4-4-2016

I am in a town called "Estrela" (Star in English) which is pretty far from Porto Alegre. My new companion is Élder Sacramento. Yes, like the sacrament. He is really great! He´s funny, gets my jokes, and works a lot. He actually visited the US a few times. He stayed there for 2 months on a school tour. He speaks English really well. He visited Utah and stuff. He also gets some of my English quotes and stuff. 

Here in Estrela the church is just a Branch, not a ward yet. I´ve never served in a Branch before and so far it is pretty interesting. The Branch doesn’t have a ton of members but it´s still a good area to work. The city is mostly German. So for the first time I actually fit in here! People don´t give me the weird look they used to when I walk by. Now they just think that I am German. Which I don´t know if that´s better because of the whole Nazi thing but so far so good. People still are surprised to find out that I am actually from the US. 

This week was pretty crazy because of the transfer. Now when we are transferred we travel alone sometimes to our new areas. This time I traveled alone, they put me on a bus and sent me off! I had never traveled to this part of the mission before. So I was pretty lost. My Bus ticket said I was supposed to stay on the bus until a city called Lajeado but before we arrived in Lajeado the bus passed through Estrela! So I didn´t know if I should get off or keep going. I felt like I had to stay on the bus so I did. When we arrived in Lajeado I got off took my silver brick luggage and started to look for the missionaries who were to greet me on my glorious arrival. Only that there was no one there! I started walking around the bus station to see if there was anyone with a white shirt and tie. My roller luggage had turned into regular luggage last transfer as the little black wheel couldn´t hold on any longer. Everyone was looking at me wander around. It was getting dark and I thought I was going to get robbed again. But I managed to use an old broke Brazilian payphone. Luckily it was still working and called the Mission secretaries to send someone to pick me up. Thankfully I was where I was supposed to be. The other elders thought I was going to arrive later than I did. But it all worked out in the end. 

General Conference was great! I received a lot of answers to my prayers. I suggest watching those if you guys haven´t yet. 

Love you,have a good week! 

-Élder Stevens