Things are great here in Brazil! This week is a HUGE holiday here in Northern Brazil, called São João! I don´t know if anyone remembers when I passed through it last year in Pina... But to sum up São João, it´s a lot of bonfires, corn, straw hats, plaid shirts, and bands that consist of acoustic guitars, acordians, and triangles :) It´s a party. Haha
But hey! That wonderful, elect family that we started teaching last week-- They´re still wonderful and elect and are going to be baptized this Friday! At the beginning of the week Flavio told us that he was marked to work on Sunday and that at the prison where he works, it´s almost impossible to get someone to trade with you on Sunday. But we shared our testimonies that God would prepare someone to work for him and went on our way. Well, when we went to teach them again a couple days after, he told us that he had called one of his friends and offered him 300 reais (Brazilian currency) to work for him but that his friend said he would do it for free! We honestly just sat there AMAZED that he had offered to pay 300 REAIS just to go to church on Sunday. That is true faith and desire!
Another thing that really touched me this week with Maria Jose and Flavio was being able to teach their son, Tiago, who´s autistic and has some learning difficulties. Sunday we went there to teach Tiago indiviually to help him to understand things a little better. We were talking to Maria Jose about how she teaches him and helps him with his school work and she said that the thing that´s helped her the most is her faith. She´s very patient and loving with him and teaches him over and over and over again until he gets it. When he gets 2 out of 10 math problems right she´s very happy with him, and then teaches him to help him get even more right the next time. As she was saying these things, it made me really think of how a mother´s love is so close to God´s love! He is so patient with us! No matter how many times we get things wrong, He will help us to try and try again until we finally get it right :)
Have a great week and feliz São João!
Sister Anderson
--- AÇAÍ AND DELICIOUS BROWNIES... I´ll tried to get some pics of the São João action to send next week!
