That I Might Bring Them Joy: Guess I'd better write an e-mail

Sorry y'all, I just have no vontade to write emails anymore. I mean, I really am gonna see y'all soon. Let's eat at La Parilla and watch Frozen so I can finally see what everyone is freaking out about.

Monday: We did absolutely nothing and it was great!! We went nowhere, did nothing, and it was fabulous. Except for now I have no idea what to do with free time. You know you're a missionary when you think "Thank goodness its P-day, I finally have time to clean out and update our area book and write in my journal..." Yeah, so thats what I did. Our area book is as good as new!

Tuesday: Things fell through, adresses were wrong, but Pamela came out with us and we taught a lesson to a guy who broke his leg. He liked it, but then went off on a tangent about some stuff and we promised to bring him a copy of the Book of Mormon on Friday before sneaking out. Then, lots of other things fell through. Day in the life.

Wednesday: We taught Janete!!! I challenged her to pray about baptism dia 22 de Novembro. AND SHE ACCEPTED!!! I am pretty stoked about that. We just gotta keep working with her to get her miracle happening.
Then, we read with Larissa and Laysa in the Book of Mormon and that was fun. They are just so cute and excited about everything. They were asking questions, and they understood pretty well!
Then, we taught Leidiane o Evangelho de Jesus Cristo. All about faith, repentance, baptism, recieiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end. It helped with some of her fears for baptism, and we marked for the elder to come interview (I keep trying to spell that as "enterview" because of português...) her on Friday. Then, we went to our Noite Familiar with the ward. We were in charge of the lesson, so we planned on burning everyone- no not literally, mom, don't worry. We've just noticed that our ward is a little lost when it comes to figuring out how to help in missionary work, so we decided to light the fire.
We brought cookies. (I may or may not have stolen this idea from Sister Goimarac). When it was time for us to do the lesson, I set the cookies out on the table, handed one to Sister Ferril, grabbed one for myself, and we started eating.
"Ohmygooness, these cookies are so good!!"
"DELISH!"
"Ohmy- do you think Bispo wants a cookie?"
"Well, maybe, but... I dunno, I'm pretty sure he already has his own cookies."
"Oh yeah, he eats his own cookies all the time. What about Laysa? I mean, I gave her a cookie one time and I think she liked it.."
"Yeah, but remember, she didn't ask for anymore and said she was full, which means that she didn't like it and won't want more."
"Oh yeah, right, right."
"What about Irmã Cris? She's pregnant so..."
"No way, last time she freaked out and was all 'why would I ever want cookies go away!' and I didn't really like that so..."
"Yeah, better not..."
And so it went for a few minutes as we ate the cookies. Finally we stopped, and asked everyone how they felt when we were eating the cookies right in front of them. "COM VONTADE DE COMER!!! I WANTED TO EAT THEM!" was basically everyone's response. We related that to missionary work, and to not sharing the gospel. Because not sharing the gospel is like eating delicious cookies in front of everyone, and then not giving them any.
Everyone got the point.
Then, we re-introduced our competition to gain the most ontis (Alma 11:13) for missionary work, and now everybody in our ward just wants to win.

Thursday: We had weekly planning, my favorite thing. Then, everything fell through. Even our weekly noite familiar with the Dantas family!! But for a reason. That night, we met up with Cicero. Its always a miracle when we meet up with Cicero. He talked and really opened up to us for a while, and we were able to testify to him. We ended up giving him several scriptures to read, and told him that he can't wait- NOW is the day of repentance, not tomorrow.
DON'T WAIT.

Friday: We had exchanges, and I finally had a Brasileira companheira for the day. Halleluyer! She told me my português is actually quite good and that I've got a good accent. Woohoo!!
Of course, as everything always does on exchanges, everything fell through. But, we literally talked to everyone and they're dog. Sister Vieira loves contacting, and is really good at it. I stopped 18 people, and I think her number added up to 32. Say whaaat? Yeah, definitely learned a lot from her. But, in spite of all of our planned lessons falling through, we had 4 impromptu lessons! It was awesome. And we ended up with two new investigators.
Leidiane had her baptism interview, and looks like she'll have to wait just a little longer for batismo before she's fully prepared. But! While she had the interview, we taught her brother-in-law the first lesson and invited him to be baptized!! He said yes. The trick is to get him to church as he always works on Sundays.

Saturday: I got my little filha back, safe and sound. I love my companion!

We taught Larissa and Laysa again, and for some reason Pedrinho was really mad at me so he kicked me a few times and told me he was going to kill me. "Vou te matar, menina!" Yeah, don't know whats up with that. Usually he throws his arms around me, tells me he adores me, and then tells everyone that I'm his girlfriend... Every couple has their challenges I suppose...
Then, we taught Raisa, a contato from exchanges. She loved it! After we told her about the first vision we asked how she felt. She said that she had a really good feeling that came from inside, that she couldn't explain. We testified that that was the Spirit talking to her, telling her the truth. We also invited her to be baptized. She was a little hesitant, but we told her to pray about it, and that she would get that same feeling again. She and her stepsister promised to come to church the next day.
Then, we went to go teach Leidiane and her brother-in-law Pedro. It finally rained!
Sidestory- its been SUPER dry in São Paulo, rivers are drying up, and the water is running out. Literally, most people don't have any water in their house at night or on the weekends. We've been blessed- our house always has water. But this fast sunday, we were fasting for rain. And an hour after we started our fast, it rained good and hard!! For a short time, but we'll take what we can get.
Anyways. Went to go teach Leidiane and discovered that her whole house was part of the torrential downpour. She has a small, three story home and the third story is open with a covering. Except it was raining so hard that the water just poured in, then ran in torrents down all flights of stairs, soaking lots of things and giving everyone lots of work. We showed up as this was happening, walked in and offered to help. Their house had no water to clean up the mess, and like good, obedient, prepared missionaries, we had a bunch of huge water bottles and stuff filled to the brim with water. We grabbed what we could, filled up something for Leideiane, grabbed a squeejee and some rags and ran back to her house, which is conveniently located close to ours. For the next three hours, we helped her move things, dry things, clean things and such. We didn't get a lesson in, but I feel that the Savior would have done the same. We grabbed what we could of the clothes and blankets to wash at our house.

Sunday: It was a good fast sunday. It was my last fast sunday on the mission, which was surreal. Felipe, the son of Bispo, realized that, and after my testimony got up and talked about his mission, and talked about how rough it is when it ends. Thanks... Haha
We all ended the fast together at the church, with a huge, delicious almoço. It was the best. I'm gonna miss this ward a lot.
Everything fell through, but we had a noite familiar with Lu and her family.

Well, folks, I'm working hard out here. Can't wait to see you but... I don't wanna come home. Bless y'all's hearts, I love y'all and all, but its gonna really stink to leave.

The church is true. If you don't know for yourself, pray and ask Heavenly Father. He'll tell you.

All my love!! Te amo!!

com amor,
Sister Shell