The Lord's Strength Is Always Greater than Our Own

Dear Family and Friends! You should all be happy to know that doing anything in English is becoming more and more difficult, I think this is a good sign for my Portuguese. Even writing right now in English is difficult! But I can still say what I need too :) This was an awesome week! Okay, every week is awesome on the mission, and I probably say this every week, but really it was awesome! Monday night: We had a family night at the Relief Society Presidents house, name is Ariadyne! I love her and her family, she is my adoptive mother on my mission right now! We had almost half the ward there and me and Elder Cheney taught everyone how to play Ninja! I have never seen so many people hitting each other and enjoying it in my life! The youth have continued to play at every available moment, I am very proud :) We then had the two winners dunk their heads in water and then in flour to try and find a piece of chocolate, it was HILARIOUS! And of course one of the winners was President Andre, he was such a good sport :) Tuesday and Wednesday: We walked a lot... which is quite normal. I think I say this every week as well. We set a goal in District meeting to have four new investigator families at church this Sunday! Well, Sister Lima and I put our heads together in prayer and fasting that we would find these families and reach our goals for our district. We have not had investigators at church in 3 weeks and I will be honest it has been hard to not have anyone at church when we teach, invite, feel the Spirit so strongly in our lessons, and they say they will go, and then that morning they are not at home or do not wake up. We prayed we would have miracles for this next Sunday, especially President Kuceki and the assistants were visiting Patos this weekend! Thursday through Sunday: It was super, super hot! More than ever before I think. I also woke up with a very painful, dry throat and started coughing that day. Well, we decided that we would continue to work throughout the day as long as I had enough strenth, I really did not feel good at all. Well, somehow I managed to have enough strenght Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I felt so tired and just had the worse cold ever, but the Lord gave me the strength to carry on. It was really hard to continue walking and talking to people, but the Lord gave me the strenth I needed. I know without a doubt that it WAS NOT ME. It was the Lord helping me because I could not do it alone. Well, miracles happened as always! We found two awesome families that agreed to go to church and totally want to change their lives, unfortunately they were unable to be at church, but I know that it was not a lack of faith, it was their agency, but we will continue to work with them and they will for sure be at church next week! We did have Gabrielle and Terezinha at church on Sunday which was a miracle and they loved it! Terezinha also accepted a baptismal date for February 1st! We have been working with Terezinha for the last few weeks while the other sisters covering that area were in Goiania being sick :/ But Terezinha will get baptized, so happy for her! President Kuceki was here with the assistants and it was awesome to talk to him one on one and truly feel his love for the missionaries. He spoke in church and gave a fabulous talk about member missionary work! We also had 111 people in Sacrament meeting, which was our record for the last year! We had tons of less actives and recent converts who brought friends and family! It was so amazing to see the Lord truly working in these peoples hearts! I also got my Christmas package! Thank you so much Mom and Dad! I absolutely loved the cookies, poptarts, sweets, my NEW Jerusalem scripture case, almost cried when I saw it, and my new shoes are fabulous! Love you all and thanks so much! Sister Brotherson