Something Different

Hey Guys! I saw the clip of AJ kick the football. His form is looking way way way better. And it looks like there is a lot more heighth to the balls now as well. That is pretty awesome! This week I got to take a missionary vacasion. We had splits with the zone leaders. Because of this, I was forced to leave my area and help the zone leaders in their area while Nicolau (my companion) and the other zone leader stayed in our area. While in the zone leaders area, I was able to take my mind off of all of the problems that my area has for 3 days. It was really nice, and greatly greatly needed. I have been stressing out a lot these past few weeks. It is not easy training a greenie. I have to do almost all of the work and and all of the fire from our leaders is put on me because I and my zone leaders are the only ones baptizing in our zone, Londrina. But I am doing much much better now. And I was able to help the zone leader´s investigators a bit. One even baptized this week over there in Londrina. This week went well. I ended up getting more sick but I am doing alright. I just have a sore throat. I am unable to talk because of this but it is not the worst thing in the world. I just will not be able to win the girls over with my soothing voice hahaha. And I have not eaten anything crazy in a long time. This past week however we had a dish called banana lasagna. It was super good. You take away the dough and wrap ham around the banana and throw lots of cheese on top. It was super super good. But that is what happened this week for me. We also had two baptisms this week, Graça (Grace) and Jefferson. Grace is 8 years old and we have been working with her family for almost a month now. The parents are not married but accepted the invitation to marriage and baptize in the church as well. The family is very very poor. Both parents are job seeking, to no avail. But here in a month the should be baptized. We had a cool experience with them as well. We went to their house friday evening to teach the law of chastity. We taught the lesson and they loved it. We then discovered that it was clara´s birthday, their six year old daughter. I asked little clara if there would be any cake and her mom said no. So We ended the lesson and left. I told my companion, "I am going to buy clara a cake. I do not know how I will afford a cake but God will provide the way." We went to the bakery on the corner of the block and we found a perfect cake. It just so happened to be the cheapest two. It ended up being 30 reais. Which is like 10 bucks but we are poor and 30 reais is expensive here in Brasil. We bought the cake and we returned to Clara´s house. At the gate we started singing the happy birthday song in Portuguese and the little girls came running in our direction. It was awesome. Then we sat down with them and ate the cake. Then little six year old Clara gave me the sweest little hug aroung my legs, because she is tiny. It was so gratifying seeing everyone happy. The father of the family, Marcio had even told us that he spent the whole day asking people for money and assistancve to but her a cake and was unable to, but that we answered his prayer and there was cake. I never had a birthday party, but I always had a nice cake made with love on my birthday, and I would not allow her to pass her birthday without cake. Then we were blessed. I had some 4 reais, 1 dollar more or less, on my mission card. When we passed the bank that next time we looked at our bank account and there was 280 reais. Almost 100 dollars! How we got paid so much, I know not. But our financial burden was lifted. And Jefferson was a reference from an inactive that we helped reactivate. he stopped smoking and read until Alma in the Book of Mormon this week. He was baptized along with graça. And today and tomorrow I will be in Londrina again. We had a zone P Day today and will have a zone conference tomorrow. Oh I was also asked to give a talk sunday, that very day 5 minutes before the meeting started. It was only to be a 5 minute talk but when I got up on the stand, the speaker after me told me to speak a lot and so I gave an almost 20 minute talk about, charity, service, and love. Thank goodness dad dragged me along with him everwhere to speak while he was on the high council. That has helped me a lot on the mission. Then I had to give another unprepared talk at the baptismal service. Lol Life of a missionary is pretty entertaining. This week we have two people that could be baptized. We have not taught weither person, but we are confident that they will be baptized. With my son we have baptized 5 people in 4 weeks. And I now passed the 20 baptisiaml mark. I have 21 now. That is pretty awesome. I am working hard to accomplish my baptisimal goal for my mission. I will reach 92 before we know it!!! My week went super well. I hope your week goes well this week also. I love you guys!!!!😊💓😊 P.S. I will send the photos next monday. I do not have my camera with me. Later Gaters!!