Cute Little Dogs!

January 8, 2013

Hey Family!
Okay so new years was kinda weird. we all watched movies which was fun and made this habanada not sure how its spelled but its like a... churro. but a whole peice of bread.  but all i could think about at midnight when the other girls were celbrating that they were going home this year... i was thinking^´ hey me t..... awww. no... i~ll still be here next year haha. our english class is having great success. we~ve not got about 30 ants and a few mosquitos. their accent is coming along, but all the chairs are empty. we'll keep advertising and see what happens. we did splits two days this week because a sister was sick. my companion stayed home with her half the day both days and i worked all day:).  I dont think i'll be sending home any packages.... its about 30 bucks for every kg. or 2.2 pounds. so a 5 pound package is over 50 dollars. sorry. I had a headache of the gods the other day. I was seeing stars and felt like i was going to pass out. probably lack of sleep haha. There's two dogs here that chill on the street near our house on the way to our area. the other sisters said that they named them batman (bachman) and robin (hobin). But robin disappeared for a little while but the other day he came back with a little tie on and was all washed and clean. Yay robin! Batman is the same dirty little dog as ever. haha I was hit by a motorscooter the other day. We were at the supermarket going in and there was a sidewalk that went in from of the parking garage. We were on the sidewalk and a young girl driving the scooter was turned around talking to her friend on the back and decided not to stop at the stop sign so I jumped and spread my legs so the wheel went in between (awkward in a skirt) and held onto the handle bars. Luckily she wasn't giong very fast but i just stood there very confused at what just happened and said "sorry" in portuguese and kept walking and the girl on the back said "say your apologies to god!"...... I will.... thank you? haha. Later that night I told the sisters we live with the dramatic story of how i was hit by a motor scooter, knocked to the ground and got up and punched the lady in the face, ran into the supermarket, was followed in there. The lady pulled out a gun and Sister Machado defended me by throwing boxes of pizzas at the woman. They believed me right up until the gun part and Sister Machado collapsed laughing on her bed haha. Oh the other day at a members house after lunch we were on splits again so it was at a members house that wasn't in my ward thank goodness. But they asked me to say the closing prayer and I bowed my head and said ´dear gracious Heavenly Father...´ and thought ´something is wrong... what just happened.... OH NO..... I said it in english! What do i do, what do i do, ah just keep going in portuguese maybe they wont notice!´ Then in very poor portuguese because I was so nervous I finished the prayer. after the prayer they all smiled and told me how good it was hahahahaha. Oh man. We left the house and Sister Santos started laughing haha. The ward here is pretty much all converts so they don't know all the hymns yet. I picked Behold the Great Redeemer Died as the sacrament hymn (its my unsaid calling now to pick and lead the hymns) and I thought that would be good cause its popular in our ward ma. But nobody knew it.... So it was an unplanned, unaccompanied solo of mine and slightly more than kinda awkward. But they bore their testimonies that ´even though we don't know all of the hymns... the church is still true´ about  5 people said that. Hahah. But the positive is more members want to join the choir and learn the hymns! Woot!   17 new mosquito bites from 2 days ago. I'm going to buy new mosquito repellent that I can carry with me causeIi guess 2 times a day isn't enough. Hows ben doing?????????? Everytime I think that my mission is hard I just think ´yeah but at least i'm not in Bens mission....´ maybe thats bad but I would die with that heat. Yikes.
We had to postpone our baptism again. But we hope to have 3 or 4 more this month so thats good at least. A cute old lady gave me perfume cause I gave her a present (the book of mormon). It's not the best smelling but I still use it cause its better than being stinky :) And ma you know I hate being stinky. I was helping sister santos with english the other day and one of the words in her book was functioning but the portuguese accent left out the n after fu.... hahahah i tried not to giggle and told her how important that letter was.

I'm going to make goals today of who I want to be after the mission, like what I want to get out of my mission and work towards that. I'm also working on praying more sincerely. Some of the prayers the members say here make me want to cry its so beautiful. Have you seen the video on lds.org about the temple in manaus? You should watch it. I got teary eyed. So amazing. the fridge, tv, stove, bed..... it's basically all these people have some houses are better than others.... But some houses are made just out of planks of wood.... They have a handbuilt gate to keep the stray dogs out but they are just so happy! I'm getting pretty tan. The other sisters called me moreno (a brown brazillian girl) the other day haha made my night. I told one of our investigators that smoking and inviting girls into their home who shouldn't be there is inviting satan in. Doing things you know you are wrong makes it easier for him, and it chases the spirit away. I used 2 tim 1:7. one of our investigators.  Where we were told a lady takes care of dogs. We clapped at the gate and she literally has probably 50 dogs. The 30 or so dogs outside started barking and then more appeared at the door and windows. I couldn't take it I was laughing so hard. she came out and saw the box and said NO I CAN'T TAKE ANY MORE. I DON'T HAVE ANY PHYSICAL ROOM! we believed it. so for the next 4 hours i carried around a box of puppies and we talked to everyone trying to find a home for them. Funny thing is I had prayed that morning for God to help me me thin and toned arms when I got home. I'm thinking maybe iIshould start praying that i'll be fat and weak. hahaha! My arms hurt so bad! The boy got taken away and his sister was so upset. That she peed and threw up in the box. fun.
She also had fleas
And maybe ticks
She would scratch herself and I'd see little black things fall and the disappear. Scary! We dropped her off at the bishops home and his blessed wife scrubbed and debugged her. Then we gave her to our investigator.  We named her sister dog cause she was our third companion that day. She is super cute.   I'll try to grab a pic next time we go see her. We told our investigator her name was sisi. (see- see) cause his daughter calls us that. His daughter loves us by the way she~s 6 or 7 and wants to be a sister when she grows up. The first time we met her she was wearing a short dress and the next time we saw her she was wearing a long dress. She had seen what we were wearing and told her dad that she needed to wear longer dresses haha awesome. So life is good in Florinapolis.  I love and miss my family and friends.  Thanks to those who write me!  Very much appreciated.  Love you all!
Sister Green