Rio Branco: Week 1

the neighborhood that we live in

Me with Tavares and Z Clark in the airport

dinner at the president´s house!

a part of my area right next to the beach! 

Me, elder Sales, elder Gonzalez and elder Tavares

It has been a busy week!

The first few days I had to learn a several new things like organizing travels and everything for the transfers. One of the best parts was going to the airport to receive the newly arriving group! It reminded me of my first day a year and a half ago. There were quite a few changes in the mission this week because 16 went home and only 8 arrived. Of the 8, there were 5 brazilians, 1 american, 1 hispanic, and 1 from cape verde. We gave training to them when they arrived and that night we had dinner at the president´s house. It was actually the first time that I went to his house because when I arrived, my group was so big that we had dinner at the church.

To answer your questions. I was a little surprised too when I was called. Not that I didn´t have interaction with the president, but it was just normal. And yes I had been ZL for a just a few months. My companion is Elder Tavares who is the other AP. No, we don´t have cars unfortunately but when we travel it´s by taxi or bus. We live in a neighborhood called Tirol which is the nicest neighborhood that I´ve ever seen here! Our area is really big and we work in a part that is on top of a big hill. Yeah I am in Elder Z. Clark´s spot who went home this week. I took advantage of the few days I had with him to try to learn all I could. He was a great missionary and was an assistant for 1 year. I had seen him a few times before the mission at BYU but I had never met him. But we have a few friends in common. But anyway, on thursday he went home!
My typical week won´t change that much. We still have a normal area to work in. Each assistant has a Junior companion too. When we can´t stay in the area, they stay working in it. So my companions are Elder Tavares from Recife and Elder Sales from São Paulo. A few weeks of the transfer we go to other areas to help. We are in the mission office on Sunday nights and Mondays. On Sunday nights we get the numbers from the mission. So we don´t have p-days, but we spend Mondays in the office on the computer or in a meeting with President.

I am in the Rio Branco ward which is in kind of like the "downtown" part of Natal. We live pretty close to the church. The Bishop here is a recently-returned mission president and was also President Soares´ companion on their mission many years ago. I´m not quite sure what we will do for Christmas this year but it will be good! I opened the package this week and I really liked the Christmas tree!

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hope it´s a great week. Oh yeah, we need to organize the skype call. It will probably be in the afternoon- like 3 or 4pm my time and 11 or 12 your time. I´ll see if I can get you more details. Maybe it will be as early as 2 my time. I´m not sure. But I love you all!!