Uma Bagunça!!

As I traveled back to Sousa with my 'daughter' (yes, I am training), I thought, "How perfect!  I will return to a nice, clean apartment with members that live in the same building; I have lots of great, progressing investigators and a few potential baptisms; I already know the members well, and have a good relationship with all of them; and we will live with two other Sisters -- live couldn't be more perfect!!!"  Within only a matter of minutes, my 'perfect world' came crashing down.  The Assistents to the President called our zone leaders and told us that the Sisters and the Elders were switching areas, Branches, and apartments...Sister Oliveira (my trainee), and I arrived in Sousa at 4:00, and from 4:00 to midnight, we ran around like crazies, moving luggage, cleaning apartments, and unpacking.  The other two Sisters had already moved into our nice clean apartment, so they had to move out and move over into the Elder's apartment.  The Elders, infelizmente, moved into our apartment -- and let me just say, the Elders got the better deal.  It was a crazy night, but we four Sisters had a lot of fun!  We strung up a rope in one of the rooms to create an exterior clothes closet.  Sister Johnson spent half the night killing cockroaches with her flip flop, and the rest of us tried to find acceptable mattresses where we could sleep.  Unfortunately, we only had 3 mattresses that wouldn't kill us during the night because of the smell or the condition, so I strung up my hammock and have been sleeping in that this entire week!  To put it simply, we are having a lot of fun together, and creating a lot of memorable stories!!

The rest of the week we spent one day with the Elders getting to know our new area, one day showing the other Sisters their area, and then one day actually working in our area trying to find what investigators the Elders had, and to find new people to teach.  My trainee will be super great at making contacts - since that is all we have to do right now!  I am super excited to work in this new area, and to strengthen this branch!  

At the beginning of this week, we had the opportunity to listen to Elder Christensen.  He gave us time to ask questions, and one missionary asked if it was a bad thing to feel like he could have done more in a certain area.  Elder Christensen taught us that the Lord doesn't feel happy when we are unsatisfied with our work.  None of us are perfect, but we are all trying to do our best.  If we feel like we could have done more, than change, move forward, and be better; but don't look back and become depressed or discouraged with what you lacked.  I know that each of us have the potential to do great work in our callings, in our families, and in the Gospel.  We need to trust in the Lord, pray for His strength and help; and when our efforts fall short, we need to trust that the Atonement truly will make up the difference.