Sweet Moments!!!

I have a new companion, and she is from Argentina. Which means that we have a three-some of English, Portuguese and Spanish. I can’t understand a word she says, so we’re still super good friends. This week was hilarious with the language barriers going every direction. Sister Lopez will say something in Portuguese and Sister Garnica won’t understand, so I’ll naturally explain it in English as if that will help. We’ve all added dictionaries to our standard works that we carry around every day all day.

Us trying to make room for
one more person in our
tiny little home.

She really is darling. It’s so funny to me to see the stark cultural differences between all the different people I’ve met in the last month and a half. Example: When I arrived, I was concerned about buying food and finding someone to watch me run. Sister Garnica wanted to know if we could go to a spa on P-day so she could get her hair done and get a massage. What? 

This week we saw a grand and marvelous miracle. There we were, walking up the massive hills of Ponto Grossa, when a woman with a big bag of groceries walked past. We’ve been making goals to talk to more and more people every day, (partially because you find more people to teach that way and partially because it’s super hard to breathe walking up this particular hill and I needed a break,) so we stopped and started chatting with her. It turns out that she is member with a very strong testimony who fell away because she had been living in an area without the church. She moved to this area only two months ago and has been wanting to come back to church with her family. Two of her sons aren’t baptized but want to be. Through another miracle, the heart of the father of the family was softened and they will be baptized this week:) I’m as happy as a clam. 

New missionaries from America arrived this week, and apparently the President told them not to worry about the language because ``Sister Brooks got it in 30 days.`` Well, I think it’s kinda like when a woman asks a man if a particular dress makes her look fat and he says no, but really it does. What President Monteiro said was a complete lie, but I’ve been feeling pretty awesome the last few days. 

Our lightbulb burned out this week
 so I like to study in the dark
with my handy dandy HEAD FLASHLIGHT!!!

We approached a drunk man this week and gave him a pamphlet about the gospel, to find out later that right before we arrived, he had been in a rage with a knife trying to kill a couple of kids. I’m really grateful that we have the Lord’s protection as His missionaries. 

The language is coming, at a snail's pace, but it’s coming:) I have been able to start teaching this week, not just talking. I’m starting to have a sense of humor in Portuguese, which is wonderful because I was starting to miss laughing at myself every day. 

This week we taught everyone in the whole world and their dogs which roam the streets here. (PS. My fear of dogs is vanished. They growl and I pick up a rock and yell in English and they fear me.) We found some really wonderful people this week, including a woman who started screaming in the middle of me rehearsing the First Vision about how glorious and wonderful God is. It was the most exciting First Vision recitation I’ve ever heard, and you better believe we’ll be visiting her again soon. 

We also taught a man who wasn 4 feet tall and at least 100 years old, and I wanted to ask if I could take a picture of his cute little old face. I resisted because that is kinda weird, but I was smiling the whole entire lesson and wishing my buddy Abby was there to enjoy chatting with the cutest old man in all of the world:)

I apparently have tasty blood on the left half of my body. I wake up with a bloody left leg every morning from something eating me during the night. I’m convinced it’s a spider bigger than my face. 

I learned a lot this week about patience and about the Lord’s timing. My timing is never the Lord’s because I want everything to happen NOW. But the Lord is teaching me through so many things and people how to truly be patient with myself and other people. As I’ve tried to exercise patience, I have felt the Lord’s love for His children in this area so much stronger. Every morning I pray and feel how precious every soul is to Heavenly Father. And then we go to work, and I have my companion teach me hymns in Portuguese that I can sing while we walk the streets:)

I love the work. It’s hard, but the moments when it clicks with someone, like it did this week with the family we found, are some of the sweetest moments of my life. What a privilege:):)

Oh, and my love plus a little more, 

Sister brooks

The "gyms" of Brazil.,,blue and yellow toys
next to a playground.

And, a funny little sticker in all the buses in Brazil. The first people it says to make room for on the buses are the obese. Before the old, the woman with child, the diseased. Make room for the obese.