Dear Everyone,

 

Before I tell you about our week, I need to say I´m sorry. I Portuguese (this might actually just be a missionary saying, but I´m not sure) instead of saying we chastised or chewed someone out, we say that we `gave them the knife,´ meaning that our words were cutting. I just skimmed my last email and realized that I was a little harsh about the whole trunkiness thing. I´m sorry. It´s just hard hearing about the fun things we´ll do together when I still have to go work in the rain and do the same wonderfully exhausting work that I´ve done everyday since June 26, 2013. Please forgive me for losing my patience.

 

This week was a rollercoaster! We had so many good moments and so many frustrating ones as well.

 

Just to get it out of the way, here´s the bad news:

 

We taught Rita this week and came to know that her parents won´t let her be baptized until she is 18 or 19. We are still going to teach them, but it is a really frustrating experience. Bruno Silva just judges us the whole time and after every lesson lists the things that we are doing wrong. I am really, really proud of myself for not getting in a fist fight with him.

 

On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday it rained harder than ever before! Good thing I bought rain boots last transfer! I have never seen so much rain in my life. The streets were like rivers. We stopped at a bus stop to go to another town in our area and got splashed so much that I got water in my ears! We might as well have been swimming! There is a sweet ward missionary, Nuno, who walked with us ALL DAY on Tuesday in the rain and NO ONE wanted to talk to us even though we had set up several appointments. I felt so bad for him.

 

Alright, here´s the good news:

 

Rita came to church! She looked really cute.

We started teaching some part member families! It´s really exciting. Jessica is the sister of a recent convert named Mayara. She has a lot of potential and we hope that she will progress.

Sister Lewis had her first introduction to cod fish yesterday for dinner. It was delicious!

 

Something really sweet happened yesterday. We had invited a less active to church, and we had arranged to walk with her to the chapel on Sunday morning. Well we were half way when we got a call saying that she couldn´t. We had to take some deep breaths. We turned around to walk back when we heard something fall. We stopped and looked around. Turns out a sweet elderly woman tripped on a loose cobblestone and fell. Wow, that was perfect timing! We helped her up and brushed her off. God is so aware of His children, isn´t He?

 

I love you all and I hope that you all have a Happy Thanksgiving. Have a wonderful week!

 

Sister Derrick