Ola Mãe!

Sorry, no pictures today! I didn't bring my camera cord again... today was just crazy and I didn't think we were actually gonna get to email so I brought my regular bag instead of my Pday bag with the cord. Talvez next week. I don't have any good pictures. Though I would suggest checking the mail because I sent my SD card and I'm praying really hard that it gets there safely. I sent it on like Thursday, so it should be there soon-ish.

Well, this week has been good. A little bit more towards crazy and exhausting, but good. Today we had a zone conference and so all the missionaries from the other island came (S. Rad and S. Caldwell and the elders) and the sisters spent the night with us. We stayed up talking until way late because we all were in the MTC at the same time and were already friends. We also had popcorn (which I made on the stove, I'm like way pro at it) and watched the funny parts with Korihor in The Testaments. It was like a big sleepover. More sisters (the Sister Training Leaders) are coming tomorrow, for divisions, so it's like one big party here. The conference was good but it took up most of Pday. I needed a nap and I didn't get it. I also wanted to write letters and I didn't get to. I'm never gonna get to write letters or nap during the whole mission! Today was stressful:). Though I did just get a great phone call. It was a private number (meaning a prank call) and I was trying to call someone else and accidentally answered it, and it was this rapaz and he asked how I was and what I was doing and so I asked him who he was and he was like someone who thinks your beautiful and he asked if I had a boyfriend and I told him yes and he said that he thinks we should get together sometime and so I told him we couldn't talk about that but if he ever wanted to talk about Christ and be baptized we could talk (S. Sandholtz was cracking up laughing), but he said no he didn't want to, and so I said sorry, then we couldn't talk then we said goodbye. Saying goodbye takes so long when you talk to Portuguese people. They're like `tchau tchau adeus, obrigada, nada nada, tchau, boa tarde, tchau` it's such a process! But it was hilarious. Convite suave over the telephone anyone?!?! 

This past week was good. S. Sandholtz  and I worked really hard. I don't remember what we did, only that I'm tired haha. We're still teaching João. He's still having problems with the Word of Wisdom and everytime I see him he has a cigarette in his hand. I tell him to drop it and he just gives me this hurt face. Whenever he's with us we don't let him smoke and he's funny about it:).  He also tried to give us coffee. He said if we don't drink it, he's not going to stop smoking haha. I guess he missed the part about coffee not being allowed either. Wednesday we spent all day with the Família Pinto. Irmã had given us a bunch of references and she spent the day going with us to all of them and every single one of them fell through. It was a long day. She's super sweet though and we ended up just knocking on doors and teaching lessons to the people who let us in. None of them wanted to hear more though, so that was kind of stinky, but we ended up teaching 4 lessons with a member present and we ate more fish. Thursday the branch threw a BBQ! We got to go because we took João with us. We even got to wear pants. It was super weird. I played soccer with the Português, which was really fun and supposedly I have a really good kick, E. Brooksby now tells me everytime he sees me that that is what the Portuguese keep saying haha. It was so exhausting and hot though. It was from 9 am until 5 pm, which we didn't know, so we missed a bunch of compromissos. When we got back we showered and we could hardly walk we were so tired. We had the hardest time leaving the house to go back out and work.

We've been teaching some cool people. We're teaching a woman named Mira who is great. She's so free spirited and awesome. She prays all the time and she LOVES the BofM. If only we could get her to come to church! She loves when S. Sandholtz brings her violin though. She's older, like 61, but I love to visit her and hear her ideas about life. She's so full of wisdom, she's just great. I hope that she keeps letting us teach her. She's meeting us at the chapel tomorrow to see it, so I hope that she likes it and will come to church. We're also teaching a man named Isidro that I met and taught the first lesson to last transfer with S. Davis. He missed the compromisso that he had with S. Davis and I though and so he like fell off the face of the earth. But S. Sandholtz and I saw him and so we met with him and taught him the second lesson. He likes everything we say and he's awesome also. We marked him for baptism during that lesson. I invited him to be baptized (convite suave!!!) and he said yes, and so randomly I just said `when?´ (usually S. Sandholtz and I would pray alone and talk about it first) and handed him the phone with the calendar opened. He then said the 28th of September because it's the day before his birthday. He's excited and we let him see the baptismal fonte which he thought was cool. I hope he keeps being interested because he's a great guy. Then we're also teaching, again, a couple named Celia and Nelson. Nelson is inactive and Celia is his girlfriend. They have two little girls and a baby on the way. They're not married and that's what's stopping them from being baptized. The church agreed to pay for the wedding but something happened on the part of Celia and Nelson and the money given was used on something else instead and so they didn't get married. I really hope that everything will work out this time. I really want those two little girls to be raised in the church. We visited them the other day and we asked to say a pray with them, and so Celia had the whole family kneel down and I asked Serena (age 7), (I have a picture of her and her sister Rafeala and their cousin Dolce, which I'll send next time)  who is adorable to pray, and wow, out of the mouth of babes. It was just amazing, and it's what these girls need in their lives. I hope we can help them get it.

I also got a cool blessing from the elders this week, which I don't have time to talk about (I have 3 minutes until my internet shuts off!), but lets just put it at, I know that Heavenly Father really does hear our prayers and he is mindful of all of us!

Have a great week!
Com Muito Amor,
Sister Wach