Transfer to Itacoatiara, Amazonas

I know I know I know.....I have been horrible to keep ya’ll updated but I will do my best to give ya’ll an update on me for these past couple of months. So this past transfer I left Cacoal. :( It was a really sacred time that I had to spend there and get to know the people there. Now I am here in Itacoatiara or however you spell it lol! I am starting to get to know the area and really enjoying it! It is nice to actually have a church building and a ramo (branch) so that is pretty nice. We don´t have to stress about doing EVERYTHING! lol But the ramo has about 50 people going to church and I heard that bout a year ago tinha bem mais (had much more)! We are going to work hard and try to get it back to what it was! So it is crazy that I am just entering my 3rd area here in Brazil ha-ha but what a great experience. So I guess I will just let ya'll know what I have learned over the past couple of months. So I don´t think I have ever seen better examples of people that stay firm in the church. Leaving Cacoal was one of the hardest places to leave besides leaving my family. I learned that we are doing the Lords work but more than that we are helping others out here in the areas that we serve. The members in Cacoal are so grateful to have missionaries. They will do anything for them and I would do anything for them to help them establish the church. But I know the church will grow there and I am excited to move on to new areas. Here in Itacoartiara it is a lot hotter lol. Our area is not a city anymore but it is still pretty big about 1/4 of the city. Nossa (Our) area is the poorer area of Itacoartiara but that also means the people are more humble. We found a man the other day and his name is G....We have been teaching him and he came to church but I feel that he came to church because he feels bad for us walking in the sun and stuff but were going to keep after him and try to get his family in it as well. Our mission has changed perspective where they want us to focus a lot more on resgate(rescue) rather than baptizing because there are a lot of baptisms that are not active. The other day I had the great opportunity to go on an exchange with Elder Sanford. One of the most difficult things for me here in Brazil is the language. I just can´t seem to get rid of my accent and speak Brasilian yeah not Portuguese haha but it will come each day but he showed me a scripture. I don´t remember exactly where at but it talked about Paul when we has travelling and teaching people. It talks about how he was them how he learned to become like them and did everything they did. I realized that that is something I have not really focused on. I have not focused on becoming Brasilian, liking what Brasillians like. He told me to just listen to the stuff they say. Learn all of the saying and copy them and he said you will then just love them because there is no other way. When you are becoming like someone you will automatically just love them. As I thought about it-- it is the same in life. When you want to get along with someone you become like them.... you learn to like what they like, love what they love! But that is my goal for the next couple weeks is to just become Brasilian. The language comes in leaps for me but this past week I feel I made a big leap. I feel a lot more confident and people understand me as long as I make sure I think and don´t just start blabbering ha-ha but I like to blabber if ya'll know me lol. But overall it is coming! The other night I was just thinking about how I don´t remember what it is like to really be at home and don´t remember how I was off of the mission. It made me so grateful that I came on the mission because I don´t want to imagine my life without the mission! One thing that I have taken so far from the mission is how I know with all my heart that what I am doing is the right thing, that what I believe is really the restored gospel of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I was talking with my companion this morning oh my comp is Elder Battraw right now as well! He is great and will send some pictures next week of him! But we were talking and I was just telling him how this can´t not be the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. I was talking to him about how everyone believes in the basics. For example the Evangelho of Jesus Cristo é fé, repentance (Gospel of Jesus Christ is faith, repentance), Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. There are a lot of people that believe in having faith and repenting but everyone believes in each principle to a different degree. But the main thing that I told him is that basically a majority of people who go to church believe they need to do each of these things but they just don´t have all of the knowledge...we need to help them to expand their knowledge. He told me that you know other churches limit the knowledge of the people.....it is our job to help them to expand it. I am so grateful for this opportunity that I have. I am so grateful for everything that I have been blessed with! If ya'll need anything feel free to ask me! I will try to have the energy to keep ya'll updated with me a little more often and the people were teaching! I love ya'll and stay strong and share this wonderful message that we have about the restoration and that families really can be together forever!