August 5, 2008

Mom,

Thanks for your letter. It's always so great to hear that everybody's doing well.

This last Sunday we finally did our Special Musical Presentation. And it was rocking awesome. A full half-hour of songs and inspirational quotes... It was awesomely wonderful. Elder Presença, my District Leader, put it all together. And I am the best pianist in the Zone so I was running from the piano to the microphone and back again and I may or may not have forgotten the end of the scripture I was supposed to say. but I singing went well. Overall it was awesome. Then the Mission President spoke to our Stake about Our Purpose. I don't know if you've read preach my gospel, but our purpose is to invite people to come unto Christ. He talked about how that should be our purpose throughout our life. But the best part was that at the end of it all, the Stake President got up and invited/challenged each of the 150 people in the congregation to find 2 people to be baptized in the next 150 days till the end of the year. So our ward better step it up. Our stake is waking up to missionary work!

I got a new companion! Her name is Sister F. Souza and she's from Minas Gerais--I think it's in Brazil somewhere--and has 14 months in the mission and this is her 7th area. That's about all I know about her for now. I'll send a picture, too. I saw Sister de Jesus at the Transfers and she gave me the earrings and necklace that I'm wearing in the picture. And Sister Christensen went to meet her parents! They'll be stopping by the apartment with my presents this week! I made my new Planejamento for this transfer and I put all the pictures I could find of Mary Magdelene when she sees Christ. Recently I've been feeling like I know what I'm teaching is true... logically. But now I'm going to figure out how to feel that everything is true. You can see that Mary is feeling a lot. I'm going to have such love, faith, and hope.

Love you all. Until next week when Kevin's in Brazil!!
Whitney