New area, Ibiporã! Really great family - Rose and twin daughters;

Hello from my NEW AREA, Ibiporã!!!  :)  Like I mentioned last week, it's a little city about 20 minutes away from Londrina.  It's definitely different than Maringá, but this last week has been really good and I'm definitely enjoying being here.  Sacrament Meeting yesterday was the biggest difference - we have about 50 people who are active members here.  It was not exactly the kind of congregation that I'm used to, but the members here are very friendly and supportive of the missionary work, excited to help us however they can.  The branch president is AMAZING, and really such an inspiring person.  Last night we spent the evening with him and his family, and it was sooo cool to hear him talk about his experiences and testimony.  He was called as branch president after just ONE year as a member, and even though he felt completely overwhelmed and didn't know much about how to lead a branch, he trusted enough in the Lord to accept the calling.  He's seriously been an example of faith already, and I'm excited to be able to work with him this transfer.  Also, good news for me - they don't have a pianist in the branch, so I get the opportunity to play the piano in Sacrament Meeting now!!!  That was exciting.  :)  I wanted to play SO bad EVERY week in Maringá, but never had the chance...so yeah, I'm happy.  :)

My companion, Sister Marques, is GREAT!  She is from São Paulo, 26 years old, beautiful, loving, and, after 9:30 pm, CRAZY.  :)  She likes to laugh and joke and be goofy (once we finish daily planning, of course ;), and it has been so much fun this last week.  She also really wants to learn English, so we've been teaching each other - She teaches me something in Portuguese and I teach her in English.  :)  We also have another companionship of sisters here in Ibiporã - Sister Gomes (Brasileira) and Sister Bullen (Americana).  If that name sounds familiar, it's because Sister Bullen was my roommate in the CTM for 3 weeks!  I was SO excited when I found out that she was going to be in the same area as me.  It's always nice to have someone you already know close by.  :)  She already knows Sister Marques too, so everyone gets along really well, and we have a lot of fun. 

The work here has been a little bit slow this week.  I think we've been facing the effects of some things that happened here in the past - we've met a lot of people who have heard rumors about the Church and don't want anything to do with us.  It's frustrating that so many people here have become so closed up to the gospel, but despite the opposition, we've found a few people who have invited us in and listened to our message.  We met one really great family that I'm excited about - the mom, Rose, and her two 11 year old daughters (twins!).  We taught them the Restauration last week, and it was a really great lesson, I think one of the most spiritual lessons that I've had so far.  It actually went over the 45 min. time limit that we have because they had so many questions about the Church!  Rose told us after the lesson that she already believed our message was true.  It was so exciting to see her accept so willingly.  I'm excited to go back to visit this week and teach them more about the gospel.  

Well, that's about it for the week.  It's been really good to be here so far.  I love you all and hope you have a great Thanksgiving this week!  Seriously, enjoy it for me ... I don't think anyone here has even HEARD of Thanksgiving, let alone pumpkin pie ... so it's up to me and Sister Bullen to plan some kind of little celebration ...  haha, wish us luck.  :)  Hope everything's going well back home, love and miss you all, and look forward to your letters... (*hint*hint*)  :)

Love,

Sister Gee