The Church Is True!

I have some news for all of you, I am finally dreaming in Portuguese! This has been my goal for the last six months, so lets all just take a second and give a round of applause! Haha just kidding, but really English is super hard. I eat, dream, write, read, jump, sing, talk, and think in Portuguese all day every day.Thinking or talking in English truly gives me the heebiejeebies. I am super scared for the end of my mission after speaking and thinking and doing all of these things in Portuguese for 15 months, I dont think I will be able to say anything in English! But writing all of you in English is good practice :) The beginning of last week was hard, Sister Lima was sick for two days and we were stuck inside. I do not like being inside all the time, I get restless and think too much, and man I just love walking in the sunlight, talking with everyone, and just knowing I am working hard for the Lord! Staying inside is not fun! So, I was a little down in the dumps because we werent working and we just didnt have a ton of investigators. And then after praying and reading a few talks, I realized who is choosing my attitude right now? Satan. He was taking my bad mood and making it 10 TIMES WORSE! Holy cow, after realizing that Satan was actually trying to make me more sad and annoyed about staying inside, I decided to change my attitude, right then! Well, what I have discovered this week is that my thoughts, my desires, and my attitude determine everything in the mission! If I will have joy and if we will have success in this work, it all depends on if my desire is to help people come unto Christ, my desire to share the gospel, and my attitude that no matter what happens I will be positive and hopeful for the future! This applies to all aspects of our lives, we cannot get down just because we have to stay inside for a few days, we need to pick up our heads and be positive! Vilma and Marcos, they were a contact on the street, we finally visited them this week and Vilma said We have been waiting for you guys for two weeks, where have you been! They arent married, but have one son and they truly want to know what church is true. They were at church on Sunday and it was Testimony Sunday and they truly enjoyed it! We taught them the Restoration and how to pray. Vilma is 23 years old and has never prayed before. We asked if she would like to pray and she said she was way too nervous and did not want to. I said I will talk first and you just repeat after me. Goodness, she was soooo scared! I felt the Lords love for her so strongly in that moment, she was only able to say a few simple things because she was so nervous, but she did ask during the prayer that she would be able to know if this was the right path for her. We are teaching Julio and his family. He is a less active who showed up at church three weeks ago with his daugther Deborah, who is also less active. This is truly a story. Me and Sister Ball were at a store on a Pday about two months ago, some guy waiting in line talked with us, Sadayuki. Well he saide he had been baptized years ago by other sisters, but went inactive. Well, we got his number and invited him to church. He never came. About three weeks ago Me and Sister Lima were walking down the streeet when oh there goes Sadayuki! I stopped to talk with him and we invited him again! Well he came with Julio and Deborah. Well, we went to visit Julio and Deborah and lo and behold, his wife and younger daughter are not baptized but want to learn about the church! He has a smoking problem, but he truly has the strongest testimony of the gospel and the Book of Mormon I have ever seen. We taught their little family twice this week and finally, his wife shared with us how she wants to learn more, but is scared to change! I truly felt the spirit when I testified that Christ is waiting on his side of the door and all we need to do is open the door for him to enter! We felt the Spirit super strongly to visit one of our investigators Friday night, we entered her house and she just started crying and crying. It is a very long story, but we were able to comfort her with a hymn and a scripture from the Book of Mormon. Saturday night, we felt strongly we needed to visit a less active, Yuri, who is returning to church, his best friend, Ricardo, is super inactive, and he was there! We have been trying to teach Ricardo for months, but he is never home! But he was at Yuris house that night, again we sang and shared a simple message about the Restored Gospel. The Lord truly puts us where he needs us! Finally, one of the happiest moments of my mission was to see Rodrigo with a suit and tie blessing the sacrament this Sunday. He then shared his testimony about how the gospel has truly changed his life. He is reading the Book of Mormon every day, ten chapters, and he had a huge fight with his stepdad this week. His stepdad is a hard man and never asks for forgiveness, but this week he asked for forgiveness! This was truly a miracle. I have been awed and so honored to see how the gospel changes peoples lives and how the Atonement truly, pefectly takes our hurts and pains away. We had 113 in church again! Another miracle! And we had two families and five investigators at church this sunday! The work is growing so fast! Our district has a goal of 10 baptisms for this month and already we marked seven dates for baptism! This work is so real and so true, I love it with all my heart. Sorry this one was sooo long! Sweet is the work. Loves, Sister Brotherson