MONDAY- September 2, 2013

king of the jungle, an asian, and snow river

Dear Blog Readers, 

Would you believe that I dared myself until I actually worked up the guts to go into a dark, cold (okay, for brasil) underground cave this past week? I mean, if there is anyone that is scared of heights and underground and indiana jones and has a bad case of clastrophobia, its sister sackley. But I had to go see the king of the jungle. So I put my big girl pants on and went. 

Sete Lagoas is full of crazy places. Like the cave of the king of the jungle-gruta do rei do mato. The cave is located just out of our area in Nova Cidade and is incredible. It is millions of years old, and was made famous in the 50s after it was discovered by locals. The incredible part however was that it was inhabited by a man for over 20 years before being discovered. The man was nicknamed the King of the Jungle because he was a fugitive of the government that never spoke, but was often seen in town bartering for supplies. He lived inside of the cave, hiding from the police for over 20 years before some crazy locals decided to hike through the jungle in search for him and found the cave. He, quickly after, left Sete Lagoas and was never heard of since.So yeah. I went inside of the cave. And I totally felt like I was going to die inside for a while. But holy cow was it a cool experience. We went on Monday, just before transfer news. 

....which came on Tuesday night, after having a super successful day of lots of lessons and lots of miracles. President calls telling me not only will Sister Alves be transfered, but I would also be leaving and training (to be a trainer) Sister Yamaguchi. 

People. I was so excited. Sister Yamaguchi is japanese (her grandpa moved from japan) and from São Paulo. She is 27 years old, and for the past 6 years she has lived in Provo, studying at BYU. So yeah. She is a Brasillian, that looks like she is from Japan, that lives in the States. Sister Yamaguchi was also trained by Sister Anderson, and replaced me in Lagoa. She sings broadway musicals for me all day.  I always wanted an asian to kill me. 

Anyways, we were transfered and I was a little sad to be leaving Nova Cidade -especially since i dont have a lot more time left. President could hear it a bit on the phone and he promised me I would not even kind of be sad when I got to Florença. President is very busy, so he quickly gave a low-down on my new area-its in Ribeirão das Neves (Snow River), a small city close to BH. The city has never had sisteres, and the ward we were going to be serving in has been fasting and praying that President would be inspired to send sisters. President had a meeting with the ward the week before transfers and had planned on sending another pair of Elders to work there, but the Bishop told President about the ward´s desire to finally see sisters, and so President decided to send us to open the area.

We share the ward with Zone Leaders (yep sister mad has the privilige of working with elders on the mission). Our area has ONE road that is paved. The rest is all dirt, and lots of mosquitos and lots of diseased striken dogs that battle one another until death. Yeah. Not joking on that one-almost peed my pants the first day. The area is a little.... risky... that is, if you were an Elder. Because these sisters got here and everyone wants to talk to the ``Lady Elders``. 

Wednesday we had a meeting with Bishop and the Elders at 6. We got there, met the Bishop, and with tears in his eyes he explained to us how excited he had been all week to meet sister missionaries-the last time he had seen sisters was on his mission. Within the hour, more than 10 ward members were in his home, all wanting to see the new novelty-women with badges.  

I have never felt so loved in my entire life. I could go die and go to Heaven in this ward. They are without doubt, the most incredible group of people i have ever loved, and have ever had the privilige to work with. I have no idea what I did to deserve it-but I am loving Florença. And the dirt. And the craziness. 

Love, sister mad

p.s. mind praying for the ward this week? we are rolling out the miracles for this sunday. I will explain later.

Pictures

 oh yeah,. thats our chapel. talk about temple. 

 cave

also, thought you would like the mattress and walls i sleep on. you are welcome. 

 we are working on a top secret project-that president has asked me and sister yamaguchi to be in charge of. I cried when he asked us. We will be teaching the assistants and the other sister trainers this week how to use the powerful weapon as well-but as for the rest of the mission-its top secret!