Today starts a new transfer. I will stay here in Eduardo Gomes and I will stay here for at least 7 more weeks as this transfer is 7 weeks. I will find out who is my new companion tomorrow. Excited!
Tuesday was the Brazil vs Mexico game and the farewell here in Sergipe of Presidente Gonzaga. It was sad knowing that I would never see Presidente e Sister Gonzaga again as a missionary but I am happy because they will be in Utah every April for General Conference. Woohoo! But the game. Oh my goodness. It was crazy. We were at home waiting for the sounds of fireworks to show that Brasil was winning as it was almost certain that Brasil would win. A bunch of fireworks and bombs went off at the start of the game and then there was silence. An hour passed and we began hearing a lot of yells. Angry yells. We all thought that Brasil was losing. But we found out afterwards that it was just tied 0-0. Here the world cup is huge. Everyone is watching every game. There is this one house where he painted the entire front for the cup! (picture to come next week)
This week we got to teach Flavio and Edjane. The son and "daughter - in -law" (they aren´t officially married--yet) of members that got baptized two years ago. They have gone to church off and on for some time now. I found their teaching record that was made two years ago. Anyway we were teaching the plan of salvation for them and then afterwards invited them to get married and baptized on a specific date. This time was different. Flavio almost jumped off the couch and said mark it down. I will! We were shocked by how sure he was! Then he wasnt on to tell us that the date we marked is a date that is very special to him. It is the anniversary of the death of his brother that led the family to get baptized in the church. We marked the dating without knowing of its importance. It was amazing and really showed me how much the Lord is actually doing this work and we are just instruments.
Friday was the ward´s party for São João. São João is a holiday celebrating the harvest and is celebrated by eating a lot of corn related food and dancing. My goodness it was crazy! There was a live band playing forró and the whole ward came out to dance and eat. While us missionaries can´t dance I loved being able to be a part of the party. We just stayed back serving the food but it still felt like we were part of all the craziness because literally everyone was dancing. Young, old, everyone. It was so exciting. And our recent converts all went and really liked it!
Sunday was also amazing. We started church with relief society studing the general conference talk "Acompanhamento" which would be "Following up" in English I think. It was a great lesson about how members are such a big help in mission work when they invite others to know more about the church and then actually go with them and acompanhar (It was hard to think of what words to use for this, easier in Portuguese). Barbara was there in the lesson. She raised her hand and began relating how important it was for her to be taught about the gospel. She said that every time we came and visited her and taught a lesson she felt edified and uplifted. She felt like love had been brought into her home. So why would she not want to share this same happiness? I felt so happy in that moment! She is amazing and helping so many others have that same experience.
After church about 20 of us from the ward got together and we all went to São Cristóvão to "fazer proselitismo" Missionary work! the ward is very excited because they are planning on opening up a branch out there in São Cristóão but there needs to be more members and priesthood holders there for this to happen. So we all went out and visited less actives and visited Barbara and Alamir´s neighbors and it was amazing. The ward working together to bring blessings to São Cristó~vao. Really united those that went and got us more excited about the branch. I can tell that many more miracles are going to happen soon here!
I love you all and thank you for your support and love!
Sister Martin
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