Week 20 - Gravata

I think this has been the best week of my mission so far! First of all we went had a two day trip to Recife. It was so much fun!! The temple is beautiful. They have palm trees and colorful flowers all over and the grass is so green. I have lots of pictures. And there were a lot of older American missionaries working inside that spoke English so that was fun! I just love the temple! Also we had a zone conference with President Lanius and his wife. It was really good. It was more laid back since it was his last one. He saved time at the end for us to ask him any question we wanted about being a mission president, his life, anything! He is actually really funny! Everyone is kinda intimidated by him because he is so strict (which is good) so it was fun seeing a different side of him.

And also......we had a baptism yesterday!!!!!! Surprise! Clívia, the 10 year old girl was baptized :) We met with her mom on Friday and she was totally supportive and then Sister Fortes ran outside and called President and he said it was fine! I explained the rules in a different letter I think, but kids under 15 whose family isn’t baptized have to come to church for 3 months before they can be baptized and she only has 7 weeks. But she is awesome and wanted to be baptized so bad! She has such a strong testimony. Her family is awesome too! She has two older sisters and they both were like I want to be baptized! They’re both under 15 too and have never been to church so they’ll have to wait a little bit. But Clívias mom came to the baptism and loved it and we are going to her house again tomorrow. They are so awesome.  It was a great baptism. So many people from the ward came and supported.

Another good thing about this week, idk what happened but my Portuguese improved so much I feel like! Actually I do know what happened.  I’ve been forcing myself to always speak it even when I know Sister Fortes would understand it in English. Wow!  I wonder how good I would be now if I always did that hehe. I had our cell phone this week for the first time. Holy crap it was scary. It is so hard to understand people when you can’t see their mouths. But anyways one day I called one of our investigators to set up a time to go see him and I could not understand him at all!!! So I was freaking out and was like Sister Fortes take the phone and she wouldn’t! She was like you need to do this. She ran away from me!! I was literally chasing her down the street with the phone yelling take it! I was so mad but now it’s so funny. We probably looked so stupid. And then poor Natan was like Sister hellloooo nao entendi. It worked out though. I always freak out and I need to stop that!

It has been a lot of fun working with Sister Fortes this week. The days are just a lot funner when you can communicate while we´re walking and we understand each other. She and I have gotten a lot closer I feel like. And seriously she is such a good teacher!!! She is just a natural at being a missionary.

Oh my gosh Rae!!!!!!!! You are freaking awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Congrats, congrats, congrats!!!!!!!! Thank you for the pictures! You look so good! I’m so excited to hear how you do at state!!! Ahhhhh you are just amazing!  I’m jealous!!!!! I tell everyone here how awesome you are at running :)

Ok well I don’t have much time left and I have a lot of pictures to send this week!!  Love and miss you guys! Good luck Rae!!! And Carter keep being awesome!! He looks so cute with his new haircut!!! Love you guys!

Love,

Sister Bedke

The sisters Malyssa lives with.

Clivia.

Malyssa with the mission President and his wife.