July 30, 2012

Hello family!

This week we had transfers. I got transfered to an area called Cidade Aracy. It's in the city of São Carlos, which is about 2 hours away from Ribeirão Preto, so I got to go on a little bit of a bus ride. Before I got here while I was waiting in the bus station, everyone was telling me that the city is beautiful, the chapel is amazing, my new companion is awesome, the house was huge, and that everything here was good. But the area is a favela (translation: slum!).

So my new companion is Elder Stewart. He's from Fresno, California and has just over a year on the mission, but less time in Brasil than me. He was in Alabama for 8 months, and he was actually there at the mission office when I got there, and when I left. So I already had met him one time, but had really forgotten about that until he mentioned that he was there in 'bama! It's been pretty cool so far, even though I've only spent a few hours with him. And everyone was right. São Carlos is really a beautiful place, the chapel here is huge and beautiful as well, the house is big, Elder Stewart is really cool, but this area is pretty poor. It's a bit far off from the rest of the city, and it's pretty much just a hole off the side of the city that people settled in. But I should like it here. Sounds like they have pretty good success here and that the ward is pretty strong.

This last week in Ipiranga was pretty good. Elder Henrique and I got along really well this week and we had some pretty good lessons. We had been teaching a man that had some problems with drugs, and another lady that was having problems with depression and smoking. It was pretty sad to say goodbye to them, but they will be in good hands still. Two Sisters ended up replacing us there in our area, so I'm sure that they will take care of our investigators. 

That's all I got for this week. This upcoming week should be full of fun, exciting, new experiences!

Happy Birthday, Dad!

And Brad last week, too!

I love you all!

Elder Hopper #1