President and Sister Bangerter: Visiting Authorities and Transfers

Hi Family and Friends!

It's been an eventful and exciting couple of weeks! First we had our visit from Elders Anderson and Aidukaitis with their wives and Carlos Martins and his wife. We had a great lunch here at the house prepared by a ward member: salads, salmon, beef, chicken, sausages, chocolate cake and passion fruit mousse. At the same time all of our missionaries were gathered at the stake center for lunch and then we headed over there. When we entered the chapel and saw all of our missionaries reverently standing for Elder Anderson, I thought my heart would burst. I knew I'd love my missionaries, but I didn't know I'd LOVE my missionaries. The brethren taught us for a couple of hours. Not a bad way to spend a day!

You may remember that the next day we had planned on marching in the Independence Day parade. Because of the political unrest the area presidency asked that none of the missionaries in Brazil participate in the parades for safety reasons. Piracicaba is a pretty safe little refuge in Brazil but of course we didn't march. We did take all of the missionaries to the Piracicaba falls to film a little something for the kiosk at the CTM. It was fun, even if it wasn't a parade.

When I say all of the missionaries were there, there were a couple of emergency appendectomies on Monday and Tuesday. Both in the same district. What are the odds! Anyway unfortunately not everyone got to participate in our wonderful days together. We missed them!

We had 10 missionaries going home on Monday and since we'd brought them in for the conference, we didn't think it was worth sending them back for one day and then bringing them back in again, especially since some of the bus rides are a few hours long and they needed to be back Friday for post mission training and interviews. Long sentence. Sorry. With an extra day we were able to go to the Campinas Temple with them. That was a wonderful experience. We spent some wonderful hours with them and it was hard to see them go!

Before we could catch our breaths we got 28 new missionaries yesterday.

They arrive first thing in the morning, having left at the crack of dawn from the Sao Paulo CTM and sit through a day of training. I feel kind of sorry for them. They have a look that switches between deer in the headlights and excitement to be here. We serve them a lunch (also made by a ward member) and head over to the church for them to meet their new trainers. The trainers have been there receiving training. The new missionaries gather in the chapel and we start with the opening song-Called to Serve. During the second verse the trainers all march in from the back of the chapel. It gives me goose bumps and gets me emotional just thinking of it! They meet their trainers and then it's off to the bus station which looks like it's own mission conference with all of the transfers taking place and just about all of the meetings up taking place there. This time I only had to drive one set of sisters to their area here in Piracicaba so it was much less hectic than last time. Maybe we're just getting the hang of it. I hope so!

I still get excited and kind of fluttery every time I stop to realize that I really am in Brazil serving a mission!

We love and miss you all!

Lissa/Mom