Doughnuts

Dear Family, 

Happy Birthday Mom and Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! 

My new companion is Sister Bento. She is from São Paulo and is 21 and has 10 months on the mission. She is awesome. My new housemate is Sister Barros. She is from Cabo Verde!

About mission presidents. With President Gonzaga people generally didn't stay more than 3 transfers in one area. The new rule is 6 to 8 months. A lot more time! It showed in transfers when almost no one was moved. And they just have a different way in dealing with things. Not a bad different. Só different. What is funny is that Sister Gomes is becoming more like Sister Gonzaga. A little bit more stressed and a lot more emphasis on health. 

The work is good. But it is getting harder in São Crisóvão. We are working more in Eduardo Gomes now. There is this one couple that is amazing. Erica and Antonio. They have four children with the ages 5,4,3, and 6 months. But they are amazing. I think they will be going to the forum to begin the marriage process this week! I am excited! 

Do y'all know the story about a seminary class and donuts? Where one young man needed to do push ups for the other classmates have the chance to accept or not a donut from the teacher? How it is like Christ and he suffered a price for everyone one of us whether we wanted to accept his gift or not? Well it is absolutely amazing so if you don´t know it maybe you could look it up. But last night we planned and had a devotional about missionary work. We decided to make the theme be more about loving and serving. We did the story. We had a young man come up and he had to do push up for every member there to accept or not a sweet that we had taken. The members responded really well. And I don´t know about them but I learned a lot. When we talk to others our testimony is strengthened and as we were talking about the sacrifice of Christ and how he suffered out of love for us. Giving us the chance to accept his grace or not. Helped me realize even more how amazing He really is. How important it is to love our neighbor and be willing to sacrifice our time and effort to share the gospel whether they chose to accept it or no. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Sister Martin