Hello!! Well Presidente Parrella sure likes to keep me on my toes! I am sitting here now in the Rodaviaria (bus station) waiting for our bus because I am being transferred again!! I am actually really excited - I will still be with Sister Hunsaker but I will also be with Sister Lobo!! And we are going to open a new area - Ouro Branco in Lafaete (about 2 hours from here) The area is closing for elders and opening for sisters because they havent had a single baptism in 3 months - so President is trying something new! Ouro Branco is a brand new branch - tiny tiny, out in the country - so that should be fun - I am way excited to get there! I am not very excited about our house there though - we get to look for a new house because even the elders don´t feel safe there - they said it is one room - tiny, tiny, tiny - they said our suitcases probably won´t even fit - there are 2 mattresses there - not even room for a third - so I don´t know what we are going to do about that since there will be 3 of us - they said there are rats and cockroaches there and one of the walls is falling! Que benção!!! So I am determined that we are going to find a new house TODAY!! But - it´ll be an adventure - I like adventures!... I think everyone needs at least one experience like this when they serve in a foreign country!!! And I thought the last house was bad... I am just hoping that this house at least has a washing machine because it´s been a while since I last washed my clothes... hmm... I don´t have too high of hopes for that though since not even all of our walls are functioning! I found out that they closed the area of Divinopolis!! Way sad - I loved it there - and we were having success! I think they closed it because the bishops and the wards were REALLY hard to work with - they were not helpful to us and they didn´t agree with how we have to baptize so quickly - etc, etc, etc. Sad - but hopefully taking missionaries away for a little will make them want to work with the missionaries again when they open the area again!!! Is there a way that we could take the apartment there and somehow ship it to my new area?... Oh, by the way, I GOT LETTERS!!! Thank you! I am so grateful for all the support that I get from everyone - I am really grateful for that! And I am allowed to read letters on days other than P-day so I love reading the spiritual thoughts that you send me during my personal study time! So - the ward in the area I was in is WAY different than I think any other area I will ever encounter on the mission again - I felt like I was back in the US!!! It is a very strong ward in a very nice church building - people actually play the piano well and they sing correctly too!!! It was way nice! Lunches are really good here too - some of the people in this area are rich - they either are really rich, or REALLY poor - they live in the slums - and the people that live in the poor areas, we can´t visit because it is really dangerous there unless we have a contact - but I´ll get back to that in a second because I was talking about lunches - so anyways, EVERY lunch had dessert, every lunch was ready when we got there, every lunch had really good food - some even didn´t have rice and beans! and one even had pineapple!!! It was great! I think in this new area I´m gonna go back to just rice and beans from the looks of it though... Oh well - I had a one week break... Anyways, this week when we were on our way to lunch, we saw this lady and she was working - it was kinda funny because we went over to talk to her - she was scraping dog poop off the sidewalk and she almost puked - but we went over to talk to her and she was way excited and she said she really wanted us to go visit her - she lives in the poor area so we got to go there - I actually passed people doing a drug deal last night when we were leaving - I´m sure you don´t want to hear these things - but I´ll tell you anyways... he he... No worries - we have the protection of angels! So we visited her and she was way excited and really wanted to go to church with us - we passed by her house on Sunday and she was all ready to go - and she loved the church - she said it was the first church that she liked and that she didn´t want to leave and after when we visited her to teach her about the word of wisdom she had already stopped drinking coffee because we talked about it in church! She is way excited to be baptized this Sunday! - Oh - her name is Celci and she is 49. Too bad I won´t see her get baptized! But we left her in good hands... This week I got to go running!!! It was amazing! And yes - my companion already had experience with running - she did track in high school - also we made cookies!!! It is way weird to me that they don´t have cookies! Only across the street from the MTC but obviously I am not very close to there... But they were yummy - they don´t have chocolate chips here though so we had to improvise! Hmm.... what´ll be my cultural tidbit for you this week?... Oh - I know - something VERY interesting that I am sure you were DYING to know! They don´t mop like we do in the US - they dump water all over the floor and then they use a broom to get all the gross stuff out and then they use a squeegy-ish thing to get rid of the water! Interesting né???! Oh! - I almost forgot! Tomorrow we have to come all the way back to Belo Horizonte because a general authority is coming to speak to us! I think he is an area 70 or something... but I am excited!! Also - you were asking more about Carnaval - it isn´t a thing really in Divinopolis so it was way easy to teach people because noone was working - everyone was home!!! It was pretty great! Anyways, I love you!! Thank you for all your support and prayers!!! And mom, I really am great - I really don´t think about home that much because we are busy busy busy!!! I love being a missionary - It is super hard - and for sure we have more hard moments than fabulous moments - but the few fabulous moments make everything worth it!!!
Até mais!!
Sister Dunlop
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