My mission to Brazil: October 22, 2018 um ano depois.............................................................

This week flew right by. I blinked and it was over. Do you guys remember my first few weeks when I was convinced I was going to die here? Yeah, I no longer have that feeling. I swear, weeks are getting shorter.

We started the week off by going to Campo Bom and going on splits. It was an adventure. Turns out that there are a ton of mosquitoes there, and my legs look like Amanda's always do in the summer, haha, but we are blessed that our area does not have mosquitoes until now, so I am very happy with that fact. I worked with Sister Bento for the day. I learned a lot from her. She has a very unique teaching style that I liked a lot. We ended our night buying pizza and then eating all of it on the way home so we didn't have to share with the other sisters, hahaha. I feel like I should feel bad about that but it made her happy that we were doing something just the two of us that wasn't working, so I don't feel bad at all. Also, we didn't tell the other sisters, haha.

We spent a few hours helping a less active pregnant irma clean her house. She has a high risk pregnancy so her sisters asked us to go there and help her out. It turned out to be really entertaining because her 3 year old wanted to help too but their house is pretty small and they have a dog that goes crazy if you get near the kid, and it seriously was a mess. But it turned out good. The mom stayed in her bed, we locked the dog out of the house, we cleaned, and then I did the daughters hair because it looked like Jamie's when she wakes up but then decides not to do anything with it for three days ;) Irma Luanna was happy at the end, and asked us to come back and do a family home evening with her family some time this week. We shall see if that fits into the schedule we´ve got going on in this crazy life.

We decided to go visit an eternal investigator that never wants to get baptized because he feels like he isn't ready. We read through the baptismal questions with him without him knowing that we were doing the interview with him. When we told him at the end to show him that he really is ready, he just needs to have the faith to actually do something, he got really quiet and just sat there thinking. So we asked him to fast with us the next day and told him that we would talk about it afterwards. When we went back, he just told us, "your president asked me to invite him to my baptism, can I have his number?" Bah. I about cried. Sister Rodrigues and I just sat there staring at him like, did we hear that right? We heard that right. Juliano will be baptized this next week. AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had 8 people come to church yesterday, which made us really happy as well. The refugees from Venezuela are all really excited to be at church. Our ward has already adopted them, it is really awesome to see. The only problem is that they are not married, gosh darn it. And marriage is already a challenge here for Brazilians so imagine how its gonna turn out for refugees. I have faith. It'll work out.

We went to teach Sara, and her son, Pedro (who likes to be called Peter) was bouncing around the house making a ton of noise. So I told him to come lay his head on my lap, and I started playing with his hair while talking to his mom, and he just got super quiet. Not gonna lie, it made me want to have kids, haha, when we were leaving, he came and kissed my cheek and said, "tchau titia". Super cute.

We stopped by an irmas house last night to get a ride home, and she made us egg sandwiches. It kinda startled me for some reason, and she thought I didn't like them, so I had to quickly explain that mom used to make them for me and that I hadn't eaten one in over a year. She ran to me and gave me a huge hug saying that while I'm here, she´ll make them for me. It made me laugh a little but at the same time feel really special, sabe?

Sister Rodrigues and I had a rough few days this week and I spent a lot of time on my knees praying. I had a song come into my mind that talks about how we should tell Heavenly Father all of our thoughts and hopes and dreams and fears, so after a really rough day, I decided to do that. I laid on my bed and said a prayer out loud in English just explaining how I was feeling to Heavenly Father, and I had this sense of calm come over me as if He was sitting on my bed listening saying, "i know sweetheart, it'll get better, don't lose faith." It was a really cool experience.

Anywhos, I hope you are all doing well. I laughed really hard at the picture of woody and buzz and jessie.

I love you guys!!

Sister Heiner