I´m not sure why, but here I´m a cat magnet. All of the cats in all of the houses I enter are instantly my best friend. Especially in the house of a recent convert in our branch. One of her cats Frederico always jumps up on my lap as soon as I sit down. Apparently he doesn´t like anyone else. Marile calls me the cat whisperer.
Last week I bought some more long sleeve shirts and a sweater, and so far they´ve been enough. But if I need more I´ll for sure take care of it. Though shopping here´s kind of annoying. Maybe not all of the stores, but in this store I bought stuff in last week, the sales clerk hovered the entire time we were in there. And I mean hovered. She was at my elbow the whole time, sometimes she would leave for a second but only to show me some other shirt that I didn´t want. I probably would have bought more if she had just let me be to wander and pick out what I wanted. But it worked out, I got what I needed.
I´m not dreaming in portuguese yet, at least not that I remember. But I think Sister Inhuma told me a few weeks ago that I spoke in my sleep in portuguese. It does feel like I´ve been here longer. I have about a year exactly left on the mission. It´s weird to think about. Some days it feels like I just got here, and others it feels like I´ve been here for ages. And this transfer especially is going by so fast. We´ve started the 4th week of 6 already. I could have sworn Sister Inhuma just arrived.
The real lives of brazilians really are like soap operas. Everyone´s so dramatic. Sunday was o dia dos namorados. It´s like their Valentines Day. And there was this huge dance in Porto Alegre, called the dance of roses. And what happens is, if a boy gives you a yellow rose it means he wants to be your friend, a pink rose means he wants to talk with you, and a red rose means he wants to date you. And there´s this 18 year old girl in our ward. She was telling us the other day that if she doesn´t recieve a rose at this dance she´s going to be so sad. She didn´t know what she would do if she didn´t recieve a rose. But no worries, she recieved 2 roses, from what I understand, one pink and one red and was very pleased with herself. She´s so funny.
The people here are very dramatic, very passionate, and very open and loving. And despite being quiet I think the people like me too. At least the Irmãs are always calling me little doll, or dear one. Maybe because I´m small and pale they feel maternal towards me. Será.
I´m not sure how exactly, but we taught 27 lessons this week. Usually we have more like 17. The elders are green with envy too that we had so many lessons and then 6 people in church. The Lord is really blessing us. We´ve worked really hard this transfer and it feels good to be having a little bit of success. All week we invited everyone we know, everyone we´re teaching, to come to church. Then Sunday, we had 4 of our own investigators. Then out of no where these two old men come out of nowhere and participate in all of our meetings. We thought they were friends of a member, but they literally just wandered in off the street. So naturally we got their addresses and set up a time to visit and teach them. But it was way interesting to see how we had set a goal, and then we tried real hard to reach that goal, and then where we fell short, the Lord stepped in and brought some friends to church for us.
We´re really finding some incredible people to teach. At the end of last week we found this family, Lizete, the mom, Luana and Luiza, her daughters. We taught them about the Book of Mormon and left them a copy to read and pray about. The older daughter Luana was so excited to read the Book of Mormon. I told them about how in my copy of the book I´ve been reading and marking the references to Christ. His names and his own words, etc. and how my book is just full of color. Almost every page has a marking. And Luana said I want to do that too! It was super exciting, and all week I couldn´t wait to get back there and teach again. Then Saturday there was a branch activity and we invited the family and Luana came and it was perfect. We invited one of the other young women to come and stay with Luana during the activity to she´d have a friend, and she was perfect. Grazila showed her around the building explained things without making her feel stupid or left out. It was just perfect. Then Sunday Luana came to church and really liked it. We´re so excited.
And then our biggest miracle this week was Davi. Davi is 8 years old and has wanted to get baptized for ages, has already been taught by the sisters and everything. Davi´s grandma called and told us that his mom had granted permission! We freaked out in the happiest most joyful way possible. We were literally celebrating in the street. So July 2nd Davi will be baptized and we couldn´t be happier for him. For an 8 year old he has a testimony so strong. He told us about how he had prayed about whether or not the church was true, and then he was reading the scriptures and found his answer that yes this was the right path for him. An 8 year old, receiving revelation through the scriptures. Que coisa maravilhosa.
So needless to say, I´m doing really well. I´m busy busy busy, but it´s a good busy. And Sister Inhuma said that last night I was talking in my sleep in Portuguese, so I´m thinking this is a good sign. It´s hard sometimes to recognize that the language is improving. But then yesterday we ran into Alvori in the street. Alvori was baptized my first week here, and we hadn´t seen him for some weeks. And I could understand probably 90% of what he said. When I got here I could only understand probably 15% or what he said. I don´t know why, something about his accent or the way he speaks, it´s more difficult for me to understand. But yesterday I understood almost everything he said. It was an exciting moment.
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