Bad Week for numbers, but great for the soul!

Oi todo o mundo! haha

How are things?! Brazil just gets better and better every week!

This week was very different because of all the meetings and things that happened.

Tuesday, after lunch, Sister Rosa and I were walking around to an investigators house and then to a members because the investigator couldn´t meet with us. We had a little yellow dog follow us. We decided to call him "Elder Cachorro" (Elder Dog) and he followed us all the way to the members house, which I feel like was a mile away, but I´m not sure. He protected us from two potential dog attacks, one of which could have been pretty bad. He was so cool! So grateful for that dog!

El Cachorro

Oh, ya...there are dogs all over the streets here. Practically every family owns at least two dogs, some have like 7. They are everywhere. 

Tuesday night, Sister Crump and I split from our comps so they could go to their meeting in Floripa. We went contacting since our appointment fell through. And it went super well! We also went to Wizard again! Super fun! We got to talk to teenagers this time. It is so funny to go in there. They all think Sister Crump and I are twins. We are like celebrities there, they all wanted pictures with us. And they decided that I look exactly like Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) and the outfit I happened to be wearing that day was almost exactly one of the outfits she wears in the movie. They also asked us if we wanted tattoos and told us not to get them haha. One of the girls in that class had also been in the other class, and SHE´S INTERESTED IN THE CHURCH!!!!! :D But she is the other sister´s investigator because she´s our neighbor and doesn´t live in our area. 

Sister Irizarry, Sister Wilkins, Sister Crump

Wednesday, Sister Crump and I were comps again. We went out and tried to have some appointments. That lunch appointment we had that day was the weirdest one I have ever had. They watched us eat and were in a rush to get us out so they could get back to work. They didn´t say a whole lot to us either. It was super weird. Then we went and taught a recent convert with a member, and let me tell you: The Gift of Tongues is so real. I understood almost everything people said to me that day. I talked on the phone in Portuguese with like 7 different people trying to get the chaos our life had become worked out. And everything worked out! And people understood my Portuguese! Heavenly father really does answer prayers! I hope you all know that!!!! Our lesson with the RC, Priscilla, went super well. She and the member were crying while the member told the story about her conversion and talked about the importance of reading the BoM and I was even able to share an experience of how the BoM helped me. Miracles happen. I was speaking quickly and I really don´t know what I was saying half the time. The Spirit is so real and really does give you what to say in the moment you need to say when you are really trying to listen to someone. All of our other appointments fell through that night. And sadly, the first and only BoM Sis Rosa and I gave to an investigator was given back to us. I wasn´t even totally sure what happened. Her friend gave it back to us. She didn´t even talk to us. And she already had a testimony of Joseph Smith and the BoM when we found her!!! She had had the missionaries before. But we´ve been dropped. And that was kinda rough. 

But we ended the night, with our comps at the bishops house to celebrate his birthday and some of the members were there too! Super fun!!!

Thursday, we had a referral that we went and taught in the morning. SHE IS PERFECT AND SO PREPARED!!!! We talked to her about her family because she is having a hard time with her son and being patient! We talked to Priscilla the other day (Priscilla asked us to visit her) And she said Vera started crying when she talked with her about our visit with her!!! We are going to teach her again today!!!!!! :) SO EXCITED!!! She was literally the best thing that happened to us this week. 

We had a lesson with Luciana and João Marcus. They are a family we found at the bus stop with a little baby. They have a religion, but we have met with them twice now and they are very receptive to what we are teaching. He has a lot of questions, which is good. They have a lot of potential! We taught them the Restoration and it went so good!

We had 7 appointments fall through. Rough week. 

We went to Ana Carla´s and she said that she isn´t ready to get baptized yet. She wants to wait so she can give up coffee and be totally prepared because she doesn´t want to have to repent after baptism.  That was rough. so we are going to try to really help her understand that baptism is the first step this week.

Friday we had zone conference with president! It was so good!!! We talked about working with the ward council and such, super good! Our zone leaders are awesome and they are in my district! One is from Kaysville, he´s pretty cool and speaks English with me and sister Crump. Sis Irizarry saved my life during conference, she was my personal translator! She is super super awesome!!! Love her! Guess who else is in my zone--Elder Norman. haha! Crazy to see him here, but super cool at the same time. President talked about heroes and what they have in common and that was pretty cool. He and Sister silva are amazing.

President and Sister Silva

Elder Norman and me (Elder Norman went to Westlake with Mady)

My zone on a wooden bridge

We went and taught Tailane that night, a 15 year old who we thought was an awesome investigator that we found on the streets. We have taught her 3 or 4 lessons. But she just told us she´ll be traveling until the end of November, so we are down two investigators this week. That´s pretty rough. But we are going to find the people God has prepared for us this week and we are going to work really hard to do it!

Saturday we walked like all day long. In circles. We had a single lesson. And we had 6 fall through. We got tons of lessons marked for this week though, so that´s great! This week is going to be busy with appointments, allowing that people are actually there! 

These are the sisters in my apartment

Yesterday, we had stake conference. Our stake is huge! It´s awesome!!! President and Sister Silva spoke as did Elder Fernandes, our area 70. There was a lot of focus on families. Which was great! Families are so important to the church!! And a ton of focus on missionary work, which was also great because we need all the help we can get right now!

We weren´t able to meet with Duda this week because she was sick or the lesson fell through, so we are hoping to meet with her this week. 

Toad on the Road (It was huge!)

Our numbers for this week were awful. Sister Rosa said she has never had such bad numbers in her whole mission. We are really praying hard to find people prepared to hear the gospel this week. And even though this week sucked with numbers, I really don´t feel like it was a bad week. We were uplifted by our meetings with Pres and we have a lot of people to visit this week. I´m having so much fun and trying to teach my comp how to sing "I like to look for rainbows" in English super funny haha. But we are having lots of fun. 

Well that´s about it.

Tchau from Brasil!

Love you all!

Sister Wilkins