The Week of Birthday was AWESOME

Seriously, this week was INCREDIBLE! It was probably the best week of my whole time here in Brazil!  Holy cow!  I am so happy!  And thank you so much for all of the birthday wishes!  It was super fun:)  

To start off, we had a party at our zone meeting for me, Sister Patino, and Elder Moura, who all had birthdays this week!  It was super cute, they had cake and ice cream and coke and sang Happy Birthday and everything! Then I got THE PACKAGE TO END ALL PACKAGES.  THANK YOU SO SO MUCH CELIA AND FAMILY!  Oh my goodness, I have the best family in the world!  That thing was a monster!  I´m serious, the elders had to lend us a little cart thing to get it back to our house, and it broke the cart.  Pictures will be included.  Unfortunately, that sucker had to sit at home tempting me all day because we had a ton of lessons, but when we opened it there was a party for sure!  Pictures of this shall be included also.  Thank you thank you thank you thank you!  Don´t worry Mom, the Christmas stuff is still wrapped all nicely:)

Our Birthday Celebration with the Zone

Elder Moura, Sister Patino and Sister Dana

And the package broke the cart

The Package

Don't worry, I didn't open the stocking yet!

Well guess what, Thursday was also Sister Patino´s birthday!  We gave her prezzys and I made a cake!  Now, everyone is in love with American cakes, because they really are better than the Brazilian ones here.  And also this cake gave Georges, our investigator, his first taste of frosting, and now he is crazy for the stuff!  But seriously, it was a great day!  The night of Sis Patino´s birthday, we had a lesson with Georges with the Zone Leaders and we marked him for baptism on that Sunday.  It was super special...he had been receiving answers all day that he needed to be baptized this week after we challenged him to it on Tuesday, and so he had an interview and was all ready set go!  Seriously, superrrrr spiritual.  He was crying and everything...oh I love baptisms!

Happy Birthday Sister Patino!

The night of the awesome interview with Gorges:)

On Saturday was my birfday!  Sister Patino is an ANGEL.  She made me eggs in the morning and then set out all the prezzys from my package on the table and made this adorable ducky card...it was so cute!  We had an awesome lesson early in the morning, then went to lunch at the house of some of my favorite members, Leleu, Alana, and Lucas.  They made me a birthday cake and sang and it was so cute!  I was really feelin the love all day:)  We made a special visit to some of my old investigators and families that I love, and then we topped off the night with a lesson with Olanda.  She is 17 and amazing.  She has had all the lessons and has a testimony of everything, she just hasn´t been to church yet because she has had a bunch of tests.  But she will this week!  I love her and she is super cool to talk to!  We had a really special lesson about temples with her that night, and it was just perfect.  When we got home, Sis Patino and I put up the Christmas lights that Mom sent, put on MoTab "Noel", and lit the pine tree candle that she sent too!  It was all sorts of festive!  Awesome, awesome birthday!

My Birthday setup - Courtesy of Sister Patino

Embarrassing - Opening presents in the morning :)

Leleu, Lucas, Alana with my bolo!

Minha Companheira!

With Alana

Cuttin' the Cake!

The candle that almost brought me to tears (pine scented)

Our festive house

Awesome Prezzys!

Yesterday was Georges´ baptism, and it was so cool.  Our whole dang ward showed up!  I love how they are super supportive of us...it makes it really fun:)  But yeah, it was great and everyone was super pumped to get another priesthood holder in the ward!  And Messias!  He bore the coolest testimony and I almost started crying....guys.  The Church is so true.  It just is.

Sister Patino, Irmao Ricardo, Gorges and me!

Anyway, YOU WENT TO THE BEACH?!  How fun!  I think it is kind of weird that you trust Cooper and Tiago at home now, but I guess he is 15 so it isn´t THAT weird.  But it sounds like you guys had a blast!

Also, I am living on the other side of the world, and that is my excuse for not knowing that Thanksgiving is this week and not next...awkward.  Just pretend that I was right, ok?

Have a great week this week, and thanks for the birthday shoutouts!  I love ya´ll!

Love,

Sister Dana...who is no longer a 19yearold sister. Dangit.

Olanda with the painting by her 9 year old brother

With Deise and her family

Narnia - Brazil Style!

With Alana!

My sisters loving their stuff
(these were actually meant to be Christmas presents for her companions, but they got unwrapped at customs and she didn't know they were for Christmas, so she gave them out early.  Now what are they going to open for Christmas? -mom)

The Week of Birthday is Arriving...

 Hooray hooray hooray!  Thank you so much for all of the birthday wishes guys!  I am so dang lucky to have family and friends that make me feel super special!  Mom, I cannot believe that Celia´s husband did that with my package...holy cow!  I think I need to bake them a cake or something.  That is so nice and I owe them big time!  My Zone Leaders told me that I have a package waiting that I will receive on Tuesday, so I am super stoked for tomorrow!  Yay!!!  Also, we will see if the Christmas stuff lasts until Christmas, ok?

