The Work Continues

         Marcos, the 14 year old whose Mom we baptized, hasn't been making much progress. It has actually been really difficult to meet up with him. He is always switching between the parent's houses and between that and school, we are having trouble meeting up with him. We were able to schedule a lesson for this week though- so hopefully we can get him back on track! His younger sister and his mom's boyfriend both accepted baptismal dates though! Woohoo! So we are super duper excited for them. i love their family! I think we will Skype from their house for mother's day, so maybe you can meet them quickly- though you all won't be able to communicate too much ;) And my translating just ends up half English half português! 

          This week was wonderful! I am absolutely loving working with Sister Prado. I feel a bit jipped though. This transfer is only 5 weeks long and as I have already been in Alfenas for nearly 6 months, it is pretty certain that I will be transferred. I would love to have more time with her! We made a goal to do secret acts of service this week. It was super fun. We cut out paper hearts and wrote notes for some of our investigators and recent converts and then heart attacked their houses. I think I sent some pictures of that for you. It was great to always be looking for nice things we could do without people noticing. We did get caught a couple times though- but that was alright because the bystanders just ended up becoming contacts and now we are teaching them! Oh, one day this weeks one of the irmãs (Sisters) in the ward agreed to go out with us to teach people. She got back to us only the morning of and so we had planned our day thinking she wasn't going to be able to. In other words, we were working in an area with a whole lot of hills that is on the outskirts of Alfenas. Thus this little 63 year old irmã ended up going on quite the trek with us. Haha, she was quite the trooper though. We definitely went at a much slower pace than normal, but this little old lady managed to scale all of the hills, would not agree to rest or take a break and still managed to testify and contribute marvelously in our lessons. She is awesome. I am sure that she also got a really good nights sleep afterwards ;)

         Yesterday I gave my first talk in português! Everyone seemed to understand what I was saying and the branch president didn't kick me out afterwards- so I think it was a success. I told a story about my first attempt making suco de maracuja (passion fruit juice) here. I explained that we don't have maracuja in the USA and that I had never made juice before. But I figured it couldn't be too complicated and I love suco de maracuja so I decided to give it a go. The only problem was that I didn't know you needed to use sugar and a whole lot of water to make suco... I just used the pulp and a little bit of water. And so my juice was sour and a complete disaster. Luckily, my companion had a lot more experience and wisdom than I did. When I realized that i couldn't make the suco correctly alone, and decided to ask for and follow her directions, I was able to successfully make a sweet, delicious suco de maracuja. I then related this experience to how we need the help and directions of the Savior in our lives. Alone, doing things "our way" we won't end up with the delicious juice that we want. it is only through obeying the commandments and submitting ourselves to the Lord's will that we will find happiness in this life and eternal life in the world to come. I think my talk was nearly as big of a hit here as Ben's famous waffle talk. I have the feeling that the members are going to be making a lot of suco de maracuja for me in the weeks to come... Good thing I love it! 

I love you all like crazy! 

Sister Emma Maxwell