I talked last week a little about São João, but this week, Thursday and Friday, were the official days of São João. Here in the North, it´s almost as big as Carnival, and so it was a little crazy and hard to work for a couple days. It´s a pretty cute holiday though haha. All the girls dress up in colorful dresses, and then the boys draw on mustaches and wear straw hats haha. And then everyone eats A LOT of corn and listens and dances to accordian music. It was a little crazy though, Thursday night, every street had at least 3 bon fires. I´m still trying to get the smell of smoke out of my hair haha.
My highlight of this week was probably having Dalva be baptized!! I´m going to send some pictures of the baptism :) She´s so funny and I love her so much. It was wonderful to see her go from the first day, absolutely refusing to be baptized to this Saturday almost running into the water because she was so anxious to be baptized. She is a testimony that the Gospel really can change lives and hearts. There is a new happiness in her life that I can see and that I know she can feel. I really learned with Dalva that a lot of the time, we follow the Spirit without really realizing it. There were a couple times where we almost stopped teaching her because she was so closed and unaccepting. But something kept having us go there and try one more time. And I realize now, that it was the Spirit prompting us to keep trying :)
I think I already talked about the experience of finding Isabel-- she is really turning out to be one of God´s elect! She has a lot of troubles and problems in her life, but she is so willing to change and do everything we ask her to do in order to help her make this change. She´s reading the Book of Mormon and loving it.
Guess who returned!.... Eriko!! Turns out he´s been gone for the last month, working in Salvador. But he found us on the street the other day and asked if we could start teaching him again :) He went to church this Sunday and he´s going to start reading and praying about the Book of Mormon again!
This week I ate one of more different things I´ve probably eaten in all my mission haha. I can´t remember what it´s called in Portuguese, but it´s pretty much chicken that´s been cooked in a blood sauce... I didn´t really understand what it was before I ate it haha. It was really good though! What really got me was when Sister Lopez picked up the chicken claw and started eating it haha. That was a little more than I could handle.
This week I´ve been really really grateful for the mercy of God. I am SO far from being a perfect missionary. There are so many things I need to change and improve and it can be a little discouraging sometimes. But then I remember that God doesn´t expect us to be perfect-- only a little better than we were yesterday. And remembering this always gives me the strength to keep moving forward with the hope that through the Atonement of Christ, I eventually can become the person God wants me to be.
Love you all!!
Sister Anderson
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| This was from last week. Her district is actually up to 17 baptisms this transfer. |
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| Dalva´s Baptism!! |
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| Dalva with her family :) |
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| Our new elect family! Ernesto, Milena, Ayala, Nicoly, Samuel, and Johhny (not in the photo). They love the gospel and are so excited to be baptized!! |
