Ootsu & Teaching in Portuguese

Hello there beautiful, beautiful peoples!

This week has been a week of CHAOS.

FIRST! When we found out that, to my surprise, both Powell chourou and I were going to transfer out and thus Tokushima would have a "fresh start" -- with two new missionaries without any knowledge about the area, meaning that they would have to start from scratch. The moment we found out, we went out and worked like there was no tomorrow. We visited SO many people in such a short amount of time. A greater majority of those who we were meeting up with were actually people we had never seen before -- people who were investigating the church before and then stopped, people who were contacted a long time ago who seemed to have interest and random strangers calling us out of the blue saying that they want to meet with us. It was crazy! And because we were going to transfer, it meant we had to have the only elder staying in Tokushima, Lamb chourou (bless his heart), to go and switch with us for appointments (MANY times) in order for him to build a relationship and become friends with them and take over them for us. At first I was a little frustrated when I heard I was transferring, because things started to look up in Tokushima, but then I realized that this is the Lord's work, not mine. I just push the rock, He moves it. It was prideful of me to be worked up about it.

SECOND! I met up with my new companion, Madruga chourou, at the transfer point and immediately went to Ootsu from there. Fun thing about Ootsu: there are a TON of Brazilian people there! Madruga chourou (who is also Brazilian) said that most of the lessons he taught were in Portuguese. It seems I'll have to dust off the ol' Portuguese in my noggin'. Anyway, we arrived in our apartment (which was located in Kusatsu instead of Ootsu, strangely enough) and then I found out that we are moving to the sister's apartment in Ootsu (because the sister missionaries moved out permanently): everything in our apartment was a mess. My stuff is still packed, waiting to be moved to the new apartment, so I have been trying living off of my carry-on supplies and clothes (which is going just fine). It has been hectic over here in Ootsu. Not only that, but because we are taking over the sister's investigators, we had a lot of sudden appointments with people we didn't know (most of them were moved to a later date, because of everything that is going on). 

Also, I got made into a senior companion for the first time in my missionary life, which was a really scary thought when I first heard about it. But in the end, being a senior companion only means you carry the phone and talk a little more during lessons and planning than the junior companion, that's it. (To be honest, I still feel like a junior companion. Madruga chourou, even though he is two transfers younger than I am, has a lot of knowledge and is better fit to be in a leading position, I feel. The Lord works in mysterious ways.)

But allow me to make one thing clear to you all: I stinkin' LOVE Ootsu already. Not only is it a beautiful area, with high snow-peaked mountains and an enormous lake, stretching out into the horizon, in the middle of it (I'll take pictures of it one day), but the ward and the members here are really friendly and warm. They came up to us and said that they were looking forward to working with us -- in a rather proactive way too, by making appointments with us to both meet and eat and also do missionary work together. It's really amazing how much fire the Ootsu members have. It really inspires me.

This transfer may have had a rough take-off, but I'm 100% sure that this journey will be an unforgettable one.

Thank you SO much for reading -- I can't tell how much I appreciate you for taking your precious time to read the escapades of a clumsy European missionary on a little island somewhere in the oceans, random reader! I will see you all next week! Take care!

Truckloads of love,

~聖徒長老, Elder Santos