Week 17 - Gravata

I feel like I don’t have much to write since I just talked to you guys yesterday! It was soooooo good to see you guys!! Everyone said you guys are awesome.  It made me miss you all and kinda sad though. But it was definitely worth it! Next time we skype I’ll have almost a year on my mission! I can’t believe how quickly it already has gone by though.  Today is the first day of our new transfer. All the girls in my house are staying which was a big surprise. Sister Rodrigues has been in Gravatà since October so we figured she would get transferred. I like her so much so I’m glad we get one more transfer with her.

I wish that I had a few awesome investigators that I could tell you about. Well everyone that we teach is awesome but we have none that are progressing! It stresses me out thinking about it! Most of the people just love having us in their house and they’ll listen so intently and always invite us back but when it comes to making any kind of commitment or coming to church no one wants to. So we always come to the point where we don’t know if we should go back and keep teaching or if they aren’t ready for the gospel yet. BUT I told you a little about the daughter of Maria. She couldn’t come to church yesterday because she works but she said she’ll come with her mom this Sunday. And also another lady that we're teaching name Cefè said she is coming to church this Sunday as well. So we are excited for that! We're going to try to see them as much as possible this week. Also the 10 year old that I told you about last week, we called President and he said she needs to come to church for 3 months before she can be baptized.  I think I explained all the rules about kids being baptized in my last letter so read that if you have questions. But we are going to go to her house this week and try to teach her parents too because if her parents are getting baptized then there is no rule about kids. So hopefully that goes well. And also we got a referral from the other sisters for a kid that was being taught a few years ago and wanted to get baptized but his parents wouldn’t give him permission. So he had to wait until he turned 18 which he is now and he's in our area! He hasn’t been to church in forever though, but we are excited to go see him this week. We had a lesson on Saturday with the family that I told you about last week. She is a single mom with young kids so we thought we should make her a cake and card for mother’s day.  I’m so glad we thought of that! She about cried she loved it! And her kids were both like tomorrow is mother’s day?? So I’m glad we could do something for her! We had a good lesson with her about the plan of salvation and we talked about baptism at the end and she doesn’t understand the need for priesthood authority. I think we need to teach the first lesson again (about the restoration) because the first time we taught it was really hectic and the kids were asking me a million questions about the United States. So I think we didn’t teach it and the need for a restoration very good. That is always so hard to keep people focused during the lessons because everyone always wants to ask about the United States!

I hope you get my card soon!! And I hope I get the box soon too! What is in it? I miss American grocery stores! I want good snack food. All I eat when I’m at home is bananas and crackers. Literally!!!! And sometime tomatoes too when I can find good ones.

Happy Birthday to Rae this week!!!! I can’t believe you will be 15. You look so old in the pictures dad sent. And your hair is so long!!!! And your legs are so toned what the crap?!!!! I was thinking about sending you guys a birthday package since all your birthdays are coming up, but I decided I’ll just bring stuff home with me when I come home. They have the best clothes stores here in Gravatà. The other day I bought 2 skirts for what would be 6 dollars in the US!

I have lots of pictures this week. Thanks dad for sending me pictures I love them! But remember to only send one at a time because it always will only load one and won’t let me see the rest. Mom makes sure he knows that! And also dad I think you need to change your profile picture for skype. I don’t think you realized that you put that on there haha. It’s like a picture of you not paying attention. It looks like you are trying to figure skype out and accidently made that your profile picture. Everyone thought that was funny :)

I hope you all have a good week. I loved talking with you yesterday and can’t wait till Christmas!!! Love and miss you all!

Love,

Sister Bedke

We were SO happy to be able to Skype with Malyssa on Mother's Day. This picture (and the one above it) was taken by a member of the ward Malyssa is serving in, who also let Malyssa Skype with us in her home.

Malyssa's Zone