What a Week!

March 3, 2014

Hi mom!

I am super glad that you and Remmington are feeling better again!

SNOW! I miss snow right now. Although I am loving the weather in Vilhena. I dont have to sleep with a fan or airconditioning. IT IS PERFECT.

To answer Moms questions... I saw that huge list and thought they were all for me. My thoughts were this...Oh no what has Ryan done. lol. I am glad that only a few of them are for me!!

I now have seven months on the mission. It is a strange feeling. Time flys so quickly and I have met and learned to love so many people. It will be so hard to come home! I am not looking forward to it,but I am looking forward to being with my family again!

There are some cool really tiny moths here. I see them in our house. But otherwise I havent really seen any bugs here in Vilhena.

The new area is great! IT really is perfect. It is not hot, and there is wind here. There are not any noisy streets. It is just a cute little town. My new companion is Sister Olivera. She is a sweetheart, she got here one transfer after me, although she is Senior companion. But I know why.... Our area is Vilhena 2, we are in charge of Branch 2. Which ironically we found out the day we arrived doesnt exist. There are 3 branches here 1 and 3 are up and running, but some time ago branch two was shut down. So our job right now is to reactivate all of the old members and find new ones to baptise. Right now we are a part of branch 1 until branch two is up and running. It is the second time that Vilhena has had sisters.(the first time was 14 years ago and only for a few weeks) I have a feeling that I will be staying here for a while, seeing as we have so much to do. Right now we are living in the Elders house, and they are staying with the other set of Elders here. We just found a new apartment for us to move into, so that should be happening here in a few weeks. You can look it up on the internet. Right now we live on Avenida Parana, above a market. The apartment we will be moving to is on the same street as Park Shopping (the grocery store) the apartment is a part of the Olinda Hotel. Anyways Sister Olivera has been a member of a branch almost her whole life, so she knows how things work.

The 12 hour bus ride was a twelve hour bus ride. The bus stopped at every city, so when  you finally fell asleep you woke up again. Our zone is ji-parana. So when we have our treinamento de zona we have to take a five hour bus ride to get to them. Conferencia de Zonas will be a twelve hour bus ride to Porto Velho again.

The land is so beautiful. While we were staring the bus ride I kept thinking, mom and dad have to take this bus ride, just because it is absoulutely beautiful.

The people are great too!

Love you all so much! I am glad that all is well with you! I cant wait to hear from you again!

-Sister Chatwin