Sister Lillie Haggard: July 20, 2015 in Sao Paulo West!!!!!

Mission President's letter to let us know Sister Haggard is now in the Sao Paulo West Mission!

óla!!
I´m now in my area! We are in the city Taboão Da Serra and our area is the nieghborhood of Maria Rosa! It is right outside the city São Paulo. I arrived at the mission home from the CTM and had a short interview with the Mission President because it was in Portuguese and then we went over to the church chapel right next to the temple and had lunch. When the new missionaries entered into the church building all the missionaries who would get the new missionaries as companions were there and sang us a song about the São Paulo West Mission. In our mission there is only 31 sisters and almost 200 Elders! Sister Covey and I are the only American sisters in the mission, there are two other American sisters called, but they did not get their visas yet. We met in the chapel and found out who our companions were! After we went back to the mission home to pick up our luggage and I said godbye to Sister Covey my old companion! It was a little sad - i love her so much! We will see each other every 3 months for our meeting which is nice. I said goodbye to my other companion Sister Nielson and the Elders in my district at the CTM, they will be amazing missionaries for sure. My companion now is Sister De Sousa! She is from Brazil from the north, Fortaleza. She says there has a lot more sun and beach! She has been out 4 months and is my trainer. She´s super nice. We live on the 23rd floor of our apartment buliding and our place is nice. Here every apartment complex has a guard house outside it. Also we are opening up a new area!!! Before there were Elders. We are opening up the area for sisters. This means it is very hard! haha We have to start over so we don´t have investigators to start off with which is very hard. We also have to get to know the members of the ward as well as the area from scratch. We make contacts in the street asking if people have heard of the Church and would like to hear a message about Jesus Christ, etc. People here are very interesting. They are super warm and friendly. After we talk to someone on the street we hug and give side kisses sometimes and hand shakes for the men. It was super weird the first day kissing a stranger on the street! Sister de Sousa says the people in the North are friendly. Here people are also super liberal with their address and phone number. When we ask for it so we can stop by their house and give them a message, they usually give it to us. But this does not mean it is easier because we write down the adress and then another day we walk a lot to the address, but then they are not intrested or not there. However we made some appointments from references and contacts for next week which I think will be very good. This Saturday was also Festa Junina! We celebrated it at the CTM but here you can either celebrate it in June or July. There was a lot of people. The festival is like a fall fest and celebrates like farmy stuff and food from the North. The food here is awesome! Every day for lunch except on p day we eat at a member´s house. One time we stopped at a recent convert's house at about 9pm. She lives with a member. The member asked us if we liked lasagna. We said yes, then she disappears and makes an entire meal with flavored rice, sausage, salad, lasagna, and cake!! The people here are very nice. I´m not too worried about gaining a ton of weight because we walk a ton and there are lots of hills haha. The first night we stopped at a member's house and she had a non member friend over. So we had the opportunity to teach the Restoration and it was awesome! The Spirit was super strong! I love teaching and sharing the Gospel. The Church is the same in Brazil because it is The Church of Jesus Christ!

Some pictures from my first 6 weeks in Brazil!