After 4
wonderful transfers with Sister Marchant, and her being in the same area
for 6 transfers....who can guess what would happen? I was transferred.
What!? And my new companion is...Sister Marchant!!! That's right, nobody
saw that one coming. We moved together to the area next to ours. Our
new area starts where our old area ended, literally across the street.
The sisters that were in this area moved to our area and we are taking
over theirs. I cried when we left Campos Eliseos, not my house, but the
people that we left there. It was hard. I´ve never stayed in one place
for 4 transfers. Luckily lots of the members in our old ward work in
our new area. Our area is downtown Riberão Preto, so everybody works
here.
This week was AWESOME. So we were teaching, up until we were transferred, this cute 80-year-old woman. She really is cute--I´ll send
you a picture later, or just bring it home with me in a couple months.
We were looking for one of the less-active young women and found her
instead. She lives with her adult son who is also a member of the
church, but isn't very active. He apparently has been wanting his mom to
be baptized for awhile. She is a bit hard of hearing and doesn't
understand everything we say, but she knows we love her A LOT. She has
the memory of an 80 year old with the beginnings of Alzheimer´s disease.
There was a moment where the doctors almost made her move to an elderly
care home, but we fasted for her and she got to stay in her own home!
Then we fasted again so that could remember everything in order to pass
her baptismal interview...and she did!
Sunday morning we went to by her home to walk her to church. We asked if
she was ready to be baptized and she started laughing. Pronto nada,
hahaha, não vou me batizar não. [Ready nothing, hahaha, I'm not going to get baptized.] But she went to church. When we came by
in the evening to walk to her baptism she was leaving her house. `Irmã,
where are you going?`...I'm going to church, I just can't remember how to
get there so I'm going to ask the neighbor. Look at her, beautiful,
really old, full of forgetfulness, and full of faith. She gets big
points. Her whole family is active in the church and probably never imagined she would get baptized. We had no idea how to get a hold of
them, but one of the sisters in the ward helped with that. We arrived at
the chapel and her grandchildren and a few great-grandchildren were
there, all ready to watch the generation head enter the waters of
baptism. Honestly, she was adorable in her white jumper.
The elders baptized a father and his son. I felt the water; it
was pretty cold for an 80 year old woman. She went right on in. Sister
Marchant asked after if the water was cold, she hadn't even noticed. I
had not imagined when we began teaching her that so many wonderful
people were connected to and waiting for her.
Ben, Monica, Alena, and hooligans, congratulations on making
it to Indiana. You really are troopers. Remember that one time Mom flew
from Hawaii to Gilroy and Ben and Nic got the Chicken Pox and barfed all
over Mom...? At least that didn't happen this time, right? Monica, I hope
it was an easy flight.
Anyway, in my new zone there are 7 companionships. The zone
leaders and us are the only people not training new missionaries. We have the zone of new
missionaries, how cool is that? It makes sense: the training program
for new missionaries is called the 12 Week Program, and I have 12 weeks
left.
I love you lots!
Sister Hoggan
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