A wonderfual week in Jaguariúna (November 10)

Hello, everyone!

We had yet another wonderful week here in Jaguariúna!

A fantastic member fixed our shower for us, so luckily the bucket shower situation has been resolved. But, on Friday we found the evidence of rat in our house, so we cleaned everything from top to bottom in search of this creature, and we found his home (behind the washing machine), but he was not present...will have to find him later...

We're working hard, and SUPER TIRED! I don't think I've ever been so tired in my whole life! On Saturday, we explored a new neighborhood, and tried to contact some less active members and find some new investigators. Man we were so tired by the end of the day, we had the crazy laughs and couldn't stop! We were trying to teach a less active, and we just couldn't stop laughing! But, as we know, "men are that they might have joy" :)

Alex is going to wait another week to be baptized. He has trouble with smoking, so we're trying to help him quit before his baptism. We tried EVERYTHING! But I did something this week that worked but I almost instantly regretted. I promised Alex that if he quits smoking I'll loose 4 kilos. I have trouble still with the conversion between pounds and kilos, and so it wasn't until I got home and did the math that I realized that it's almost 9 pounds! #diet #exercise #boo. BUT, Alex went 3 days in a row without smoking!!!! Wahoo! Everything is all set up for this Saturday, and we're going to stop eating 3 bowls of ice cream with our lunch!

It was a great week, and I'm just so grateful for the opportunity that I have for the next 39 days to be a full time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! There's nothing better!

Love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love,
Sister Pennington

Ola! [November 3]

A reunion of Sister Pennington's MTC district in the bus station

Hello, my family!

So this week was CRAZY PANTS!!! We had emergency transfers in the middle of the transfer, and Sister Mitillo left! Guess who's my new companheira? Sister Carranza! We lived in the same house in Valinhos. She's AWESOME! I absolutely love this sister! She's great!

Our sketchy electrical shower is shocking us now, so we have to take bucket showers until someone can come fix it. Also, we don't have light in the bathroom, so last night I took a bucket shower by the light of a flashlight ... It was pretty rustic.

We promised an investigator if she visited the church, we would visit her church. It was interesting. There was a ceremonial dance with women in purple robes, so that was fun.

Nobody was baptized this weekend, but we marked for next week with Alex, and I think this one will work out ... We just need to go there are "quebrar as pernas dele" a little bit, as they would say here in Brazil. But, it will all work out :) We have an "investigator" who was baptized before I got here, but never went back to church, and so was never confirmed. We never found him at home, and he didn't respond to our calls, but yesterday, we went after church to visit him with the bishop, AND HE WAS HOME! We talked for a while with him and his wife (who is also a recent convert, and has stopped coming to church) and they told us their worries, and they reasons for not going back to church, and we sorted it all out, and they said that they're going to come to church on Sunday, and we marked another visit during the week. It was so cool talking with Mauricia about why she had decided to be baptized. She said that she had always wanted to be with her husband and daughter forever, but didn't know how it was going to happen. She said that when the sisters taught the plan of salvation, she just started to cry, because she understood how families could be together forever. She is so excited to prepare to go to the temple and be sealed to her family.

Sister Carranza with Cicero and Marlei

 The sky is blue. This gospel is true.

Love,
Sister Pennington