Is it Thanksgiving this week?  What the heck, time is a flyin´.  I miss Thanksgiving a lot right now!  It is pretty weird here, because everything is exactly the same as it was in June when I arrived.  But that is ok:)  Just have a really good Thanksgiving this year, ok?  And give a hug to all of the famdamily:)  Is it the Flake year?  If so, please take some pictures of the stick horse rodeo!

So you wanted to know how things are down here.  We are super isolated, to be honest.  Our mission has some pretty tight restrictions because of some reallyyyyy bad stuff that happened in the past, so we only see the other missionaries once a week at district meeting.  I have not seen Sister Butler since I left the US, but I know that she has been here for a while.  Presidente came to our zone meeting this week, but that is pretty rare.  He cares for the Sisters really well though, so don´t worry.  Mom, fear not, I clean like a boss now and our apartment is beautiful.  We have mission conferences about every 2 or 3 months, but they are super fast and we don´t really get much time to socialize, you know?  President is super careful about making sure that NOTHING goes on between the elders and sisters, so...yeah.

Also, the nice man at the internet shop here fixed my SD card.  Hooray!

This week was super super good!  Sister Patino and I BOTH have birthdays coming up, because hers is the 21st!  So we  were way happy to start it off on a good note with the baptism of MESSIAS yesterday!!!!  YAY YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!!!  Oh my goodness I was so so happy!  He showed up to church yesterday again, which was a blessing in and of itself, and he goes, "Hey, is anyone else getting baptized today?  No?  Ok, I´ll get baptized tonight then!"  And he did!  And it was so so so great!  A ton of the members of the ward showed up because we really made sure to involve everyone in teaching him.  That is the very best way to make sure he stays active, you know?  So they all bore really great testimonies and then his buddy in our ward, Ricardo, baptized him!  After that, Sister Patino and I sang "I Know that My Redeemer Lives" in Spanish, English, and Portuguese.  Look who is tri-lingual now....whaaaat!  Haha jk, but it was really cool!  After the baptism, he came up to us and thanked us for helping him find this gospel and changing his life.  Best birthday present ever, right there.

Sister Dana, Messias, Sister Patino

Our investigators are progressing super well right now.  It seems like we are finally finding the elect, the people that are really prepared to hear and accept the gospel.  I think that in the next few weeks, we will be having things move forward a lot faster!  Hooray!  That is way good because it is so dang hot right now, and people are seeming to be drinking more, so conditions have been getting a bit difficult.  The Lord always compensates for these things though!

I´m glad that things are going so well at home.  Thank you so much for all of the letters and birthday wishes!  All I really want is just a baptism.  That´s like, the best thing in the whole world.  Have a great week and I love you all so very much!

Yasmin Baptism

Sister Gomes, Sister Dana and Sister Patino

Happy Birthday Sister Rocha

My Package

Sister Lisa Tanner took some stuff with her when she went to Brazil to pick up her son from his mission.  She was kind enough to mail the package from inside the country so it had a better chance of reaching her.

Yay! Swedish Fish and Skittles!

Another Week In Recife!

Ok not really, I´m in Jaboatao.  But that is ok.  It´s like, the same thing.  Hey, Congratulations to Cooper for being such a baller and making the basketball team!  Oh I´m so proud....because you know, I totally played basketball too in highschool....nope, but that´s ok.  But hooray!  Sounds like things are just peachy there, and they are here too!

Oh family...it is so very very hot.  Like, extremely.  But you know, that is ok because this is the Lord´s work and so sometimes we just have to make sacrifices!  So now I am Sister Sempre Suada.  Yeah, ask Dad and Norma what that means.  It´s really true.  But yeah, we are in that in-between stage right now where we have a lot of people super close to baptism!  Like, Alexandra.  All we have to do is convince her bf that marriage is the way to go and that alcohol really isn´t all there is to life.  Maybe we have our work cut out for us....but I am so happy for her because she told us that no matter what, one day she will be baptized.  She quit partying, drinking, smoking(!) and all of this stuff, and she said that there is no way that she is going back to this life.  She has made some serious sacrifices and will be receiving some major blessings, I just know it!  Also, Messias came to church this week!  For the very very first time ever, and he loved it!  It was a huge sacrifice for him too though, so I was way impressed.  He ditched work yesterday in the morning to come, and he didn´t know if he would have a job to come back to.  Whoa...talk about faithfulness.

I am amazed every single week by these people here.  They are willing to give so much for the Lord, for this faith that they have only known for a teensyyyy weensy time....and yet they change everything about their lives for it.  It´s the best job in the world to be a missionary, that is for sure.

Hmm, let´s see if we have any good stories from this week...well, we were at lunch at a member´s house this week that has a little dog that drives me crazy.  She is INSANE, but Sister Patino loves her.  She loves all dogs, poor thing.  Anyway, we were waiting for lunch, and I was giving that pooch a pretty wide berth because she smelled like death, and Sister Patino was just happily playing with the little beasty.  I knew it was a bad idea...and it really was.  Lo and behold, when lunch was ready,  Sister Patino had a nice round yellow spot chillin on her dress.  And we had an appointment right after, so guess who and cachorro chichi on her person the whole day?  Ducky, that´s who.  Gross.  

