Still in Caruaru

I didn´t get transfered! That´s right, Sis Jacobs and I are still tearin’ it up here in Caruaru.

Well, this week was quite an eventful one! The fun began when Sis Jacobs twisted her ankle Tuesday morning. It was quite a dainty fall and had me laughing, until I realized she had actually hurt herself. But we still went and taught our lesson to Adriano. It was awesome, because he definitely accepted our invitation to be baptised! We were both like “...wait, what? Uh, Parabens!!!!!!!” becasue we werent expecting him to reply so readily. Sis Jacobs thinks he´s a miracle, because at first he didnt seem that interested, and after he went to church the first time, he left way fast right after, and I thought he had hated it and never would return or something. But obviously, he didn’t hate it.

After we taught him, we limped over to a car dealership that some members work at and they took us to the hospital. They took an x-ray and luckily nothing was broken, just twisted. The doctor said she should avoid walking on it for the next week. Sis Jacobs looked at him, laughed, and said “Doctor, our work IS walking”. So we compromised and spent the rest of Tuesday, and all of Wednesday and Thursday in the apartment.

So, when you have a sick day at home, it´s kinda fun because you stay in your PJs and watch movies and drink soup and play around on Facebook. But as a missionary, you don´t do any of that. Well, I stayed in my gym shorts all day, but that´s about it. I read about half of Jesus the Christ, finished 2 Nefi in Portuguese, did the dishes, cleaned the apartment, reorganized my desk, wrote in my journal... We had such an outpouring of love from the members! They brought us out lunch Wednesday and Thursday, and Mercia and Monica, our two first baptisms last transfer, brough us dinner one night. Renata and Rafaela, two member girls here who are amazing, brought us food and hung out with us Wednesday and Thursday, which eliminated a lot of the drearyness. Renata did a split with me Thursday morning, so we could teach Adriano. I got to teach him about the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity (doesnt everyone love that one?). The best part was: he already knew about them! AND he is ALREADY living them! Solid! So, thank you Lord for that blessing.

Friday Sis Jacobs could kinda walk, so we set out for a busy day. We´ve actually had a pretty good week for having three days off. Another one of our investigators, Ana, committed to be baptised this Saturday, and the other son of Ronaldo and Luciana, Bruno, also. And another family we´re working with, Simoni and Edson, filled out their paperwork for getting married, so we´re just waiting for that to come through (it takes 15 days to get married here)! They LOVE the church and are SO excited. Edson is totally going to be a bishop or stake president someday.

This whole month is the festival of São João, and Caruaru has the biggest party in all of Brasil. It´s been crazy. They construct a mini city in the middle of the city for food and dancing and music and as missionaries we can´t go, but the member girls go and have lots of fun for us. But during the day we can go look at the places (see pictures below). It´s pretty fun, and I think I actually like forró, the style of music that is traditionally São João and Caruaru claims to be the birthplace of it.

That’s about all I have to report this week. Next week we’ll have some fun pictures of baptisms =]
Love,
~Sis Wilkinson