Red Fury's Amazon Adventures!: I ate a turtle!

Hello! How are you all doing? Yup this week flew by! P-day has been a lot of fun today. We woke up and made American breakfast with the whole zone! We made pancakes, bacon, hash browns, scrambled eggs and French toast! It was so good!!! The Brazilians don’t like putting syrup on their pancakes though, they think it is weird. Then after breakfast we played games! So yeah, it has been a really good day.

The American breakfast we made today!

We had Zone Conference on Thursday. It was nice to see President and Sister Jayme again. Ha, guess what? They made me speak again!! Ugh. Our new zone leader didn’t know I spoke last time so he put me on the program again. Sister Read spoke also. We ended up speaking about the same thing! So when it was my turn I made a joke about our red hair and how we must think alike or something. I ended up kind of just winging it because I didn’t really prepare a good talk. But Sister Boyack said it was good and that I spoke Portuguese really well. She hardly ever gives people compliments so I guess I did a good job. The President talked about why we have trials in this life and how we need to always have an optimistic attitude. He said our trials help us have more compassion for other people and help us become more like the Savior. So yeah, Zone Conference was really good.

Karliany was baptized on Saturday!! We made her two cakes to celebrate afterwards. She seemed really happy after the baptism so that is good. We just need to help her make some friends. We usually teach her in the mornings and most of the members are at work. So sadly right now she doesn’t have any friends. So now we need to work really hard to get her more involved in mutual. Every new convert needs friends to keep encouraging them to go to church and helping them when they have questions or doubts. But she does seem really happy!

Karliany's baptism!

Ria, Karliany's sister in-law and Karliany in their house!

Things with Jonara are moving slowly, but she is progressing. She is now smoking only five cigarettes a day. Her two sons, Anderson and Janderson have a baptism date for this Saturday. However I do not think they are ready. They have done some things in the past that might prevent them from being baptized. Janderson doesn’t want to keep the Sabbath day holy because he has soccer training every Sunday. He can’t be baptized if he won’t keep the Sabbath Day holy. So I am not sure if they will be baptized or not. It really is up to our DL. If they pass their interviews and he feels like they are ready then they can be baptized. If they don’t pass we will continue to work with them and help them gain a stronger testimony of this gospel.

We went to turn in Jozuete and Antonio’s marriage papers with them this week, but the place was closed!! So now we can’t go until next week. Because it takes so long for the papers to go through, I don’t think they will be getting married this transfer. It is sad because one of us will most likely be transferred so that person will miss everything! But, the most important thing is they are getting married and baptized! I just hope they don’t change their minds in the next couple of weeks!

Sister Boyack was sick a few days ago. She threw up a few times during the night so the next day we took her to the public health clinic. Personally I think she just needed to sleep and wait for it to pass like I did when I was sick. So we went to the public health clinic and it was an adventure. The place looked like an old prison. It had lots of bar gates and security guards with big guns. Oh, the smell was gross too. The doctor said she had an intestinal infection. So they gave her an IV. So basically we were there for over three hours. I never want to get sick and go there! But she seems to be doing better now so that is good.

Funny language story: we were eating lunch at a member’s house and we were talking about the youth camping trip. Well I meant to ask Layza how many adults were at the campout but instead I asked how many adulterers were with the youth. Ahahah, Sister Boyack almost peed her pants she was laughing so hard. Ah good times. Oh side note… Dear family and friends whenever you have the missionaries over for lunch or dinners PLEASE do not cuddle or kiss your loved one in front of us. It makes us feel extremely uncomfortable and slightly jealous at the same time. During that same lunch appointment, Layza and her boyfriend just kept kissing and crap in front of us. I had to stare at my plate to help me not look at Sister Boyack and start laughing. So yeah please refrain from those activities in front of us. Hahahah.

Oh I tried turtle this week! It was actually pretty good! Thank YOU for my packages! I love my new pillowcase! I will try to send you some pictures today! I slept with it, but sadly because of my face lotion some of the messages got smeared! I was so sad when I woke up and saw what happened. So now I just look at it instead of sleeping with it. The other stuff in the packages is amazing thank you! I really am so blessed with so many great friends and a wonderful family! Thank you everyone for your love and support!

My lovely pillow!

So yeah that sums up my week! I hope you are all happy and remembering to have a little fun once in awhile! Have a good week! The church is true!

Love,
Sister Crystal

Here are a few more pictures....