Also, the gift of tongues is SUPER real.  Sister Patino decided that she wanted to make the most of our time here together and try speaking English, and so we have been doing that a lot more often now.  Um, all of a sudden, she is speaking perfectly.  On Thursday, she went the whole day speaking English to me, something that she has NEVER done before.  In our prayers together at night, she speaks English now and she started crying when she was thanking Heavenly Father for the gift of tongues.  I have no idea how this stuff happens, but it is crazy and the Church is true!

 I can´t believe that Hayden is going to be a missionary this week!  Oh that is so dang exciting.  I´m pretty sad that it will be a long time before I see that kid again...we are kind of pretty good pals now, you know?  Even though he never wrote me or anything, but whatever.  And Reggie too, and soon Jake and Hunter...aw, all my little cousins are going to be gone for a long time, dadgumit!  But this is the best thing that we can all be doing, so we will just have to wait about 4 years to all party together in Snowflake again.

I will definitely pray for my pals there in the Philippines, that is super scary!  Also way scary that I had no idea any of this was even happning!  But I KNOW that the Lord takes care of his missionaries, and they will have angels around them for sure, if that helps at all.

Life is good here!  I have a feeling that I´ll be transferred soon, but I don´t know...it´s not like I´ve got 5 months in this area or anything;)  Have a great week and remember that I love you!  And also please help the missionaries.  They need it.

Love,

Sister Dana

Oi Gente:)

Hey Famdamily, guess what! I got a package in the mail and there was a great rejoicing heard over all of Brazil when the missionaries in our house had their first tastes of Swedish Fish and Skittles!  Thank you thank you thank you!  I have eaten a ton of them...but I don´t even care. Honestly, I think about how healthy I ate at home and all the junk that I don´t really have a choice to eat now...because missionaries are poor, you know?  And junkfood is cheap:)  So really, I am just saving the Lord´s money.  Anyway, thank you so much for the shoes!  They are giving some blisters right now because the crocs (which are surprisingly chic) are too big, but I´ll figure out some way to deal with those.  Thank you!  And also, I need more of the cleanser, argan oil, and moisturizer, por favor. But yeah, that was basically the most exciting thing that happened that week.

Lies, this week was awesome.  We had a baptism!  Yay!  Yasmin was baptized last night, and she is 13 and beautiful.  When we got to her house half an hour before the baptism, she goes "Sisters, do you think we can move the baptism to next week?  I feel really sick!"  Um.  No.  So we said, "Yasmin.  Right now we are going to have a miracle, ok? You are going to say a prayer that this sickness can be taken away, and then we are going to get on the bus and you are going to get baptized tonight!  Do you have faith that this can happen?"  "...sim."  "Ok!  Pray"  So she did!  And then she got up and goes, "It´s gone, let´s go!"  And we did!  Of course, right when we got to the bus stop, a motorcycle sped by ridiculously fast through a puddle of disgusting water on the street and drenched the three of us.  I really hope that wasn´t some perverse baptism joke.  But oh well, it was a great night!

We also had a super funny story happen this Saturday.  So the weekends in our area are hilarious, because everyone gets wayyyyy drunk.  We don´t teach a ton on Saturday and Sunday, but we always have the best stories!  So anyways, we knocked on this lady´s door and she let us share a message with her on her front porch.  So I am saying the opening prayer, when this guy comes up to us and starts asking for water.  He and his buddy were PLASTERED.  So the lady goes to get them water, and they plop down in front of us and start to eat lunch.  I have to give it to the Brazilians, they are the most charitable people that I know.  These guys had bread from the bakery, spaghetti from the diner, and vegetables from the fruit stand that people just give out of the goodness of their hearts.  But anyway, they started eating, and it was DISGUSTING.  Imagine two humans eating lettuce like horses.  Nasty business.  And then the spaghetti....oh dear.  But all the while, they were talking and saying literally the funniest stuff I have ever heard, all the while smearing the food all over their faces.  One of them tried to show off for us, and acted out a fight that he had had the night before...oh my gosh.  And so this went on for about 45 minutes.  Finally, they finished up and cleaned up this poor lady´s porch by using a plastic bag and smearing the food all over the place.  Then, they did a ballet-samba dance for us to say thank you, and danced down the road back to the bar.  Needless to say, this lesson never really happened, because all of us just sat there crying because it was so funny!  I love Brasil...

But yeah, other than that, everything is normal here!  It was weird to have Halloween pass by without doing anything, and Leslie´s bday, and today is Kristen´s, so birthday shout out to Belgium!  I hope that you guys had a great week, and I love you all lots.  Thank you for your prayers, and I seriously can feel them all the time!  Have a good week!  

Love,

Sister Dana