10/15/18 - AGUA DA SERRA, and I ate a chicken heart

I'm saddened to hear of the passing of my Grandpa Dean, but I teach O Plano de Salvação almost everyday so it's all good. Big hugs to the Babcock and Schmidt family!

This week was full of frogs, fogs and BAPTISM! THAT'S RIGHT FOLKS! Aldeia hasn't had baptisms in a year and here we are baptizing weekly! It's a miracle and I feel so blessed to be apart of it.

On your mission you meet people and you just think,"oh yeah, makes sense. I know I was meant to teach you". That was the case with Angélica. She's been investigating the church for a really long time and when I met her we just kind of clicked. We've had a lot of the same experiences. Anyway, everytime we taught her she had a million questions about the book of revelations and other deep doctirne. We had a hard time getting her to focus on the basics. Anyway, she went to Meet Up this week. It's like a one day EFY where all the returned missionaries in the area give classes about coming closer to Christ and how their mission helped them. Basically the purpose is to get the youth pumped about missions. She went saying she was going to focus on getting a clear answer about baptism. That night we got a call from her out of the blue saying she wanted to be baptized the next day! So we cleared our schedule and baptized her! SÒ  AGUA AQUI! That girl with lots of questions was finally at peace. She and Lorivaldo recieved the Holy Ghost on Sunday and it was so sweet! I love confirmations!

Lucas and Luzia came to FHE with Prediente Tarso's family Sunday night. They're progressing well. When they told us about how they always see Elders walking the streets of Barueri. They originally thought in our chuch young men have to walk lots of kilometers in the hot sun while wearing ties to pay for their sins. We were rolling.

Dia das crianças or children's day was this week and I got to spend it with minha mãe! My trainer, Sister A. Ribeiro, is my SLT here! It was so fun to be teaching with her again.

My English class is having a blast trying to guess my first name. They almost started placing bets but I told them it wasn't right to gamble in the chapel. haha! Who ever gets the closest this week will win a plate of my very own American chocolate chip cookies, a rare delicacy here in Brasil. ;) They ask me to only speak English in class but more often than not I flip into Portuguese without realizing and they stop and correct me. It's a battle I'm happy to be fighting haha!

Fun fact for the week: Sam Jesse, my friend from the stake and from high school is serving in the neighboring mission. SMALL WORLD HE'S SERVING IN VOLTARELI'S BRANCH! So basically he eats dinner at her house everyday. I love missions.

Thank you for all the kind words about my hair! I've found it's perfect Bohemian Rhapsody legnth. But I don't listen to that stuff on the mish so I'll just be here headbanging to EFY and baptist gospel songs. 13 inches makes a huge difference. Some days I wake up feeling like Marilyn Monroe and other days I feel like Lord Farquad from Shrek.

Oh yeah, I ate a chicken heart today. Come at me Brasil. It was like a garlic butter ball. Not half bad.

I've been thinking a lot about that blessing I recieved before leaving Vila Angélica. In that blessing I was told to stop doubting. Stop doubting my abilities and stop doubing my situations. It's amazing what can happen when we stop doubting. Voltareli and I are going to continue to baptize weekly here in Aldeia all because of the miracles the Lord is working in our area and our mission. We always say we recieve miracles everyday. It's true, but this week we've recieved miracles more like every hour. Look for the miracles the Lord is working in you life peeps. I know they're there.

Amo Vocês!

Alma 26:22

Sister Barbie

1) Batismo de Angélica

2) Splits with minha mãe

3) On slipts we went finding in the favela of Ouro Verde. I think favelas and vielas are super pretty in their own unique way.

4) Noite Familiar