My mission to Brazil: October 1, 2018 Sister Rodrigues says she loves you guys.

This week is going to be different. This week my email will be longer, hahah, I am doing things in a different order just to get this email out there and then add to it if I have time.

So this week was an adventure to say the least. We had a family home evening in the church with our ward mission leader that was AWESOME. First of all, how different is it to be in a ward than a branch? There are ward activities every month, seminary and institute that we can take our people to, every week we have a family home evening lined up with a member through out ward mission leader, and every Wednesday there is an activity just so that we can bring our people to meet other members and learn a little less formal. We have a chapel so we can teach in the church, and members are willing to give us rides home when it is late. We always have lunch, EVEN ON PDAY. Man. I am loving this ward. Right, back to the fhe. Ranan had a short lesson on Lehi´s dream and then we played a game called Peter, James, and John. We had three people there and a recent convert and the member that the said recent convert has decided to date. Two of our people were new this week and the other one is a guy who has come to church for months but when you call him, he always accepts the invite to go places and learn things but ends the conversation saying, "but I wont get baptized". I don't understand people. I was a little worried that Erick and Washington wouldn't be super into playing a game, because they're 24 and 23 year old guys who are too cool for school, but they both got super into it and laughed their heads off. Every time Erick lost, which was about every time, Washington would bust a gut laughing. He started crying he was laughing so hard. It was awesome. We went back last night to invite them to another fhe tonight and the first thing Washington asked was, Will there be another game? I love it. Then he told us that he had found the Book of Mormon that we had left Erick and he started reading it because he knew that it was us that had left it there. He asked if we could give him his own copy.

This week we went to the temple. Let me tell you. I love that place. I miss being able to go more often. I had an awesome experience there. We were in the Celestial Room, praying to feel God´s love because that's what I have been studying and such this transfer too but I wasn't really feeling anything differently. So I started watching this woman that I had seen crying in the changing room. She got up and started walking to the door but stopped near me and just covered her face and started crying even harder. I got this super strong urge to hug her, I felt that Heavenly Father wanted to talk to her but that He wanted even more for her to feel His love. But I don't know her. So I fought with myself for a few seconds before just standing up and hugging her. She clung onto me and just sobbed and sobbed. She tried to tell me what was wrong, but through the tears, and she was whispering, I couldn't understand anything. Not that that matters. It was just important that she felt like somebody was there for her. In that moment, I had a thought pop into my head that just said, You aren't here today for you, you are here today for her. I don't know who this woman is, I highly highly doubt that I will see her again, but the love I felt for her in this moment was the strongest form of love I have ever felt in my life. I know that Heavenly Father was using me to tell her that it was all going to work out okay. How many times I have wished somebody would just get up and hug me when I feel alone, I cannot tell you. But I have a stronger testimony now that Heavenly Father uses the people around us to show us His love.

We were walking to an appointment this week and went to make a contact with a woman on the corner and it turns out that she is from Venezuela. The government here is bringing planes full of them to the south to live because things there are really horrible. So we helped her find her way back home, because she was lost, and invited her to the ward activity that night, which she agreed to. When we went to pick her up, we started asking her about her life and such. She is here all by herself, she doesn't have a husband or any kids. She had gotten here that day. She speaks like I did the first few months here, broken up Portuguese with a little bit of Spanish, but it is easy to understand her and she understands everything if you talk slowly. She loved the activity on Wednesday and she showed up for church all by herself yesterday. I was so happy. Her name is Dalia, guess I could have mentioned that, hahah.

On Thursday, our whole district went to the other sisters' area to help them out a little bit. They had 14 people come to church last week but weren't able to go talk to all of them. So they gave everybody addresses and we just went out to talk to these people. I stuck with S Lazo, so she knew where she was going, but the elders just walked around asking people how to get to different streets. It was really fun and actually really affective. I enjoyed it a lot.

So on the Sister Leader side of things.... it is really weird having to worry about areas that you have never been to with Sisters that you have never met, but it is good. Its fun because Sister Sandoval is in one of these areas so I get to call her and we are going to go on splits in a few weeks together. But it is also rough because one of our sisters lied to President Jones so there was an emergency transfer and I am sure that she knows that it was us that told him. Whoops, but what can ya do? I went on splits for the first time on this side of things and it is weird. Because it is normal but you have to ask a ton of questions and they always tell you things you weren't expecting so you know a lot more than you did and a lot more than you really want to. But that is my life at this moment.

We have gotten to know our weird neighbor this week. S Rodrigues was cleaning the bathroom and the broom fell out the window. When we went to go get it, it was no longer there, so we have been using his about every day until we get around to buying a new one. He has some really weird ideas about who God is. He tried to tell me how the USA was formed but it was a different story than what we are taught in history, but its good. He gave us cookies the other day, and he said he will make us dinner sometime which will be nice. Also, there were termites in S Rodrigues' chair so he was a dear and took care of those for us. He really is a nice guy, just a little off his rocker.

During my splits with S Lazo, we went to talk to this couple that she had made a contact with. When we finished, we got up to leave, and the woman told us that we couldn't. We were like, what....? Her husband left to go to the store and she literally didn't let us leave until we had eaten bread with them. It was really strange, but it was really important to her that we ate with her. But I am a fan of bread, so I didn't complain too much, it was just strange.

Anywhos, I hope this email makes up for last week. I love you guys like crazy, I'm glad you had fun with Glenna and Nelson, I miss them.

Love you! Sister Heiner