Transferência!

Carta Semanal:

Transferência!

Elder Skinner -      FICARRRRR!! :D isso aí, gente!

Elder Ramírez -    Leaving

Elder Santana -    Leaving

Elder Cerna -        Stay

Another 6 weeks in Petro Oeste and I´m pretty happy about that. Honestly though, it was a result that nobody was expecting. Everybody was certain that at least I would be transfered and that I would be the only one.  Elder Cerna is here on account of a problem in another area so there was a chance that he would leave, despite having just arrived, and it was also possible for Elder Ramirez to leave. Elder Santana was the last one everyone expected to leave, and now he´s packed his bags about to leave, clearly upset about only staying 6 weeks in an area (and rightfully so.)  It´s rather uncommon to stay in an area for a lot of time, usually 3 transfers is prime time to leave, let alone 4. At the end of this transfer, I will be 2-3 days away from making a year on my mission, and I´ll only have been in 2 areas. Some missionaries are joking with me, telling me that I´ll only have 4 areas for my mission! I´m super pumped though. All in all, I was just wanting a change and everything turned out well. A little tooooo well. Of all the people I wanted to stay with, I wanted to stay with Elder Cerna, so it turned out awesome. I´m half expecting to get an interesting companion or at least an interesting housemate this transfer. 

The weeks been good. A lot better now that I know I´ll be staying another here in good ol´ Petrolina. Some serious heat is going to be showing up here soon. At least MORE heat, because there never really was even a degree of cold to begin with. September and October are the hottest months, at least here in Petrolina. I was half glad before I knew the results of the transfer because I had a feeling I´d be leaving, but t´is not so. 

I think I mentioned a little last week about Júnior and Fátima, the son and mother that we´ve been teaching this week. He also has two cousins named Fabrícia and Gustavo that also want to be baptized as well. The problem is that they´re kids and I´m afraid that their testimony of what we teach is just coming from the fact that we´re their best friends joking and playing around with them at the end of each lesson. We even left the house of Gustavo´s parents, and when we left, the three of them gave us a hug and told us that they´d be literally praying that we wouldn´t be transfered. The three of them went to church yesterday, so that was pretty neat.

We had an interesting day this week that wasn´t all to great for me. Early this week, there was a day where I was real discouraged and didn´t have any motivation to show up to empty houses or talk with people who really aren´t going to progress. Anyway, we had lunch at home because our lunch calendar from the ward is disorganized at times and normally when that happens, we can buy some food at a market or a restaurant, save the receipt, and get a refund from the mission office. Of course there´s a limit, but all of us were running low on money at the time so we had a modest lunch and that was a little bit of a bummer. All in all, I was just feeling a bit lonely that day. Elder Cerna and Santana at times just appeared to like me because I would buy them pizza and stuff like that and Elder Ramirez is just always super quiet with me. When we showed up at a door that wasn´t answered, I basically turned around, threw my backpack to the curb, and just sat down upset at the world. Elder Ramirez mostly just sat at my side and probably asked a question or two and just let me sit in silence. After reasoning with myself a little bit, we got up after sitting down for a good 10-15 minutes or so and returned to visit the rest of our appointments, all of which (with an exception of Júnior) fell that day. We returned that night, and Elder Cerna helped me to unwind a little when us 4 played a quick card game before going to bed called ´´Bang!´´ and ate some pizza, which I had payed for. The game itself is really fun. It´s a Wild West type card game, and for sure it must exist in the States. You guys have to buy it. I suppose I learned this week that I shouldn´t get too wound up over things I can´t control, mainly people that use their free will not to hear us. 

Early this week, we also had a breakfast with our entire zone (at least our entire zone without Elder Cerna and Elder Santana because they didn´t want to go.) It was pretty awesome, and I made pancakes for our entire zone, even bringing a maple syrup extract that you have to add sugar and water to make syrup that Elder Mitton had given me because he´ll be returning home this week. They all turned out pretty good and the whole zone liked the pancakes. I´m also a little saddened to have a few of our Sisters go home, especially a sister named Sister Melo in our District. I didn´t have a super huge friendship with her, but I think of all the Sisters, she was my favorite. She gave me a blank missionary planner that she had decorated that turned out really nice and I gave her a tshirt of the Ramones that I had taken with me because she is a big fan of them as well. 

Our Pday last week was awesome too. We crossed the bridge near Juazeiro and went to a super small beach-like area that really isn´t even a beach called ´´Praia do fogo´´ where we combined with the Juaziero Zone and had a water balloon war with just us and nobody else was there. It was fun but didn´t last too long. It was cool to see Elder Sterling and his companion, Elder Maia, who have become some of my best buddies here. 

I guess for now, we just have to wait to see if tomorrow we´ll be receiving another pair of missionaries. It´s possible that Elder Cerna and I become companions, but I doubt it. At least for tomorrow, we´ll be working together because Elder Ramirez and Elder Santana will be leaving tonight. It´s kind of frustrating because with two missionaries, the area is too big but with 4, it´s a little too small at times. We´ll see how it goes. 

Totally random, but today I went to a bakery and bought some bread. When they gave me my change, we left and I realized they had given me an american nickle. How did they get one of those? hahaha.

For anyone wondering, I had asked President Lisonbee for permission to log in to Facebook to send a message to a less active in 7 de abril that I had been thinking of asking how she´s doing because she was super awesome and had turned less active after her parents stopped letting her go to church because of some bad things they had heard from other churches. I accepted a few friend requests from other members I´ve met and I´m going to send my email address to see what´s been going on with her. Unfortunately, it looks like she deleted us. I don´t plan on using it to chat with anyone. If anyone wants to talk, just tell them to email me at logan.skinner@myldsmail.net.

Anyway, I suppose that´s it for this week. As always, love you guys! Until next week!

-Elder Skinner