Amazing Week!!!

Hello my dear family!!!

Man, I don´t even know where to start! I think someone up above must have gotten sick of reading my impossibly boring emails and decided to send me an awesome week this week! hahah Seriously, this week was full of good things. We´ll start at the very beginning. haha

First of all, ever since we got here, a lot of the members/our investigators have been encouraging us to find a new place to live. That sounds weird, but lets just say we don´t live in the best part of town. And no one really worried when it was Elders... haha poor Elders. Anyway, we also live like a 35 minute walk away from EVERYTHING and it just wastes a lot of time. So the first counselor in the Bishopric decided to go house searching for us and found 4 places for us to look at. So, this last week, I walked into a realistate place and - all in Portuguese - got us keys to four houses in the center of the city. I felt so legit house hunting in Portuguese! haha anyway, it was SO much fun and we have found the perfect apartment right in the center of everything and we´re hoping to move this next week. Actually, we have no idea how long it will take/ what our contract is with our current apartment, but we´ve been pretty excited nonetheless. And everytime we walk past the new apartment we sigh and say "if only we lived here!" haha anyway, it was just a fun new adventure.

Off the balcony of our possible future house!

We also had Mission Tour this week! I don´t really know why it´s called Mission Tour, they don´t even say it in Portuguese, but it´s not a tour at all. It´s just when someone comes to our mission to talk to us who isn´t President or Sister Wright. haha Anyway, it was pretty fun. Our Zone hired a bus so we didn´t even have to pay to get to Porto Alegre! It was sweet. Half the mission was there, and I was reunited with Sister Furtado in Lindóia! It was fun to be back 'home.' haha I really enjoyed hearing Elder and Sister Leal talk to us. Sister Leal is SO funny and basically called us all out for being boring robots. She was like "I wouldn´t want to listen to you either!!" hahaha ehem. It was funny. She encouraged us to be more excited about our message and to be ourselves as we teach - not robots. I was happy.

                                                         Friends at the mission tour! 

Sister Loss goes home next week!! CRAZY!

We´ve been working this past week a lot with the less active members. We found a family who hasn´t been to church in like 13 years. The Dad is working now to quit smoking, the Mom to stop drinking coffee, and two of their kids are preparing for baptism! :) They were all in church yesterday. So cool. We´re hoping for another set of sisters next transfer, so we can both stay and because this city could really use more sisters!

I think some of my favorite work as a missionary is seeing people come back to the church. It breaks my heart meeting so many families who just don´t go because they´re lazy or because they were offended 10 years ago. I love to see the light that comes back into their eyes as they remember why they joined the church in the first place.

The beautiful green chapel - my home chapel in Porto Alegre!

We taught someone this week named Andrea and her son took a bite out of my umbrella.... I have really bad luck with umbrellas.

And, one of the coolest parts about my week was Saturday afternoon. We had just passed by the church to shed a few layers (Farroupilha randomly decided to get suuuuper hot) and were about to head to a far away bairro to knock some doors when I saw some people in a car waving furiously, honking their horn and pointing at us. I thought it must be some members, but when I looked closer, it was a family I taught in São Luiz!!! Remember how we taught English class every week? These were my only students - they came every single week (they´re not even members!). And about half way thru my second transfer the daughter, Bianca, went to England to study English and got back just 2 days after transfers. I was super sad saying goodbye to the family because I didn´t get to say goodbye to Bianca but they told me they´d find me in my new area. I totally didn´t think they were serious. haha! Especially after I went so far away. I bawled my eyes out. I still can´t really believe they found us. It was such a miracle to be passing in front of the church at that moment - we could have been anywhere! Anyway... I was pretty stoked out of my mind. My companion didn´t really know what was happening - I was just freaking out! haha it was definitely so happy. They drove 2.5 hours JUST in hopes of finding me in Farroupilha for Bianca to show me her pictures and say goodbye.  brought us treats and hugs and happiness. :) The Lord has sure been good to me. I´ve been a spoiled little missionary. I was so touched. I still cry just thinking about it. haha I love them. 

Jen made us cheesecake!!!!!!!!

Anyway, this week has been so happy. We´ve found some AWESOME people to teach and had 5 people at church yesterday! hehe the work is picking up and we´re pretty excited. The weather this week was insane. Yesterday, it wasn´t hot or cold. Just normal. But WET. We didn´t even have to be doing anything, just sitting at church and we were sweating. We weren´t hot... just sweating. So weird. So gross. Sorry for that TMI. haha

I love this area. I hope to stay! I feel like I´ve already changed a lot here and ... it´s been exactly what I needed. I´m so happy. :)

I love you all so much and I am so grateful for you! I hope you have had wonderful weeks as well! I miss you like crazy! 

Sister King