Mady's Missionary Moments: In the Jungle, the Mighty Jungle, The Lion Roars Tonight....

Hello família e amigos!

Tudo bem?!

Nine Months! With Sister Mesias

Jorgy, our lizard friend (see post titled Facebbok referral)

Last night with Bruna and Robson

Well, transfers are in, and I am sticking around with Sister Ogle again! We weren´t expecting that one! Not really a whole lot of changes going on with transfers. Our district is expanding and we are going to have two more Elders, and one of them will be our new district leader, so that will be fun!

Last P-day we took a little adventure to...the ZOO!!!! :) Holy cow it was super fun! There was a tiger like ten feet away from us. His mouth is bigger than my head! And next to him were a bunch of lions. There were a ridiculous amount of birds and monkeys, but that´s Brazil for ya! It was almost deserted and it was soooo fun! There was a RIDICULOUS amount of mosquitoes though, and being me with my super sweet blood, I got home that night with what looked like Chicken pox on my legs. It was awful! But the zoo was so worth it!

We have a new ward mission leader, who I think is really going to help us a lot. As I have been in this area, we have had a lot of difficulty with working with some of the leadership and getting the help that we need because we opened the area, as a third companionship. But this new Irmão is awesome and really wants to help and is already helping us a ton!

Don´t know if you remember Judy, the teenage less-active we are teaching. She has been to church the last two weeks and is working to get her patriarchal blessing! And she just basically showed up and asked for an interview!!! Miracles are real people! Heavenly Father does touch hearts, sometimes we just have to wait a little to see the results.

This week I tried some new stuff...yup Sushi and raw salmon. And I learned how to make sushi haha. Well, the sushi wasn´t awful but it was kind of weird. And the salmon, well I actually thought it was good. The texture was a little funny though. But it was a pretty big step for me. Day 1 in the field I said I would never eat sushi again...never say never. That is a really important lesson to learn haha.

Well, I am really lucky right now to be teaching a man who found the church through Facebook, knew the Book of Mormon was true the moment he saw it and felt like he was always missing something in his life, like there was an emptiness inside. Mauro, this investigator, has loved God his whole life and always strived to keep the commandments, but even still he felt something was missing. This week he told us that that something was the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and now that emptiness is gone and is full of love and happiness. He is sharing this message with others already and is very excited for Saturday, when he will be baptized, and even more excited to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost this Sunday. I am so grateful for the example he is setting for me. It has been an amazing experience watching him become increasingly more happy every time we see him.

Well, that´s about it for my week!

Hope you are all doing well!

Love you!

Sister Wilkins