Birthday Wishes! :)

First of all, thank you SO MUCH for all the birthday wishes! My inbox was flooded today with all of them. I am printing them out so I will be able to read them on Wednesday. (21 years.... Can´t believe it!) Unfortunately I don´t have a lot of time left today to reply to all of them, but please know that I appreciate them so much! It´s amazing to know how many people care. Y'all are literally the best.

I´m kind of headed into the final stretch here! I´m down to my last 2 transfers... which means just 12 more weeks left! So here´s the news from transfers...

I was transferred! I´m still in Ribeirão Preto, just in another area called Campos Eliseos. I have only heard the best things about this area, so I am way excited to serve here for at least the next 6 weeks! My companion is Sister Soto from Santiago, Chile! The last bit of news is that I became a Sister Training Leader this transfer, which means I will be going on exchanges with a few companionships of Sisters and get to take care of them! It´ll be so great! I am way excited and grateful for this opportunity to serve more and help some of the Sisters in this mission. It´s going to be a great transfer.

I am continually seeing miracles here and it is so rewarding. One of the miracles is the change that you see in yourself, which is huge on the mission. The other is the change that you can see in the lives of others and God´s hand guiding you and this people each and every day. There is no way I can question if He´s there. I know He is and He is helping each and every one of us.

Thank you again for all the birthday wishes! I really feel a ton of love!

Lots of Love,

Sister Maryann Shipp

It is HOT in Ribeirao Preto!

Sorry I didn´t get an email out to everyone last week! Sometimes emailing time is a little short.

 

Well, we had a really good week this week! We taught the most lessons this week than I have any other week of my mission. It was really satisfying to sit back with my companion and think about all we accomplished. The only bad thing here is how HOT it is. It is so hot and the people are saying it´s only going to get worse these next 3 months. We have 4 fans in our house and 4 Sisters so luckily I have my own fan. My companion and I started getting ourselves wet before going to bed, which is helping us stay cool and get some sleep. I now thoroughly appreciate air conditioning and will never take it for granted again. I run into air conditioning sometimes in stores, in sacrament meeting, and the mission office, so that´s nice every once in a while. I will be coming home really really tan. There´s already a big difference. Even with the heat, I really love it here. This is the last week of this transfer. It has gone by SO fast. We´ll find out about transfers this Friday... where I´ll spend the next 6 weeks and with who. I´m anxious to know!

 

So much happens during the week... it´s really hard to know what to write about... Everyone will get a better update in just a few months in person. That´ll be way better.

Hope you all have a great week!

Sister Shipp

Conference!

Oh my goodness. General conference was SO GOOD! I got to watch it in English with a few other American Missionaries (pic attached). We switched it over to Portuguese when Elder Godoy spoke, which was way cool. After watching conference this weekend, I feel like I have so much more strength to do all that I need to do and finish my mission strong! I really got some answers that I was needing as I listened to the words of the Prophet and the Apostles. If you missed it, go watch it! It is definitely worth your time. I really loved Elder Bednar´s talk at the end of the conference. He explained why we share the gospel. It explained perfectly why I am so far from home for a year and a half, adjusting to a new culture and learning a new language. All the talks are on the website lds.org :) I am so excited for this week. I´ve got new goals that I am excited to accomplish.

The gospel really is true. I´ve never had so much joy from anything else.

Love Y'all!

Sister Shipp