My mission to Brazil: March 19, 2018

This week was so fast. Time is starting to fly in a really weird way. I swear we wake up, eat lunch, I look at my watch and it´s already time to go home again. Ba. Crazy.
So Adolino is dying, Crying on the inside. He has cancer again. Which is super scary and he has this dumb cold to add on top of that. I seriously am going to lose it if he dies and I am here. I´m going to lose it regardless, but I´ll lose it even more if I´m still here.
This week, Fancisco called us and told us he had dinner for us. We were like, what? So we went to his side of the building, because he lives in the same building as us, and he had bought us xis burgers. My word. I have missed hamburgers so much. They had an egg and tomato sauce and salad and all sorts of delicious things. And they were huge! So we said we would only eat half of them that night and the other half the next day. Before anybody has a heart attack thinking I actually didn´t eat the whole thing, by the time we finished half, it was so good, we finished all of it. I have pictures. Will send those.
Our district leader and Elder Dos Santos came to Carlos Barbosa to interview Augusto for baptism, and Elder Fatori called and said, Sister Heiner, Do you know how to make cookies? And I could hear Elder Dos Santos in the background laughing. Yes Elder, I know how to make cookies. Will you make me cookies because I´m going to come to Barbosa to interview Augusto tomorrow? I laughed so hard. When they got to Barbosa, I handed them the cookies and they ate like 10 right there on the spot. Glad to know that I can still make good cookies.
Augusto was baptized!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He was literally the perfect investigator. He was a reference from our branch president. We taught him and he was baptized two weeks later. He always has good treats for us to eat, which is just a plus for visiting him. He wrote a summary of what he was reading in the Book of Mormon for us. It was awesome! I love when you can see that people are really feeling the truth of things and not just saying they are. We taught the ten commandments and all the other commandments we are supposed to cover and when we got to the word of wisdom, he was like, yeah I drink coffee but if God doesn´t want me to, I´ll stop right now. I was like, HECK YES WHY AREN´T ALL OUR INVESTIGATORS THIS GOLDEN! For his baptism, I made banana bread. For a couple of reasons. 1. it is way easy and bananas are way cheap here and 2. because it doesn´t exist here. Nobody has ever heard of it and they all love it. I´m sitting here like, yeah, I know it´s good but not lets all freak out about it. Presidente Fernando told us that he tried to find it in the bakery and that the lady didn´t know what he was talking about. Made me laugh.
At church yesterday, Augusto was late and I seriously was having a panic attack. I thought he wasn´t going to show up and that we were gonna have a baptism without a confirmation, but he walked in and looked at us kind of sheepishly and apologized for being late. We were like, no problem, have a seat and lets partake of the sacrament.
After the baptism Saturday, Irma Jaqueline was taking us home so we got in her car and she asked if we could stop at the grocery store before she took us home. We were like, yep. It made me super homesick. She asked me to push the cart and we all fell into this mom and daughters shopping role and it was way weird. I didn´t feel like a missionary, I felt like a teenager at the grocery store with her mom.
We were knocking doors and not having an success when S Pompeu and I both felt like we needed to knock this one door. This teenage girl, Janiani, came out and got really into our message. She loves history so she loved the part about the great apostasy. Which is new. Generally people don´t comment on that part. But she went on about how all these different churches were formed and all this stuff and honestly I got lost. You guys know how much I don´t like history. We got to where we were about to ask her to come to church and read the Book of Mormon and be baptized and all that good stuff when her mom came out and made a big deal about not wanting us there. So we said we´d come back next week and Janiani stopped us and was like, what is this book on the back of this pamphlet? I want to read it. HA! So we explained the Book of Mormon and gave her our last copy. Went home happy.
We had a handful of people come to church yesterday but the biggest deal was Leo and Lynie. Lynie is the sister to Irmao Dilson and they have been trying to get her to come to church for years. They told us we would never get them to come. But jokes on them, they showed up. I almost cried I was so happy and the shocked look on Irma Andreia and Irmao Dilsons faces was awesome. Leo told us he really enjoyed it and was glad he came.
We ate chicken heart for the first time here this week. The Irma who made it asked if I knew what it was and when I said I had ate it at home one time she was like, sweet! So you already like it! And I was like, yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....... and choked down three. But they were better here than in that restaurant.
During my study this week, I read Leviticus 19:32 and it says, Honour the face of the old man. And I started laughing really hard because we call dad the old man or the fat man. So remember siblings, honour his face.
I love you guys!
Sister Heiner