A Messy Week in Paradise

Well hello again, from Paradise...better known as Balneário Camboriú.

This place is GORGEOUS!!!! I´ll explain that more in a bit.

Well, Monday night I had my last lesson with Michael and I finally told him I was leaving. He was sad but he just kept saying how greatful he was that I helped him to find the gospel. That was a very neat experience. 

New Trainers!

Tuesday morning, we got up and we got on the bus to go to Floripa. For the first time in four and a half months I got to see the ocean!! That was AWESOME!!! We got to Floripa with all my bags and sat down at the church. We got to relax for a little bit, I got to see Sister Child!!! and we got to go to a lunch with all 17 of the trainers. That was so fun!!! Then we waited at the church for a little while, and then had to go change our tickets at the bus station because the new missionaries got in late, they had problems with their flights. So we changed our tickets and got to walk through Floripa a little...sadly I didn´t have my camera or any money with me. But it was super fun!!! 

Then we sat around and waited some more, and finally got to go up and meet our trainees. I was the very last person to receive my new missionary. Her name is Sister Ogle and she´s American too! She is super awesome! And we are already having a lot of fun! 

Sister Ogle and I 

New Companions in the hotel

So that night, we got to go eat pizza at president´s house and we got to stay in a HOTEL on the island!!!! Each companionship had a room to themselves and each room had two beds. Man it was awesome!!! And we got breakfast at the hotel the next morning too! 

Wednesday we got to our new area. It is beautiful! It is lined with beaches and it is HUGE! We passed by the beach just to see it and because of the holidays, you could barely even see the sand there were so many people there. 

View from our window

NEW YEARS APARTMENT PIZZA PARTY

Thursday was New Year´s Eve and we didn´t have work and President said that if we didn´t have lessons we could just stay home. So we stayed home and then waited until midnight. In my new apartment we are living on the ninth floor. And they have huge firework shows here. The fireworks started at 8 just randomly going off everywhere, and then at midnight the HUGE show over the beach started. 15 minutes of Gigantic fireworks. And we had a GREAT view from our window!!! It was AMAZING!!!! 

new year's eve from our window

Church here is huge, the ward has an average frequency of about 250 people. Holy cow it´s big, and different. It´s almost like being back in Utah again. 

Well, I am training. And that´s just crazy. Sister Ogle I think already came pretrained. She is awesome. I just feel bad because we are literally opening a new area. I have no idea how to do that, and we have no work yet. But we are going to work super hard this week and get a lot done. But I really have no idea what I am doing. I am learning to rely wholly on God because I don´t know how to do this, but I know that he does and that with His help and only with His help can we have success. 

Other thing, because we are opening a new area, we get to sleep on inflatable matresses, study at the kitchen table, and live out of suitcases. And we are without a working phone. So fun times here in Balneário. But we are starting to get the hang of it and I know that we are going to find some super awesome people to teach!! 

Hope you all had a wonderful New Year´s!!! 

Love ya!!!

Sister Wilkins

PIX FROM LAST WEEK:

MICHAEL"S BAPTISM:

Vera:

This is Vera from my last area

CHRISTMAS:
Crazy Socks and Christmas Jammies

Christmas Lunch:

See's Candy (Thanks, Dad!)

Note from Mom:

We are so grateful for the experiences Mady had in Tubarao and for the wonderful people she met there.  It was such a blessing to get pictures from them and know she's being taken care of.  A special thanks to Will and Thais Campos, who sent several pictures and kept us aware of important things, Irmao Hobson, who allowed her to skype us on Christmas f, and the many others who fed her and reached out to us also.  They have blessed our lives as well as hers.