6-22-15 ET's, Baptism Probs, and A Vegemite Sandwich

Hello All of you BEAUTIFUL People!
So I've been told that I've been sounding depressed in my last few letters, so I would like to say 2 things. 1) I'm not a very enthusiastic typist when I write, and I'm not skilled in sounding peppy all the time and 2) Sometimes I only have a little bit of time to email, so I don't have time for said peppiness. Nevertheless, I will try to sound less depressed in my letter this week, although most of the events of the week were pretty devastating in missionary life. 

As you can tell from the subject line, there's been a few difficulties this week. On Wednesday, right after weekly planning, Sister Saintonge and I got a call from one of the assistants to the President informing us that there was an emergency transfer coming up. Sister Saintonge was getting transferred out of my area and I would be receiving a new companion on Friday morning. So that was pretty big and surprising news. As a missionary, you really expect that kind of stuff, but definitely not a week before transfers. I was completely blown away and a little bit devastated. So we spent the next two days getting Sister Saintonge packed up and moved out and seeing all the people from the ward. There were a few tears and a lot of grumbling in the process, but in the end, everything turned out fine.

On Saturday, my companion and I went to one of the baptisms in the stake for a lady who was taught by some other sisters. She was so sweet (and side note, she's Brazilian!) and the baptismal service was beautiful. She had to get dunked a couple of times before it happened right because the water was a little shallow, but we were able to get through it. Before she was baptized a few sisters in the zone, including myself, sang a song for her and at the end of the service, she got up herself and bore her testimony about her conversion and everything. She really is amazing. After the service, I got to talk to her and a member of the ward for like, 10 minutes in Portuguese. It was so funny because they were just going back and forth about how I speak Portugal Portuguese and how funny I talk. Sister N (the member) called me irmazinha (little sister) and Sister S (the investigator) called me linda americana (Pretty little American) I was cracking up the entire time!

Me and Sister S

Unfortunately, we will not be having our anticipated baptism this week. V hasn't been doing too well lately, and she didn't show up to either her interview or church on Sunday. So that baptism is going to be postponed until we figure out what's wrong and what we can do to help her out. Lots of prayers would be greatly appreciated for her until we can help her out more. 

So my new companion's name is Sister Skelton. She is so sweet and funny and she's from Brisbane Australia. I've only been with her 4 days, so I don't know much about her, but she's a great companion. 

Me and Sister Skelton
[Holly's Mom: I received this photo via text message from Sister Wood, a member from Holliday UT who had just moved to Huntington Beach. I love missionary moms who send me photos spontaneously. They get it!]

She's so good at finding and talking to people so I pretty much sit back until I figure out a good time to pipe in about saying a prayer or getting a return appointment. We've got a lot of new people to go through this week, so lots of prayers would be nice that we don't get lost (because neither of us know the area) and that we can work more with these people that we've found. Anyways, she's pretty great. Last night, she made me try an Australian snack known as a vegemite sandwich. Apparently, she makes all of her companions try one of these. She makes it using a vegemite spread, butter, and cheese all on top of a piece of toast. I tried it, but I did not like it very much. She just laughed and laughed because I kept on picking it up and then setting it back down and scooting the plate around, hahaha. All's well though! 

My vegemite sandwich late last night

Me and my new companion at a zone activity this morning

Sisters will be Elders! Last week, the sisters in the zone decided we always feel left out in zone meetings because we're the only colorful ones amongst all of the white shirted elders, so we kind of coordinated a little bit before zone meeting

I hope everyone is doing well and that you have a great week!