Wow. This week was extremely crazy.
We found out on Monday that I would be transferred to Macapá- one of the furthest areas from the mission home, so it was a huge rush to get everything in order for my last 6 weeks of the mission. Tuesday we just worked really hard to build up our teaching pool for the new sister and finalize the wedding of Nete and Carlos and the baptism of Claudio and Lene and their family. I´m not good at saying good bye. I´ve never been that missionary that spends the last two days visiting all the members saying goodbye. But, I really love all the people in Cidade Nova and I know I´d be hurt if someone I love didn´t say goodbye, so I spent ALL night Tuesday making brownies and cute notes for all of our investigators (coercing them into being baptized- jk) and all the members that have been so good to me. Sister Torres got the short end of the stick because I ran out of brownies to give to her and ended up leaving her with a long list of To-dos for me. She´s such a trooper. Sister Torres has been the best companion I´ve ever had. I miss her a lot more than I thought I would.
Anways, we got to the airport and waited for the other two sisters, Sister Barreto (arrived in Brazil with me) and Sister Cañar (arrived in the field 2 days previously) to show up. When they did and our rides left, we saw that our flight had been cancelled. After rushing to get to the airport at 4:30 in the morning, we ended up waiting there until 2 in the afternoon to catch the next flight. I have a funny photo of Sister Barreto (Argentinian) sleeping on the airport bench with a bed sheet. The last time I was in that airport was almost a year and a half ago when I arrived, and now I´ll return in 5 more weeks to go home... weird.
The flight was just an hour, we got there, and an irmão from the ward came to pick us up. We lunched at his house and then it was time to get to work!
Friday night was a devotional with the stake and President and Sister Scisci and Elder Fernandes and his wife about being the most receptive and welcoming members in the world ( a little dramatic). We did a skit about what member usually do when there´s an investigator at church and what should really happen. Everyone liked it and hopefully it will help.
The day of, our ZL called me and asked if I could scramble up a musical number for our mission tour with Elder Fernandes, the area 70 here. Sure.... I didn´t even have time to practice. How nerve wracking. But it went well. Elder Gale, our other ZL, accompanied with the violin and there was a choir of missionaries. In spite of my many mistakes, Sister Scisci was beaming with pride that our zone put together a conference so beautiful in such little time. But this is after the 70 paid a surprise visit to the ZLs´house in Santarem and almost died from disease exposure. The bar wasn´t set too high.
After the conference, we ran to our church to prepare for the baptism we were going to have that day, only to find the font full of disgusting water and the facet broken. Also, the bishop and investigator showed up late to the interview, and everything else bad that can happen. What else is new? So, I and another YW rolled up our sleeves, grabbed some buckets and emptied and filled up that baptismal font by hand. It took about 3.5 hours. My arms are dead. But, in the end, Ruan was baptized! Worth it.
I love Macapá!! It´s a lot cleaner and has a lot more american things. Also, I don´t know if Heavenly Father´s just really blessing me by putting prepared people in my path, or it just everyone´s prepared, but literally every person we talk to says, ´´yeah I want to go to your church! how much do I have to pay for your book of mormons?´´ Our investigator that went to church on Sunday cried and told us he wants to be baptized. I am super grateful for all the trial I´ve had on my mission, but it´s pretty cool to just challenge everyone to be baptized and see the fruits of it at the end of your mission.
I have high goals for for Macapá and these last few weeks! I love working and being a missionary! I know that the restored gospel is true!
Love you all!
Sister Barkdull
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