:)

Oi!

I know my last few letters have been less than enthusiastic, but I'm glad to report I'm not such a Debbie Downer anymore. Well, at least not this week haha. I've been having a really hard time in NoHo, no secret there. But I am starting to lose myself in the work and try to remember that it doesn't matter where I am, the work is always the same. Do I still wonder why, out of the vast United States, I am serving only 40 miles from home? Every single day. But then I get a nice sunny day like yesterday and today and remember it's good to be in Southern California :)

So for those who don't know, with the creation of the new Bakersfield mission in CA, the San Fernando mission will be drastically reduced. Anything Palmdale-Lancaster area and north will now be part of the Bakersfield mission. San Fernando will only be a mission of valleys now! This goes into effect July 1st, so hopefully I'll be in Brazil and it won't affect me at all :) But we'll see haha.

To update on Sister Hunt and her district, she was reassigned to the Oregon Eugene mission with two other sisters. The elders were sent to St. Louis. They've been there for 2 weeks now. Sister Hunt also said 4 people got their visass at the MTC before she left. So fingers crossed! I got a letter from Sister Ryan. She is loving Spokane which was so great to hear! She's still funny as ever.

It hailed on Friday here. This is Southern California...it's not supposed to do that! Oh, and I drove a car for the first time in almost 3 months on Friday! It was scary haha. One of the sister companionships lost their driving privilege because they scraped the car pretty badly. But they needed to move some stuff to their new apartment so I got to drive our car and Sister Ngalu drove theirs. We also had a Zone Training Meeting on Friday that was so awesome. Our zone leaders, Elders Kottcamp and Whiteley, are really great.

Saturday was Portuguese Day and I loved it!!! President Hall paid for us to eat at Gamela Grill which is Brazilian food. It was SO good! And then we had a lesson with Elder Marcal de Lima. It was very helpful. Hearing Portuguese just makes me so happy :) I even gave a pass-along card to the waitress...and I said it all in Portuguese :) She's super nice and from Brasilia! My mission (someday haha). I think that's part of the reason I'm happy. I was reminded that I get to speak Portuguese and live in Brazil, whenever that day comes.

What's funny is the restaurant is in Canoga Park which is up the 101 from where we live. I used to drive that freeway all the time to go to and from Santa Barbara. That was the first time in my mission here in NoHo that anything has really been familiar to me. It was a strange feeling to drive that freeway beacuse I felt like I was home. NoHo doesn't trigger any memories, but the 101 definitely does.

Anyway, the Mexico visa waiters all got their visas. They got a call Wednesday night that they had to be on a plane the next morning to fly to Vegas and pick up their visas from the consulate or whatever. So Thursday morning they got on a plane, flew to Vegas, got their visas, then flew home that night. Maybe I'll get a call to jump on a flight soon :) Truthfully I think I have one more transfer, at least, here in NoHo. But fingers crossed!!

Ok, well I wrote a novel. Hope everyone is doing well!!

Amo voces!

Sister Kerr