20 March 2012

Note:
Katelyn has a new mission rule. She cannot write or receive emails from non-family members. Please write her letters!!!


Hi family and friends!

Hope everything is going well for all of you! Im in my new area! But before I talk about my new area and such, a couple of rules have changed in our mission. One is that I can only receive emails from my family. If I receive emails from people other than my family (siblings, grandparents, and parents), I wont open them. So ya, just so you know. Cousins, aunts, uncles, friends, etc, I wont open them :( Sorry...but actual letters are always great!

So yes, Im in my new area. I like it a lot. And the branch seems awesome. Its actually a lot bigger of a city then I thought. And there is enough people in the city for 4 sets of missionaries and we only have 2 sets. We do A LOT of walking. If Im here for more than 3 transfers, Im afraid that my body will break because of all the walking haha. So we got here (all 4 of us are new to this area) Tuesday night. Our house was a little bit of a mess and we ended up cleaning for a LONG time because none of us wanted to sleep in a place like this. And our area book is kind of a mess too. SOOO the area book will be our project this transfer :) And we are opening this area again. And starting from scratch. We really didnt have a lot of references and investigators when we came so its kind of exciting. But we are trying to get a handle of things and the amount of space that we have. The city is cut into 2 parts, my companion (Sis Ayumi) and me have one half and our house mates have the other half. Im the only American in our house. Its kind of crazy but its good too. I love my companion. She is funny and shes really nice. And she wants to learn English! So Ive been teaching her some things and shes of course helping me learn Portuguese. But I want to help her. Because she really really wants to learn. So when I can, I try to help her. Honestly, if I can help her accomplish a goal of hers, then why not?! Shes from Fortaleza/Manaus. So she has a Northeastern Brazil accent which is kind of funny. The other 2 sisters are from Rio de Janeiro. One of them, this is her last transfer. She actually started her mission here so it was nice to have her there so she would know more or less where things are and stuff. The accent from Rio is actually kind of crazy. The s´s a lot of times are slurred. Its kind of the same accent as Portugual.

Lets see, what else. We are actually pretty close to the central part of the city. So we are close to shopping, post office, and the chapel. We are like 2 minutes from the chapel. So its pretty nice having the convenience of things. We do have a bit of farm land around us. Like the outer parts of the city are farm land. Its really pretty. But we spend most of our time closer in because more people, and members. But I hope that at least once we will go to the outskirts of the city to at least see the farm land. Like I said really pretty. Its kind of crazy because as soon as the city ends...its literally ALLL farm land and green and stuff. Kind of cool.

Probably the most frustrating part for us is trying to narrow down where we want to start working. Because our area is so huge, we cant very well travel the whole distant every day. This past week we were trying to get to know the members and we were tracking them down, but we spent a lot of time walking. So our task this week is trying to come up with an area that we want to focus on.

I do miss our ward in Londrina and miss Londrina. But this area is going to be good. Probably the most frustrating part of this whole thing is how much of a novelty I am. Ughh...seriously. A couple of times we had a lesson and the whole time Sis Ayumi or me were talking, the lady only looked and smiled at me. Because I was American. Seriously, they tell you in the missionary handbook that wear clothes that dont draw attention to you or be conservative in what you wear and your make up and stuff. That way we wont draw attention away from our message. Well when I talk...Im already drawing attention away from me. Seriously...so annoying! And just the way I look I draw attention away from people sometimes. One guy was a little drunk but he called us out and asked what church we were from. So we talked to him for a little bit. And then he asked me where I was from because of my accent. And then I told me United States and he like jumped out of his seat and proceeded to try to give me a kiss on the cheeek (dont worry, thats normal for brazil. People do that all the time) but ya I seriously revolted a lot haha. It was funny and creepy and annoying all at the same time. Im seriously a novelty and that really bugs me! Haha Im just try to do my job here... anyways its great. But I wish that people could pay attention to my message instead of me!!!

But ya...its all good. The area is good. We will see what this week brings :)

Love you all! Ill send pictures next week!

-Sister Empey