Transfers : (

Elder Watt (on right) will be leaving for another area.  We'll miss him

Hey Family! 

Soooooooo we got transfer news..... Elder Watt is leaving me to be a ZL (zone leader) in another area :( but at least I get to stay, right?  I get to train a new zone leader, so that will be a fun experience.  I'm happy that I'm staying, though, because I love this area so much. 

Sorry I haven't really been too detailed in my letters in the past, so let me give you guys the rundown on my area, Cidade Leonor.  So this area that I'm in is one the first areas that the Church was established here in Brazil.  So the church has a good strong presence here.  Our area is pretty mixed when it comes to social/economic class.  We have a good sized favela (which is just like a dense community of houses built upon each other with tight walkways and drug deals going down).  We also have your normal middle class neighborhoods, and then we have the closed apartment buildings like when I was in São Caetano. We are working more right now around the favela/in the favela, but we have a few references for people that live in the apartments so we are going to be visting those as well. 

The members here are really good!  They help when they can with the work and we have a lunch provided almost everyday, but sometimes we'll do it at home. But as with members in most areas of the church, it's hard to get good solid references (referral of friends to teach).  (By the way, how are the references going for the sisters back in Martinez Ward?)  It's a struggle for a lot of church member here, because they have work, families, other activites, and they are not spending every moment on missionary work like we are. 

It's been starting to cool down here for the past few days. We usually have days where it is super sunny in the morning and then rains a little throughout the day that gives that kind of muggy humid feeling, but for right now it's cooling down. 

For  P-day we do a variety of things.  We usually get our normal preparation done.  In this area we live in a house in the back of an Irmã's house, and she does our laundry for us (she's an angel). Then we will usually relax at home, nap, or if we planned the night before, we go to this place called "25 de Março" which is the best place to buy things super cheap.  This last P-day though, we had a sweet activity with our zone where we played ping-pong, ate hot dogs, and designed zone shirts.

This past week for us was a fight.  We weren't able to catch sensei this week but when we do, I'll be sure to let you guys know.  We have been teaching a quite a bit, though, and we have been having some really awesome and spiritual lessons.  And our work payed off because we were able to bring a few investigators to church with us, and a few more that we taught in the past came without us knowing beforehand.  We also brought a girl who has been inactive for 13 years of her life, back to church for the first time.  It was so good to see our investigators at church and it seemed like they all really liked it.  

I'm glad to hear that you guys are staying busy and everything is going great at home. I'm still freaking out that Elder Nate goes home soon.  So trunky.  Anyways,

I can't wait to hear from you all next week!

Love,

Elder Schwartz