MONDAY - February 25, 2013

and just when you're getting comfortable in your dirty shoes

Dear Blog Readers, 

I should start this letter off by saying that i was feeling real comfortable in Lagoa. Sister Anderson and i had finally gotten into the groove of baptizing every week, we were loving the members, our numbers were rocking, the elders didnt know what to do with us and i was finally getting use to sleeping in the middle of the road. 

If there is something i have already learned in my time as a missionary, it is that the minute you feel comfortable God comes in with a grin on his face and is all 

CHANGE!!

so yep. Tuesday afternoon we were sitting all casually in a lesson with our recent converts when ``assistants`` called. You always know it is a bad sign for life when the assistants call the day before transfers. I tell sister anderson not to pick it up. And of course, she picks up. My mind begins going and I start freaking out when she hands me the phone and the ever-charming voice of Elder Moleski is waiting for me. 

For the sake of you not understanding Portugues I will just put the conversation in English-

Moleski- Oi sister sackley, how are you today?

Mad- Elder what is going on. Just say it. 

Moleski- Sister you are about to be blessed a ton! You have been called to be Senior companion. You will be leaving Lagoa and going to Contagem 2 tomorrow morning....

And thats about when I chuck the phone at sister anderson. (ask her. i literally chucked the phone.) Because Contagem 2 is an Elder area. An Elder area that was closed beginning of Novemer...and no one has been there since. Sister Anderson talks to Elder Moleski, assures him i havent died and gets the rest of the information for me. re-opening Contagem 2, 8:30 tomorrow morning, senior companion, corto-prazo. 

For those who do not speak mission lingo, here is what happened for sister sackley Wednesday morning: bags packed, get to the mission office. Sister Sackley recieves while in the office a set of keys with an address (of another city) as well as a brand new phone with not one telephone number in it. The instructions were then-okay sister sackley you are going to this area with a girl who was just notified last week she would be coming. She is 21, from the boondocks of Minas and shes never read Preach My Gospel, never been to the MTC, never really known anything about mission work. She will be coming around 2 today, just sit tight until then. 

So sister sackley sat `tight` until Suelen came into the office. She is 21 years old, expecting a mission call within the next two months and had never read really anything in preach my gospel. She does speak the language though, so that is always a plus. We then took all our lugguage, walked out of the office and after a long walk with all our things, (remember sister sackley has TWO huge bags, as well as suelens things) found a bus to take us to Contagem, a little city right outside of BH. Once off the bus we walked around until finding someone who knew of the road our house was on, and then finally after about 4 hours of traveling got settled into the little apartment. 

Its only been a few days, and i can tell you right now that my number one quality at the moment is faith and a lot of humor. Yesterday we finally got a map and although its slow, we are starting to get the numbers into our phone and today we have yet to get lost. 

It is an adventure. The wildest funniest most exhausting i have yet to experience. Please pray for us? And also pray for Hector, he needs a few prayers and maybe a miracle. 

All my love, sister mad. 

p.s. the area is a little more...dangerous than lagoa so we are short on photos for the week, i will try and snap a few next week!