SMILE thru TRIAL

Oi todos! I hope that you all are well! Gee, thanks for the lovely pictures of you all eating at my favorite restaurant. I feel so loved haha This week was crazy as usual. Tons of things to do and tons of people to visit.

First off, we got transfers and I will be staying here with Sister R.! I am so happy to be staying here, we have work to do here still. I cant believe I have 8 months in the mission today. Crazy how much I've learned and grown. I am so excited for conference! First time watching in Portuguese! We don't get to see the women's conference the same time as the US. We get to watch a week later, but I'm so grateful we have the oppurtunity to hear from our dear prophet. We are so blessed.

Our district. The elder with the red hair is being transferred to Santa Maria.

A funny thing happened this week. Our investigator R. talks to me in a very.....odd way. Lets just say he's obsessed with me and sends us texts every morning in English and sometimes they are on the creepy side.  So ya, I couldnt take it anymore and told my companion that we need to tell him he can't send us messages and needs to back off a little. So we marched down to his house and I told him "R., i know you like to goof and play around and send me messages, but you can't mess around with me. I am a missionary of God and represent the Savior and I know that you wouldn't send the same messages you send to me to Him. So please don't do it anymore. He understood and now calls us every day and just says "Have a great day sisters"  haha it was for sure an experience. 

E. and R. will receive their papers any day now and we are so excited for their wedding and baptism. But they want to wait till January or December. ahhh! I just wanna yell out "people, get married already!!" haha But people have agency. There are so many families we are teaching that can be baptized but can't because they need to get married first. E. and R. are such examples to me and have truly changed my life by their example. Their family is doing everything to get married, baptized and sealed. They don't have much...literally their house is the size of my bedroom back home. And they don't have much work, but still are so happy with practically nothing. This week E. said that they went without gas and food for 5 days. She said that she gave every bit of food to her kids and just drank water but with the time she had suffering with hunger, she still read her Book of Mormon. I am amazed at the commitment and love she has for the gospel. She had a smile on her face while telling us about her trials. She only told us the good from all of this and told us how much God has blessed her. These people have changed my life forever and strengthened my testimony. The gospel is so perfect and is truly the key to happiness in all aspects of life. God bless you all!!! Tchão!

Sister Porter

Our friend, Nathaniel, from the branch got his mission call.

The sister asked us when we met her what we did as our professions before the mission and I told her. We went to visit her and she said, "Can you please do it for me?" haha I was in heaven. It was so fun. Yes...that is the face of pure joy haha