Fleas and Tipping Toilets!!!

Well. This week was definitely an adventure, to say the least!! I still am amazed at the language of Portuguese. I hear little kids speak it on the street and I just want to congratulate their parents for raising such genius children. Seriously. How do they know when to use the freaking future subjunctive?! GENIUS CHILDREN EVERYWHERE HERE!! The kids here think my Portuguese is hilarious and they like to teach me new words. I give them stickers and they braid my hair. Oh I adore the Brazilian people:) 

It was honestly a hard week. There are fleas in my bed. There isn't room in our apartment for me to unpack my clothes. I am super frustrated with myself and I can't express what I feel. If I survive this companionship, I will be able to survive and THRIVE in any marriage you put me in. We had to go to Curitiba to get my official documents here and were lost ALL day. I have migraines because everything is so different and then I have dreams about home and wake up with my face 6 inches from the ceiling. Yup. Still here.

As if that wasn't enough, on Saturday night I was on the toilet at someone's house and reached for the toilet paper and the toilet fell over. BOOM! And there I went with it!! I have absolutely no idea how plumbing works when the toilet isn't connected to the ground. Haha I was dying laughing in the bathroom. Who falls over on a toilet in Brazil? 

Yesterday was testimony meeting and the bishop asked me, once again, to share my testimony. I had been fasting for the gift of tongues. I marched right on up there and was able to say the things I felt and wanted to say. I talked about the Savior mostly. There are only a handful of active members in our ward, and as I was looking out at the few of them, I felt the Spirit enter me so strongly. I sat down and just cried, because the Lord indeed did bless me with the gift of tongues, I love these people, and I love Jesus Christ. That's why I'm here. I don't too much mind fleas and tipping toilets;)

After church, I started speaking and my verbs were flawless. Words I had never used and didn't know when or how to use came out and people understood. The Lord sometimes works in mysterious ways, and sometimes He very obviously blesses us:)

We found a million new investigators this week, and after every one I was THRILLED! In the states, a new investigator is like a piece of Dove Chocolate, or a brownie, or a new Jason Mraz song. EXACTLY!

Here, it is a different type of challenge, because everyone is pretty willing to listen. Very few people actually follow through, I am learning. It's more like a hershey's chocolate, a diet candy, or a Keisha song. You dig? (Ok actually it's way better than a Keisha song.)

But we did talk to some wonderful people, and even found a family. Oh, the nicest family in the world!! There are so many people here who are prepared and ready, it's just a matter of working hard enough to find them. My favorite experiences so far in Brazil revolve around my attempting to speak Portuguese, because people are surprised and have to listen hard to understand. We were on a bus this week and I started talking and everyone on the crowded bus perked up. What? She talks weird!! So I started talking a little louder and more people started paying attention. I ended up passing out the church magazine Liahona to a lot of people on that bus:)

 

I teach a piano class every week, and it is SO much fun! We had investigators come, and a lot of kids and teenagers. I adore teaching piano here...everyone wants to learn. And EVERYONE wants me to play and sing.

       We also started an English class this week, and I taught numbers. It was a great success because everyone in Brazil wants to learn English. We invite everyone we see and it is a marvelous way to find people who are interested in our message:)

We taught a LOT of lessons on the street this week. Someone was rude to me this week!! It was a crazy experience. She was so mean and I didn't understand what was going on, but she was talking to me with intense hate in her voice. I found out later that she was a little bit crazy, and that she had been saying I was a sinner because I was beautiful, and she apparently thought I was from satan or something. After that we talked to a drunk man carrying a gun. I had no idea what he was saying, but my companion did and we got out of there in a hurry! 

On the positive side, we taught a woman a lesson on the street this week and it was one of the most wonderful experiences I've had here in Brazil. She is abused by her husband and has had a difficult life. I read a few scriptures from the Book of Mormon to her and tried to express my testimony and my knowledge of the Lord's love for her. She cried and cried and cried, and said she knew that ``this is Jesus.`` Indeed my friend, it is:)

Everytime I see our ward mission leader, he gathers the whole fam and makes me sing Celion Dion ``My Heart Will Go On.`` I'm a rockstar here. 

The times that are hard are when I forget why I'm here and why I'm doing this. And why I'm doing this is because I just love the Lord oh so much and I love these people oh so much and I love to share what I know:) I have a testimony of this gospel, and of how involved the Lord is in our lives. That knowledge is re-affirmed to me every day, and how grateful I am for that:) 

ALL MY LOVE,

Sister Brooks