Goodbye's and A New Area!

(Note from mom: I found some great pics on Sister Barkers FB of their area and some beauties of Bri asleep, fully clothed, studying.  I love them, but Bri is less than excited!  In her defense, she's not the only one sleeping in such a manner in the pics!  Those girls are working hard!)

Unfortunately I don´t take pictures like Sister Barker haha. I can´t believe she sent those! Now that we´re separated, she thinks she can send whatever she likes to her family... oh I see ;). I´ll try to take more pictures of everything though. So far, I haven´t taken a ton.

Glad Noelle had fun at mormon prom.  I can´t believe all the rain... it sounds like Sergipian rain, nossa.

So this week started in some tears and bittersweet goodbyes... I had to say goodbye to Gragerú 1 and one of my best friends that I´ve been with since the beginning of my mission-- Sister Barker was the first person to greet me in the São Paulo airport! I found a sister in her and it was so hard to say goodbye to her along with the family I made in Aracajú. Please keep in touch with them, Mom! But I´m in a great place now too. Now my area is Cidade Universitária... Sister Castro´s and Sister Barratt´s old area, in Maceió, Alagoas (Mom, now I´m officially in Maceió so Antonio Carlos won´t have to correct you on the location haha). I live in a pink house right in front of the chapel. My companion is incredible, Sister L. Silva. She´s super tranquil but incredibly funny and knows how to do this work. We´re working hard but without the stress that I had before. I don´t know how she does it but it´s so nice! And we have baptisms marked for this weekend and the weekends to come. Our only struggle right now is finding good new investigators... but that´s every missionary´s problem :). I´m in the same district as an elder who arrived in the field with me, Elder Rossetto, so it´s nice to have at least one familiar face around. This last Tuesday, I also received some letters from missionary friends and a beautiful postcard of Alyssa and Jozette... thank you so much! Oh and fun fact: I´m actually teaching a woman named Josete. Cool, neh? Another fun fact: everyone thinks Sister Barratt returned to the area because we look so much alike to the people here.

This week was just filled with lots of lessons and getting to know the new area. We have lots of people here who need to be married before they can be baptized, so we´ll hopefully be helping with lots of weddings. And for now, that´s about all I have. Sorry my camera died so I can´t send all the pictures I have and my time is running out. But I love you guys so much and am extremely grateful to be doing this work. I´m grateful for a chance to be here and start with a new area, new companion and new people... I just really hope that I can return to Gragerú one day! haha I love you all and am thankful for you in my life. Boa semana e hurrah for Israel!

Com amor,
Sister Ball

P.S. One of the few pictures that loaded before my camera died... the closest I got to "carnaval," taken from our window.

With Elizamar and Osmário for the last time... they were beyond kind and drove us to the chapel we needed to meet in at midnight with all our luggage. I love these people!

Having FHE with Antonio Carlos, Marinalva, Osmario and Elizamar--some of my favorite people in the entire world