New Adventures!

Oi Minha Familia!

I write to you from the beautiful city of Farroupilha, RS, Brasil!! Yes - I am in the city again and it is soooo good!! :D haha It´s been pretty crazy. I can hardly believe the first week of the transfer is already over. But at the same time this week passed by soooo slowly! haha My companion is Sister Richardson. She´s from Arizona and I´ve already lived with her on the mission too. haha my mission life is full of weird coinsidences. I can´t spell that word. But really... it´s been weird. haha We´re opening the area so it´s just been crazy. There haven´t been sisters here in about 4 years it sounds like, and we´re finding out why. haha This city is in the Serra - which I´m finding out means up in the mountains. So it´s SUPER cold and there are HUGE HILLS. Like... mountains we have to hike just to get from one part of our area to another. haha They tend to keep sisters out of the hilly areas because there are a ton of sisters who go home with knee trouble. But my knees are good.

Anyway, we got a very warm welcome here in Farroupilha - the members are pretty excited to have Sisters. :) São Luiz now has Elders, so that explains why we closed the area there. But anyway. We have the entire city as our area to work, so we´re still trying to figure out which areas to focus on... cuz there´s no way we can cover the entire city. haha The ward here has only been a ward for a year. Actually, exactly a year today! So it´s pretty tiny, and they don´t have a building yet so we meet in a rented apartment building. haha It´s definitely a new adventure. But I already really like the ward and the area so.. it´s been good. One of the areas we´ve been working the most since coming here is called Bairro Primeiro de Maio! Which means basically the 1st of May neighborhood. haha I´ve been enjoying my time there. :) The city is like the Kiwi capital of Brazil or something so there´s a huge festival going on right now and kiwi is suuuuper cheap!! Like... 6 kiwis for 75 cents. In Reals, so like 6 kiwis for 30 cents or something. It´s ridiculous and I love it. I´m in kiwi heaven.

Also, there´s an American in our ward! She´s lived here now with her family for about 3 years I think. She really loves having someone to talk English to and we´ve had fun making fast friends with her. It´s actually really weird having an American companion. We talk less in English than I ever have with any of my Brazillian companions. haha but anyway... 

I am suffering a little in the freezing weather! haha I have good coats and stuff and I`m totally fine, but man it´s weird feeling cold! It´s been a long time. I have spent this first week of the transfer coughing and sneezing and feeling sore allll over. But I`ll survive. haha I just need to remember what being cold is like and then I´ll be fine. haha Anyway - so that´s a bit about me and Farroupilha. The work is going well and we found 18 new investigators this week! I hope something good comes of it! haha I love you all so much and I hope all is well!!

Drea

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Here are some fun pics from my last days in Sao Luiz and from transfers. I don´t really have any pictures of Farroupilha yet - but I´ll be sure to take some this week! haha