Cana Brava

Carta Semanal:

As expected last night, We got calls from our District Leader, Elder Williams, and I´m being transfered. Costa e Silva and Gaby are going to stay and, of course, Graça will be going home. I´m not going to lie, despite being lazy, messy and not being very obedient to several mission rules, I´m going to miss Elder Graça. Despite all of those things, he was a pretty cool guy and was a friend to me. He arrived here in 7 de Abril with me and looks like we´ll be departing from 7 de Abril together. It was a little sad to see how he felt about leaving. He had a lot of emotional moments throughout the week with some of the members here, clearly a little upset about having to leave. Kind of funny because 5 months ago, there was no stopping his going-home countdowns and all sorts of farewell nonsense. I have a feeling when my 2 years are up, I´ll be roughly the same way.

I sent my other package by the way! Keep an eye out for it. The mailman that received the package told me that there could potentially be a problem with any food that I send out but that they´ll contact you guys if something happens. I don´t think there´ll be a problem because it´s all packaged food and not homemade or any junk like that, so it should be good. I included a few things that I think you guys will like :) Sending the package was a little fun though. That day, we did divisions with the AP´s, and they accompanied us when we went to the post office. Usually, I have someone to help me out with the information and translating and what not but this time, I managed to understand enough to be able to tell what I wanted, etc.

The division was really awesome though. I was companions with one Elder Tello that day. He´s from Chile and has a year and 7 on the mission, and thus speaks Portuguese well. I learned quite a bit from him in our division. We worked in an area we don´t really work at, called ´´Cana Brava´´. The other day, we asked the Bishop to fast and pray to know where we should work and he told us there, so elder Tello and I ´´opened´´ the area, did contacts, delivered a DVD to somebody, etc. It was good. Elder Tello tells me that I teach pretty well, and that day, I got out of my shell a little, and did some contacting. IT helped to build my confidence that when I´m with someone that doesn´t speak English as my companion, that everything will still work out.

 I´m REALLY digging studying the Book of Mormon in Portuguese.  I can´t remember when the last time I studied the scriptures in English was. From the title page, I´ve read until 3 Néfi 13 or so. I started when I arrived at the MTC and now I´m getting close to finishing. I understand almost everything with really only a couple words here and there that I´ve never seen yet. I´ve even gotten to the point where I´m thinking more in Portuguese than I am in English. Understanding when people talk is relatively the same thing.

Last P-day, not much happened at all. It gets frustrating when both you and your companion are poorer than the very dirt you walk on because you have to cover your companion´s bus fare throughout the week. Last p-day, we stayed in house, made lunch, and played with a ping-pong set that someone left in house. Very basic, but Costa e Silva and I managed to have a little fun with it. Pics to follow.

Next week should be much better. New area, new companion, a lot of possibilities. For sure I´ll have much more to write about next week. Love you guys! Until next time!

-Elder Skinner