Beautiful Fall

First of all, I just want to say THANK YOU! I received the package with the shoes and lots of other goodies and I loved it. The shoes are perfect. I am wearing them right now. Good guessing on the size and style. My comp really likes them. She wanted to know where you got such cute missionary shoes. They are very hard to find, I know! As for the other things, thank you so much. It was great to get more peanut butter--never can get enough of that stuff :)

I will probably get my package tomorrow because we have a district meeting with the office elders and they will bring us mail and stuff we need from the office. So, thanks for everything.

As for happenings, we had Zone Meeting this week. It was good, and more surprisingly, it was short. The First Presidency is changing the missions of the world. There is a new curriculum that is coming forth that they are going to implement into the MTC next May. But, they are slowly training us on the new curriculum in the field (every Zone Meeting) until that time. It is way cool. They emphasize the role of the spirit and inviting people to be baptized in the first lesson and them marking them in the second lesson. It goes right along with the vision of President Torgan because I feel like that is what we have been striving for all along with him. They are also changing to have Zone Conference once every three transfers instead of every transfer. I am not sure why they are changing that, but I am sure it is to save time and money. So, now we have Zone Meetings, which are only a couple of hours instead of all day and we have to get home and get right back to work. So that is different and lots of missionaries don't like it, but it's what the prophet said, so it must be right :) Less meeting means more time of work and more time to find the elect. Can't complain about that.

Beyond that, unfortunately Carmen's baptism didn't work out this weekend because she had to go out of town to work this weekend and doesn't know when she will be coming back. So, that has been frustrating, but she says that when she comes back into town she will arrange everything so that she can be baptized as soon as possible. I certainly hope so. We are hoping it is this next weekend. But, also we have been teaching a man named Jorge that only speaks Creole (language of Cape Verde that is kind of similar to Portuguese, but not really). I can understand some words and phrases, but they speak very quickly and cut off words, so it has been difficult to teach him, but he is a good guy that wants to follow Jesus Christ, so we are working towards baptism for him. Luckily we have a couple of members who are from Capo Verde and are helping us teach him. Never thought I would have a language problem this far into the mission. Funny how the Lord always keeps us humble. What is more funny is that sometimes people can't understand me here because apparently I have an Açorean accent in Portuguese. They can understand my companion who has an American accent better than they can understand me (how ironic is that?) So, that is sometimes a little funny to me.

This week we also found Nilma, a Brazilian woman who used to be evangelical. She has three children and is a single mom. We have just taught her once or twice but she is reading the Book of Mormon and she came to stake conference yesterday. It was really surprising because she has a little baby who is 8 months old. When we invited her to go to church, so said she would go if she could get the baby ready. We offered to help and said we could come over to help on Sunday morning. We arrived a little early and were outside her door calling some people. Without knocking, she came to the door and said that she knew we would come early and that the baby was already up and almost ready. I was very surprised, but again, I guess I shouldn't be. She brought the baby to church and he was quiet through the whole 2 hour meeting. Very good child. I want a baby like that someday. Anyway, so that was cool.

Well, that is about it for the week. I am excited for this next week. It should be great. Thanks for your thoughts, prayers, and support. Know that you all are in mine.

With much love,

Irmã Pérez