This week was awesome! My companion may be dying, but she isn't stopping the work like the last companion! This week was incredible. Gama is an awesome area and Sister Valenzuela is amazing!
This week, we visited Lena. Everybody remember her? The one that loves going to church, has a response about everything....and basically needs to baptized. But isn't married, so has to get married to her "husband" first. So two weeks ago, we tried teaching her the Law of Chastity lesson, but it ended up just being about baptism. We were trying to start out, with finding her real desire to be baptized and then we were going to move into the Chastity lesson. But when we were about to move in, she said..." Lets pray right now" And she prayed, and then got super excited about the strawberry dessert thing she bought for us...and we never were able to teach. So this week, Sister Valenzuela and I planned to just be direct with her. And when we arrived, we asked her if she had been praying about Baptism with proper authority, (need to follow up on our invites) and she just said... "But don't I have to be married to be baptized?" And in that moment...I was like....(in my head) "Are there another set of missionaries visiting you?" Because most people down here, believe in an other type of marriage, that isn't by paper...not legal. Haha.... and so we thought it was like this. And she just openly told us how she wants her husband to come to church with her, because she wants to be married in our church, and wants to be baptized with him. And that she had been preparing him, slowly to receive our messages. Awesome, right? Right! She came to church Sunday more than excited because he wanted to go to church with her, just that somebody robbed their horse (totally normal, every day thing, right? No...) and he was trying to deal with that because he can't work without a horse. But he wanted to come to church! Hallelujah. Lena is amazing. I was telling our Bishop about her on Sunday at lunch, and he just looked at me and said "And so let them get married! We can do that!" And I laughed a little bit, and then was like...wait....this transfer I am going to plan my first marriage!!!!!! Ahhh!!!! I can't even wait for Lena, she gets so excited just talking about the idea of finally being married. Heck, they have been together for 20ish years. No wonder. But its going to be crazy, and its going to be fun!!!!
I am happy to say, we can see a light at the end of the 'living in one area, working in another, paying buses everyday' tunnel! We move back the 12th!! hallelujah! This week we were able to find a lot of new people to teach. And I am really excited to help every single one of them. This week I made the goal to read Preach my Gospel, start to finish. I invite you all to do the same. I know it seems like it is a missionary book, but...hey, we are all missionaries! But really truly, this book has been doing nothing but teaching me how to strengthen my testimony. Every single thing it teaches, we can apply for our testimony. Encourage you all to read it.
And here is just my daily little fun fact. This week I was looking in my Portuguese Book of Mormon, where they have a cute little timeline of events of the history of the church. Did you know-- The Joseph Smith finished translating in 1 and 1/2 years!!!! And he only received the Priesthood one month before finishing. Gall, I seriously thought at least 3 years for him to finish all of that.
And before the 12 Apostles were called, there were already missionaries called and serving. That did nothing but show me the importance of Missionary Work.
I love my work. I love these people here in Brasil. Guys, I don't think I am going to come home....you can all just visit Brasil! You guys would love it. I just know it.
Start learning your Portuguese ;)
Sister Craig!
My companion!! She is legit!
Elder Oliveira. He sadly left my zone this transfer, but he is awesome!
How we take pictures as missionaries. Brasilians love to hug, and they can't hug us...soooo.
The brother of Nayara. I love this family.
A cute little girl that reminds me of Ashlynn how she plays and talks...its so cute! Trunky!
The Bishop and his wife that I absolutely love!!!!!!!!!
Nayara and I! This girl was meant to be my friend, its like I knew her upstairs in heaven!
