What a Week!

Oi familia, amigos! Amo vocês muito!!! 

So, lots of miracles here in the field!!! Loving the work, as always, and the language. And everything about being a missionary. Honestly I think it is the best calling life can offer. 

So, this week we asked Mari to get baptized. She didn´t accept. She hasn´t prayed to ask if the Book of Mormon or the Church is true yet, but she understands how important baptism is and how big of a step it is, so that´s a start! 

Miracle #1: VERA READ THE BOOK OF MORMON!!!!!!! AND SHE LIKED WHAT SHE READ AND IT APPLIED TO HER LIFE!!! But, she hasn´t been to church the past two weeks. But she READ!!! We asked her to pray about it, hoping that she did! We taught her about faith. We asked her what faith was to her and she nearly quoted Alma 32:21 and she had never read it! How crazy is that?! 

Milagre #2: We fasted with Claudia last week so that she could have the help she needed to be baptized. She broke up with her boyfriend this week because of a fight! And she feels at peace with the decision to break up! We recognized this as an answer to our prayers and hoping she will do the same! (Her boyfriend was holding her back a bit from being baptized.) She is supposed to be baptized next Saturday. 

There are other miracles from this week too. I watched an 11 year old girl share her testimony about giving a Book of Mormon to a friend and she started sobbing as she told us her friend was reading it! She set an example for the whole ward. And she´s 11!!! I watched the husband of a recent convert, who is 19 years old, bear his testimony about fasting to find work and receiving a job offer 4 days later. There are so many miracles! I promise you that if you will open your eyes a little wider and pray to see God more in your life you will see that your lives are full of miracles too! 

We had interviews with President this week. He gave us a training first and it was amazing! President is amazing! And I know he is inspired! He is seriously super cool! My interview was the third to last (we were at the chapel until 5:30 for interviews), so it was pretty short, only like two minutes long. And he just asked me about myself and my family and how I am doing. And man, I know that I needed to have him as my president! He is seriously so cool!

So, Halloween...since you all have been asking. They didn´t do anything. I ate a handful of swedish fish to celebrate. At the very end of the day we saw a lady who had hair like Maleficent. And we saw four trick or treaters about 11 or 12 years old! I so badly wished I had candy to give them! They trick or treated at a bakery, not sure if they got anything or not, but they exist! haha

And yesterday was Day of the Dead. We went to a cemetery to try to contact, at the suggestion of our bishop. The cemetery here is so different. It is literally a bunch of stone boxes above ground like something straight out of the movie. Here, it is a big holiday in that people go to the cemeteries to mourn for their dead, but other than that nothing really happens. But there were a lot of flowers and it looked cool. And there were a lot of people there. There were some people standing at a grave doing Hail Mary´s and it kind of freaked me out a little because all I heard was chanting and I didn´t understand what was going on. 

Well, that´s really about all that´s going on here. We wake up, exercise, study, eat, pray and teach, walk and walk, plan, and then sleep and do it all again. And man does it sound boring when I put it like that, but honestly I can´t think of anything else I would rather do. This is exactly where I want to be and I hope that everyone of you who has the ability to serve a mission goes. There is nothing to compare this experience to. Words cannot explain the joy that comes from bringing the gospel to others! 

I love you all! 

Hope you all had a wonderful Halloween and that you aren´t sick from all the candy! 

Have a wonderful week! 

Sister Wilkins

Transfer calls are next week. We have no idea what will happen. But President did say to Sister Diniz he won´t leave a trio in Oficinas. So we could get two sisters, we could get one and one of us would leave, or we could both leave. I have no idea what will happen. 

Investigators are coming. We are working so hard with them. 

Crazy big caterpillar.  Moved super fast

Awesome hammock at a members while waiting for lunch

A member made us mini pizzas for lunch.  They were super duper good.  And it had salami!

Translation:

O Master, I did that I looked to do but to comfort more than to be comforted. 

Basically saying, don´t let anything bad happen to me. I don´t want to have to be comforted, but I will comfort others. Funny little signs like this all over one neighborhood in our area. 

Can´t believe Dad´s on high council again! Crazy stuff! 

If you guys want to pray that we can help our investigators and know exactly what we need to do to help them progress that would be great. And that we can find people who are prepared for the gospel. We are in need of more people to teach.