R.I.P. Ribeirão Pires, Say Hello Saúde

R.I.P. Ribeirão Pires, Say Hello Saúde

Well the day has finally arrived and my time in Ribeirão Pires has come to an end. While it is very bittersweet to be leaving so many people that I love here, I think that after almost half my mission in the same area it was time for the winds of change to blow on in, and boy did they ever! I'll be leaving RP, here on the edge of the mission, and going straight to President´s ward in the city in São Paulo, and it´s gonna be quite the change, but I'm excited and ready to meet and love lots of new people in Saúde!

In honor of my time in RP, here are some of the highlights that I didn't get to share before:
- One time we had the good fortune of finding a styrofoam ball in the street and we played futebol with the dogs in the road as we went on our rounds of trying to visit people who weren't home.
- We were tired of doing the same street contacts and had the brilliant idea of doing singing contacts where we start off with a hymn, and we worked up our nerve and got pumped up and went up to an old lady and introduced ourselves with a big smile and asked if we could share a song, and she just looked at us and deadpanned, "NOO."  And it took everything I had to not be like "Why the heck not?! We know the harmonies!",  but I restrained myself. (We used the same tactic on a lady afterwards and she gave us her address, so take that granny dream-crusher).
- There was a super cool family we're teaching and they currently attend another church and invited us to one of their church meetings that they were hosting, and that's how we ended up teaching 50 members of the congregation of another church about baptism, and I must say I never received so many "Amen, hallelujahs!" in my life, so that was neat.
- Once we got caught in the middle of a rainstorm without umbrellas or anything and we were walking down this giant hill and trying not to slip and die. A member drove up next to us and rolled down the window and was like "Wow it's really raining huh? Well be careful this hill's dangerous when it's wet, tchau!", and drove off into the rainy distance.

After almost 8 months here, I have about a million and one fond memories. I was talking with an irmã that served almost 20 years ago and she told me, "Your mission is just a tiny sliver of time in your life, but you´ll remember it for the rest of eternity." I'm so grateful to be when, where, and with who I am, and I can´t wait to make even more memories in my next area!

Hope you all have a great week!!

-Sister Curtis :)