopped and we said "what the heck are you doing come here NOW" and he lowered his head and slowly walked towards us. It was super super funny how he recognized us and was super obedient. We took him back home. I don't think they told the member anything. She got back Saturday.

Well I think that's about it. I cannot believe October is almost over and this transfer is over and we STILL don't know about transfers. Usually they call Sunday or Monday morning and still nothing. 

Love you mom! See you in 6 weeks! 

Sister Clark