Everyone Has Those Days....

I loved this week :) The Lord blessed me with a tender mercy (a phrase that I have been teaching all the Brasilians cause they don’t have it!). On Monday we had just finished a lesson and moved on to our next family night but as we were walking, we were going to pass by an investigators house. I thought to myself, do we have time to stop by? Hmmm not really but if I see that her light is on we will go visit and mark another day with her. When we got in sight of her house, the lights were on, I turned to my comp, just real quick we need to visit M. So off we went and found her son C. (who is adorable and calls us his aunties) He said, do you want to come in? I said, go see if it’s ok with your mom first. He came back telling us she was coming. There we were able to see that she was not ok. She said, man you came and found me crying. We were then able to comfort her because she had recently lost a loved one. We shared a scripture and said a prayer with her. That for me was a tender mercy of the lord because he showed me that I am capable of following the spirit when at times I feel that I’m not. We were able to change our plans a little to make a bigger difference.

This is Nhambuca, or a neighborhood where we work sometimes 

but this is the first road that leads to the rest of the littler streets. 

obviously it depends on the day and if it rained or not...

I wasn't warned of any clay roads so i didn't come prepared with boots haha 

but its all good. this is where we saw monkeys :)

Also this week I had one of those days....haha a day where after lunch I was playing with her nephew and happened to not gracefully catch the ball but spike it up over the neighbors wall....he kinda got mad haha cause the neighbor wasn’t going to get home until later that night. Then I tried tuning a members friends guitar and managed to break one of the strings (cause they had improperly put on new strings and had cut off the extra string too early but I’m not blaming that...I had a thought to stop twisting and didn’t listen). Then I almost managed to spill the whole pitcher of juice....then a moth landed next to the cake and I tried to grab it but then it flew under the cake.....no one believed me until after almost every piece I had skillfully turned over to check did I find it under the second to last piece! But I’m not sure that was a victory on my part. It was a great reminder that these bad lucky days help us appreciate our great everyday lives. Or our normal lucky lives!

there were so many members at this lunch! about 20 people 

but all you need is one huge pot of rice, 

and beans and meat and three huge pans of salad...

her mustard dressing was delicious. i only repeated salad 5 times haha

This week during studies my comp and I did practices on teaching and leaving the BoM with people. She taught me and I just really felt like I was learning about it for the first time and got so excited to read, ponder and pray. I obviously accepted the invitation to pray to God to know if it is true. I invite you all to think about things from an investigators point of view. Pray to receive answers again if a principle isn’t solid. We also had two great FHE’s about choices where I threw in the ideas of puzzles. The other was about love and pride with using water bottles. Pride makes us weak and vulnerable like an empty bottle but love fills and completes us like the strength of a filled water bottle. I have had a great week of learning, of walking, of testifying and of feeling the spirit. Hope you have the same. Get out and walk. It does good. God has made me such a happier person by sending me to a foreign country but day by day it doesn’t seem like a foreign country anymore. It seems like home. And where we are with God, it is home. He makes it so :)

Loves
Sister O (the sister who is so good at rhyming and spelling haha)

Irmã Bel, She got so excited to show us her little crafts that she does.  It really makes a difference when you listen, pay attention and show  interest in the lives of others. Wouldn't you want someone to be interested  in your nifty eraser collection, or gum wrapper art? yes!

J and her little knife that she carries with her when they accompany us to the end of their street haha

So many hills. . . . on our walk home