Vislumbres

Dear Family,

It was a bit hard to really work this week. The week started with traveling to Maceio for a leadership counsel and getting back late Tuesday night. When we got to the bus terminal we entered the office to pay for our tickets. The Brasil vs Germany game was playing and within the five minutes that I was in the office Germany got three goals. There was a lot of yelling. But it was all good afterward. Brasil was even happy that Germany won the cup over all. People were applauding for Sister Smith and I yesterday (because we are Germans of course)

Then Thursday we spent the day having interviews with Presidente and Saturday and Sunday were consumed with soccer.  But we did what we could with the time that we had. 

This week we were talking with one of the young women of the ward and she said that she had a reference for us. She took us to his house. And who was there? A 94 year old man with a severe smoking problem. I will be honest, I was shocked a bit. But we sat down and began to talk about the gospel. He doesn´t come from a super religious background and as he is 94 he had trouble understanding us (Thank goodness Bruna was there to help). He was very receptive to our message and readily accepted to pray and at least try to go to church. He has a strong desire to quit smoking but didn´t believe it would be possible. We encouraged him to start smoking a little less every day. We returned a few days after and he was already down to smoking just 5 cigarros por dia. It was amazing. 

Do yall remember Andréa. This week she was called to be the second counselor in the relief society. It was a shock but so cool! My cheeks were hurting from smiling so much.  I love seeing the progress! The other day she had us help her sign up to get the Liahona for a year. 

With the new mission presidente came the new focus of the temple and really doing family history work. Its getting me antsy to work on geneology as here we can only encourage others to work on their family work. Now I am not here to work on me or my family. I am here to strengthen others. Help others come unto Christ. I just hope that this deisre to work on family history work stays with me (It is new. Before I never had a desire to work on the family tree). 

I love you all and hope that this week is great! I hope summer is going well!

Sister Martin