Monday October 21, 2013 ~ New Area

Alright so new week, new area and tons of new problems. So first off we basically had no p-day last week. We get to the house and p-day is over. Then we don't know any of the members and it was just not fun. The sister's that we switched with left the area book that was better then most but basically told us nothing. So the next day we get completely lost looking for lunch and walk around for another extra hour trying to find it but we eventually do. Oh and I got sick right after I emailed you so we moved on a day that I was sick. But know onto the fun stuff. I love our new house, it's way smaller but it is so pretty. I'll send you a picture when I get the chord or maybe next week if I have time. But so the first thing about our new area is that it's huge and its hilly. Like those sink holes we have near goldhead state park. People live on hills steeper than those. Oh and I realized that I had been living in a super poor part before because the day we got here we went to the supermarket to get grocieries. We went to like a supermarket like walmart....it is so amazingly nice. Like I was just shocked. I had forgotten they exsisted. It's in a mall like area and its just super nice. We all felt so weird being there because we were used to the super poor area. But like anyways these hills are ridiculous.they are like little moutains.I would be scared to go down these on a bike...they are just intense. Then our area is huge, it takes like an hour to walk to our furthest neighborhood.So much walking. My companion said he has never walked this much in any of his other areas.But I like it, It's nice to just walk and think. Its a little harder though because we can't teach as much but itsokay.

The first miracle this week was my camera. So it literally was a miracle.If you remeber it was broken and not matter what I did I could not fix it. So the  second I walk in the camera shop to ask the lady to look at it and fix it. I pull it out and it's perfectly fine. like it had never been broken. My face was pricelss. I was so happy and just couldn't believe it.It would have been so much money to fix it and it was fixed itself. Crazy. Then the next day we had interviews with the president and the first couple days in this new area  I felt Like I had been knocked back a day once again, portuguese was diffiuclt. I was just struggling. But After the meeting with the president everything started picking up again.And he said we could go to the baptisms of the people who had been our investigators in our last area. I have pictures but I can't send them yet. That was so cool and so fun to be at. Then that night we ran into the bishop at like randomly at a house we were just going to visit and he took us and showed us the area and where members live and it was just really good for us. Then the next day or friday I had splits with the zone leaders so I got to spend the day with one of them in his area. It was a little difficult at first because it had been almosta week since we had taught a real lesson but by lunch I was getting the hang of things again.

So then eventually we go visit this one guy who wants to get baptized but his mom wont let him and his family is evengelical and his sister shows up and basically spends 25 mins lecturing us and wont let us talk. She keeps going on about how we are wrong and all this stuff about not adding to the bible and such and my companion (the zone leader) in the first five minutes tried to bear his testimony and just did it while she was talking and then took to silience. It was an impressive learning expereince. I learned alot from him that day. But since then things have been good.The food is good and the work is good. I love being out here and I love this people. I still have a lot to learn though. I hope all is well at home and that you all have had a good week.

Love Elder Simonsen