Hey Mommy:)

This week was good.We didn't hit our goals, but transfer weeks are always a little bit of a shake up; getting to know a new area, meeting investigators, and just working things out. Benfica is pretty cool. It's really dirty and ghetto, there isn't a single tourist spot in the area, but I'm glad to be here. My companion, Sister Briggs is really great. She's from Minnesota and she's in her second transfer, so I'm training her. She speaks amazing Portuguese and she likes to work hard. Her first transfer was really rough, she wanted to go home and she had been praying for a new companion because the first one was just not working out. Now, here I am, and I totally understand how she feels. She's great though and I think that she's starting to see the mission differently already. 
The work here is at a full on sprint. It's kind of crazy after working in an area where the work was crawling. We have four people marked for baptism in the next little while and we're teaching a whole bunch of progressing investigators, it's super crazy.SO DIFFERENT. I don't think that I could have gone from an area any different to São Miguel. Though the ward members here seem really great also.
Monday, I got here and it was rough, actually until Thursday was a little rough. Because we're by the office (not the mission home), we're kind of like a hotel. We have one room and a tiny little living room. Both very small, and yet we have 6 mattresses so that we can house others. So until Thursday we had people staying with us until they left, one of them was S. Briggs old comp- talk about awkward. It was like stepping all over someone else territory.  This week we taught some people that were actually home! It was weird because we taught the third lesson and I've hardly taught that lesson because we just didn't make it to teaching it in São Miguel, and now I've taught it 3 times in one week! We also ate at a Brasilian restaurant, like the one in Salt Lake with the people who bring around the meat. It's owned by one of the members and so every week, we and the office elders go for free! It's awesome. All the members here are either Brazilian or African, which is strange for me also after coming from an area with only Portuguese.
Because I still don't know the area too well, there isn't too much for me to talk about, but there have been a few things that have happened that were really cool! When I first got to the mission, S. Davis and I spent the night here in Benfica while we waited for our flight to São Miguel. While we were here we had the opportunity to teach some lessons and do some contacts. We contacted this woman named Asto and her daughter Jessica and S. Davis and I were just sure that they'd been baptized. Well, they weren't, but they are still being taught. Asto, at the time was pregnant, but she gave birth really early and so the baby has been in the hospital and she never has time for the lessons and hasn't come to church, but Jessica, absolutely loves the church and everything about it, she really wanted to be baptized, but she hadn't been to church either because of her mother not being able to go. Well, this week, we had church on Saturday (stake conference) and so right before, S. Briggs and I decided to go and get her. She absolutely LOVED it. She said that she felt so happy. The temple president and his wife from Madrid came and spoke and Jessica loved the idea of temples too. She was so perfect, the most well behaved 9 year old I have ever seen in church. Well I asked her during it when she wanted to be baptized and she said she was thinking the 29th of September. So, now, she's getting baptized on this next Sunday! Her mom already gave her permission and everything! How cool is it that the first person that I ever talked to in Portugal (Jessica and I walked together carrying her mom's heavy groceries and we talked about what she liked to do the first time I met her) is now going to be baptized and I'm going to get to watch?! Oh, and another cool thing is that she even remembered me! She saw me and she gave me a big hug and then she told me that she'd seen a picture of Sister Davis when she was working in the Algarve, and she also told me that she remembered that my favorite color is purple. Crazy huh?
I forgot to tell you last week, that Irmã Alexandra bought me new shoes again. Super expensive ones. It was really nice of her. They're from a sports store and they look like hiking shoes only they have straps on the top. In Ponta Delgada I was starting to lose my tan, and here it's coming back and I've got some great lines on my feet because of the straps;)

That's really cool about the card that someone sent. That was really nice of them. If you figure out who it was, tell them I said thanks a ton!

Well, I've got to go, but I love you! Thanks for everything! Have a fantastic week! Work hard with that new calling, it's one of the coolest there is. You're doing what Christ has asked us to do, to help him save his sheep. It's a fantastic calling. I hope that I can be one too when I get home. I would do it so much differently than I did the first time around.

Love always,
Sister Wach

 

From Ricki -   The card that Meg is talking about was a card we received this week from an anonymous person that had $100.00 in cash for Megan to put in her mission fund.  Thank you, thank you whoever you areJ  Not only did you help Megan but you also helped Ryan with his mission fund.  As most of you know Ryan has been paying $25.00 a month towards Megan’s mission (he works at Chick fil a).  So, you helped TWO missionaries  (now Rye can save 4 months worth for himselfJ) – thank you, thank you. 

The calling she is talking about is that I am now a ward missionaryJ hee, hee.