I have a lot to write this week and no more time than usual... Haha, imagine that. So I will get right into it!
Monday night Sister Malta and I held a family home evening with Luciana and her family. She lives in the farthest bairro (neighborhood) in Alfenas from our house. It takes about an hour to walk there. She always offers us a ride home after our visits. Only Monday night she wasn't feeling too great. We didn't want her to have to drive us home because she was feeling sick, so we declined the offer (you know when someone is just offering to be nice but really isn't feeling up to it). So we said our goodbyes and started down the street. The only problem was that it was nearly 9:00 and we have to be in our house by 9:30... Thus we walked until her house was out of sight, slipped off our shoes and then started to run. Haha, I am sure we were quite the sight to see. Two young women running down the cobble stone streets of Brazil in the dark, wearing skirts, shoes in hand and hair flowing in the wind. To make things better, the Sister Training Leaders had arrived that evening to go on splits with the other sisters in Alfenas the next day- of all nights for our plans to go awry! Haha, it was quite the adventure. I have to admit that running and laughing at the same time makes it a bit hard to breath ;) But we couldn't help but laugh at the craziness of it all. I am proud to say that we made it to our house with three minutes to spare. Sign me up for track when I get home.
The week Sister Malta and I worked like crazy! We really wanted to meet all of the mission standards of Excellence (basically impossible because they are so high). So our week was jam packed. Our hard work payed off with two baptisms though! These baptisms really were miracles. First off- Luciana. I believe I already wrote about Luciana and her son Marcos. He is the young man that I contacted on the street and then he walked the hour to church by himself the next day- that never happens! So through him we were able to meet his mom and start teaching her. She is amazing. I love her so much! I swear that I knew her in the pre-existence. That is the only possible explanation here. She has been coming to church, but wasn't feeling ready to be baptized. We knew she was ready though, so we called in the Elders to give a baptismal interview and fasted and prayed like crazy. The night before we told her about the interview and that we would be holding a baptismal service that next night (her original baptismal date). She agreed to the interview without hesitation! The Elder said the the interview was amazing- she was basically just bearing her testimony for him! She was baptized Saturday night :) Ângela was our other baptism for the weekend. She was a miracle too. i met her late one evening when we were walking back to our house. She was sitting on the ground outside her house and looked pretty sad. I felt like I should talk with her, but I was tired and so I passed her by. The feeling came again and this time I listened to the spirit over my aching feet. I stopped Sister Malta and went back to talk to her. I shared a scripture with her, cheered her up a bit, got permission to come back and teach her another day and then continued on our way. When we sat down to plan though, i realized I had forgotten to write down her address. Great. All I knew was her name. Two weeks ago as we were walking to an appointment, I recognized her house! She happened to be home and so we were able to start teaching her. Two weeks later she was baptized! It is so amazing to be a part of this work! We see miracles every day. I have so much to learn and improve still. I am nowhere near the missionary that I want to be. Yet when I try my very best, and give the Lord my all, He makes up the difference. I saw that all too clearly this week- We worked like crazy and we were blessed with miracles. God really does love us. It is amazing to be a missionary and see Him work through us (as weak and imperfect as we are) to bless the lives of His children here in Brasil.
Easter really wasn't much different than any other day for us missionaries. Our branch only even sang one Easter hymn! For Easter here everyone gets an Ovo de Páscoa (a giant chocolate Easter egg). they don't get an Easter basket or have an egg hunt, just the giant chocolate egg. The eggs are pretty expensive though, so we didn't buy one. I did have one Reese's pumpkin left from my Christmas package that I ate and pretended was an egg shape (haha... a Reese's pumpkin that I got for Christmas and ate for Easter... It was perfect!). I did buy nail polish and made cards for the other sisters in our house here though. I even managed to buy the polish and wrap everything in secret- quite the feat as a missionary! They all were super excited and it was fun to see them all receive an unexpected gift Easter morning. I think the best part of the day was the chance that it gave us to testify of our Savior, Jesus Christ. The holiday was the perfect conversation starter to share my testimony of the Atonement, Resurrection and Restoration. Three events that show God's boundless love for us. Goodness, how lucky are we to know about this gospel and to have the hope that this message about Christ brings?
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