Monday, February 2, 2015

Super Bowl? It's Not the Turkey Bowl???

Mom, Happy 5 years cancer-free!!! Goodness, that makes me so happy to know that you´re as happy and healthy as ever! And good job on the 100% on your math test! You´re a genius! :) So to be honest, I was completely shocked when I opened Cam´s e-mail talking about the Super Bowl... did it really happen this last week? I had nooooooo idea... I actually thought that it happens during Thanksgiving, but that´s the Turkey Bowl or something like that, right? Either way, it´s obvious that here, no one talks about american football and I´m okay with that haha. Taylor gets home this week! And Callie goes to Chile soon! And Katie Wiser got home last week! Time is flying by so darn quickly! Before I know it, I´ll be there to watch Steven being a stud on the basketball court. Okay, to answer questions, Sister Caetano still lives with me here. She´s training a new sister, Sister Conde from Fortaleza. She´s so sweet and there´s a girl in the Socorro 3 ward that looks just like her so everyone already loves her! :) I´m still a sister leader trainer and my new comp is... Sister Gama!!! I went on exchanges with her once and loved it, and now I get to be her companion for 6 weeks. If the next 5 weeks are anything like this last one, I´m super excited. This last week, we worked hard and had some great results. Sister Gama is a wonderful missionary who´s super dedicated and loves this work. That´s exactly what I need to maintain my focus and continue strong until the end. Lots of little miracles happened during these past few days, but one of my favorites happened yesterday. During the week, we visited one of our investigators who´s pregnant and really nascious (I don´t remember how to spell that word). For a couple weeks, she wanted to take a step back and not think about baptism or have to 'cumprir compromissos' (you´ll have to use Google translator for that one... I´m forgetting how to say these phrases in english!), so we let her. And when we returned to visit and teach her, despite not feeling well, she was extremely happy to see us and even happier to accept baptism and everything necessary to live the gospel. So we also invited her to come to church, or stake conference, on Sunday and she accepted, if she would be feeling well so early in the morning. Yesterday morning, we ran over there to go to church with her. We got there only to find her alone with three little children (one is her´s and the other two are her sisters´) and lying on the couch, feeling horrible. We conversed with her a bit to see what she was up to and, as much as she wanted to go, she didn´t feel too well and was stuck at home with three kids to take care of. But after some convincing, along with the time passing, she began to feel better and got up to take a shower and get ready. We were going to arrive there by bus with her, but because she wasn´t well, we decided that by car would be better. While she got ready, we ran to our ward mission leader´s house and asked if he could drive her. Of course, he said 'yes', we returned to her house 15 minutes later, and her and all the kids were ready for church! Wow, it was such a miracle!, especially after all that this young woman has been through. I haven´t really had the opportunity to tell her whole story, but maybe one day when I´m home I will. It´s incredible. Anyways, she loved conference and the kids were good. Other than that, we´re just trying to really get the members involved and find men and families to baptize and help so that our ward can split by the end of the year. There´s lots of work to do and I´m so happy that I can be a part of it! I hope all is well back home and love each one of you! Thank you so much Tiff and Tina for the packages/cards! Love you guys!  Have a fabulous week and splendid day!

Com amor,
Sister Ball

Saying goodbye to Laleska who will be serving in Manaus next week!  Ahhh I'll miss that girl! 
A delicious banana candy from Curitiba that Sister Gama keeps feeding me, trying to fatten me up :)

With a group of youth from another church who were doing a presentation in the Catholic church square in our area.  They invited us and we invited them!

With Sister Gama, my new and wonderful companion, Sister Caetano, and Sister Conde, our cute greenie :)

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