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Hello! Well, the week was sort of...nutty. Yeah, that's probably a good word for it.

Well, we thought Sister Vicente would leave today at transfers, but they called us on Wednesday to give us the time of her Thursday flight time. Not going to lie, it was sort of like being slapped in the face and then shoved to the ground, but, hey, that's (mission) life.

Everyone was SO sad to see Sister Vicente go. Me too. We had a little bit of time to go see a few people before her flight left and everyone bawled! Haha. It was a good thing Eduardo was in school--he's in love with Sister Vicente. On Saturday we found him sleeping with a note that Sister Vicente had written him in his hand. The poor little guy. Oh man. It was lucky though that we had a family night with Soraia and the whole family on Monday before Sister Vicente left, though. That was super fun. Soraia made a ton of food again and everyone had a good time. (Even though we played this horrible game where someone gets on their hands and knees, pretends to be a cat, and everyone else has to tell them to go away without smiling or laughing. Goodness. Horrible.)

But, after waving Sister Vicente off at the (only) departure gate, I walked a couple yards down the hall and welcomed my new companion Sister Dee from the arrival gate!! She and one other sister and an elder got to Praia on Wednesday, and she got shipped off to the middle of nowhere the next day. To me!

I'll be honest. Training is about 300 times harder than I thought it would be. But she's way better than I was when I got here. She’s way more confident than I was. Which makes it a whole lot easier for me. But it's good to remember the things that I didn't have a clue about when I started out and try and make the whole adjustment easier for her. She's already gotten her first Sunday, her first branch counsel and now her first p-day in Cape Verde! If I could, I'd love to show her around Sucupira, but I don't think President would approve a flight to Praia for us. So we're just going to do the least boring things possible here in Sal. :)

Her first lesson was with Soraia and the whole family. You've got to remember there's four kids under the age of ten and they're all super crazy and super loud and the rest of them are just as crazy, but louder! But like I said, she's way better off than I was. And everyone loved her instantly (thank you Cabo Verdians!!).

The best part, however, was that during the lesson, a neighbor came in to have Ana (the grandma) administer his insulin (?) shot. Haha. Oh man. Welcome to Africa. And then Ana had this little plastic sucker stick and she was pretending to give the little girls shots on their...behinds. That seemed to be a generally recognized and dreaded thing for all of them. Oh. I love that family.

I mentioned Sister Dee's first branch counsel because it was kind of incredible--as in, honestly unbelievable. Almost everyone showed up (on time!!) and we spent over an hour talking about the recent converts and less actives and assigning each organization a responsibility.

I just sat there with my mouth open.

I'm just praying that everyone will do what they said they will and that it will last for more than a week. It was really so good.

All righty, love you all lots. Hope things are well. The Cul-de-Sac comic was my favorite thing ever. With the companionship-switch, we still have lots of new people to find this week.

I miss you lots, but not enough to want to come home...ever. :)

Tchau!

Sister Brooks