Week Number 6 in Brazil!

Querida familia e amigos! Como voces estao?? Alright, I will switch to English now because I think that is much easier for all of you to understand! This last week was super good, a little bit difficult, but still awesome! I just love working with Sister Ball, I am seriously learning so much from her! She is very wise and is basically the perfect missionary and SHE IS LEAVING ME! I am so sad about this, but she is actually finishing her mission next week and will be returning to her home for Christmas! I will miss her a lot, but she has faithfully served for 18 months! So with her leaving and me being companionless, we will be traveling to Goiania AGAIN on the onibus! This Saturday for ten hours! You know I never thought I would spend over 50 hours riding a bus in my first month in Brasil, but that is exactly what I am doing! We are leaving Saturday at 4 am for a ten hour bus ride and then I will stay in Goiania with other sisters UNTIL WEDNESDAY when we have transfer meeting! I have no idea who my new comp will be, but I am excited and nervous and have all sorts of feelings! We will stay in Goiania next Wednesday night and then take the bus back for ten hours! I am nearly positive my next comp will be Brazilian, so I will be speaking in Portuguese 24/7 :) Sometimes, Sister Ball and I slip into English... not a lot, but sometimes! More news! We are having a baptism! His name is Rodrigo, he is 16 and so golden it is ridiculous! I am so excited for him! A less active, Yuri, came to church last week and brought his friend Rodrigo who just moved her and is looking for a church! Well we scooped him up real fast, went over to meet Rodrigo last week and taught him the Restoration! He totally accepted it and loved it! We then invited him for seminary on Wednesday and he walked with us all the way there, it is is like a 40 minute walk! Well, when we got to the chapel, Robinho, the teacher was there, but he said seminary was done until school started again! We were like WHAT?? NOOO!!! Well, miracle of miracles, three other seminary kids showed up and we taught Rodrigo the third lesson, and showed him the baptismal font, and the spirit was so strong, and everyone shared their testimonies about the restored gopsel and then we challenged him for Baptism on the 21st of December and he said CAN I BE BAPTIZED SOONER??? Now, this does not happen very often at all! But, he is getting baptized this Friday, the 13th, the day before we leave! His father has passed away, so we taught him the Plan of Salvation and he just has so many questions! He prayed and knows the Book of Mormon is true and wants to be baptized so badly! Truly a miracle in our lives! We taught a lot of new investigators this week! We are having trouble with getting people to church. A lot of people say they will come and then the morning of they cancel. We are praying hard to figure out what better we can do to get our investigators to church and for them to have an enjoyable experience! We are still working with Ozvudo, Jacqueline, and Marcia. We challenged for baptism last week and they said no, they are not ready to take that step, but they want to keep meeting with us. Jacqueline is super ready and totally has a testimony! Every time we go over she has so many questions and just wants to read the Book of Mormon with us, but her parents are not fully supportive yet! Pray for them! This week we knocked A LOT A LOT A LOT of doors. I am still trying to gain a testimony of knocking doors and we actually did teach a lot of lessons and we found quite a few new investigators, I think I will have a testimony of this eventually :) It was super, super hot on Friday! WE got super, super sunburnt! Ouch, my skin still hurts thinking about it! I have never been so red in my life! And then on Saturday, it totally DOWNPOURED! Like there were rivers in the street and we got soaked head to toe. We had almoco or lunch about 20 minutes away NO SA it was loco! We were super scared to go outside because there was so much rain, thunder, and lightning, but we said a prayer and somehow we made it to almoco! Completely soaking wet, but safe! I have never been so grateful for my yellow shoes, my blue rain coat, and my green umbrella! I make quite the fashion statement here in Brazil :) I just want to leave my testimony with you that this Church is true. That when we choose to keep the commandments, all the commandments, we will be blessed. The Lord wants us to be happy in this life and to learn and grow. We are here to prepare to return to live with our Heavenly Father. Sometimes we are given challenges, but they are ALWAYS FOR OUR GOOD. The Lord never gives a command without FIRST PREPARING A WAY. If we have faith in the Lord, then all things are possible through him. That is essential in Missionary work and in life in general. We need to remember the sacrifice our Savior made for us. And truly the sacrifice we are asked to make is so small in comparision with the Atonement. I am grateful for this Christmas season where I can remember my Savior and all that he has done for me. I am so grateful I have the privilege to share this message with everyone! Hurrah for Israel! We also learned how to make Pao de cuejo this week! Ah it was so delicious! And we found Papa Noel! We took a picture with Santa! And I have awesome tan lines on my feet! Loves, Sister Brotherson ps Here are some funny moments from the last few weeks! Everyone here eats corn with hotdogs and burgers and it is super good! A drunk man stopped us in the street, began to sing, and then shook his butt. We walked away very quickly. Another man told us the world had AIDS and that we were all going to die, oh and he sang to us too, I guess random singing men is common here in Brazil?? Who knew? I got gum stuck on my shoe. We visited Irmao Kennedy again and put up his tree again... I am still trying to come to terms with this. Apparently, the missionaries have done it every year for well forever? We will be eating there again this Friday and I am praying that the tree does not lean one little bit! Whenever we leave our house, there is a very large apartment building with construction workers, they have begun whistling at us and drawing hearts at us. I think we will invite them for baptism next week :) That is all for now! Oh the funny things of being a missionary!